Supervision for Forensic Practitioners by Jason Davies

Author:Jason Davies [Davies, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2015-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

8 Managing risk and boundaries through supervision

Risk is a central feature in forensic work, and therefore needs attention within supervision. Risks can relate to the clients (and their behaviours either now or in the future), practitioner skills, ability and competence, practitioner safety and wellbeing and positive risk taking. A major factor within the overarching domain of risk are boundary factors, and in particular boundary crossing and violation. This chapter will provide an introduction to common risks and consider how they might be addressed before a more thorough examination of boundary problems is presented to enable an exploration of how supervision may aid with maintaining safe and effective boundaries.

Managing risk through supervision

Risk assessment, formulation and management, along with the maintenance of security are core aspects of practice within forensic settings. The notions of physical (e.g. the structure), procedural (e.g. the policies) and relational (e.g. the people) security (Collins and Davies, 2005) are used to convey the importance of all these elements in creating safe, secure and functional settings. These three features provide supervision with different viewpoints from which to inspect risk. Therefore, throughout this chapter it may be beneficial to ask: ‘what physical, procedural and relational elements are present and what might be changed or added to address the risk presented?’

Client risks and supervision

Client risks can present in several ways either directly or indirectly. Direct risks include the behaviour of the client towards themselves (e.g. self-harm), the practitioner (e.g. threats or actual violence) or to others, whilst indirect risks include the practitioner trying to meet the expectations of society (i.e. that forensic practitioners should be able to predict and thus prevent all risky behaviour from occurring).

Azar (2000) discusses a number of dilemmas in relation to client risk. These include ‘double binds’ where two very significant but opposing factors need to be considered (e.g. in child protection work balancing the safety of the child with maintaining family cohesion) and the ‘victim’s dilemma’ where there are significant consequences associated with acting or with remaining silent (e.g. a prisoner confides that he has heard others are planning to attempt an escape but says he will be attacked if the practitioner tells anyone). Azar (2000) suggests that such issues are difficult to address because the consequences cannot be fully known at the time of the decision – this can lead to practitioner ambivalence or ambiguity. Although there can be no easy answers, supervision can provide a forum through which the practitioner can consider the risks and tensions in order to make an informed decision. Azar (2000) also notes that managing client risk can be an intervention. For example, in some situations it may be possible for the practitioner to offer to assist the individual to report and manage the risks themselves: ‘what you have told me needs to be acted upon – do you want me to report it to XX or shall I support you to do it’.

Managing risks associated with sub-optimal performance

Although supervision is typically associated with creating a reflective and learning environment

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