Nancy Payne
University of Alabama
Box 870314
Little Hall - School of Social Work
Tuscaloosa AL 35487
USA
Phone: 205-348-7027
FAX: 205-348-9419
Email: ngpayne@sw.ua.edu
 
Purpose:  The current study addresses the organizational culture in which supervisor and worker interactions take place.  The primary goal is to create an organizational culture in which support, learning, and consultation are the norm.  To do so, requires an intervention that incorporates known factors of quality supervision, and innovations that may be incorporated into the supervision relationship to enhance its quality; therefore, both qualitative and quantitative methods have been utilized.

Methods:  Child welfare workers (n=20) on academic leave from Alabama's Department of Human Resources were asked a series of questions about supervision, and allowed to provide as many responses as they could generate.  This freelisting technique produced a master list of terms that described child welfare supervision.  Responses were analyzed and a master freelist was compiled based on saliency.  Subjects were randomly separated into two groups of ten to participate in focus groups to discuss the comprehensiveness of the master list.  Focus group sessions were transcribed and coded to add concepts and themes not already included.  The master list  was presented to child welfare supervisors in the states of Mississippi and Alabama (n=40).  These supervisors engaged in pile sorting and rank ordering tasks to determine the saliency of these terms to the supervisory process.  In addition, the Departments of Human Resources have provided demographic information on all participating supervisors; as well as, the data gathered from a standardized questionnaire measuring organizational culture.

Results:  The aforementioned tasks resulted in establishing a cultural consensus on supervision.  Results identified cultural consensus in three different areas:  teachable skills, personality characteristics, and characteristics of ineffective supervisors.

Implications for Practice:  The current study addresses the need to strengthen the quality of child welfare supervision.  Results from this study have assisted in developing learning laboratories to educate child welfare supervisors, and improve their professional relationship with caseworkers.