Navigating Uncertainty in Professional Practice
The idea of pillars of practice will be familiar to many who dip into this blog. It’s an idea which has gained prominence through work to develop advanced practice during …
Supervision has a crucial role as a place, away from immediate practice demands, where practitioners can safely share and seek to resolve their uncertainties or consolidate and augment what is …
As health and care professionals we are all pretty familiar with the word ‘supervision’. Our familiarity with the word can seduce us into assuming that we all know what we are talking about when we refer to supervision and that our understanding and expectations of supervision are shared.
I need to address two things in this blogpost which have been bothering me about the permeability idea. The first is to challenge any notion that I might have mastered the art of optimum permeability and the second is that permeability equates with eliminating uncertainty.
Permeable practitioners recognise uncertainties as a prompt to learn and they seek to resolve their uncertainties by engaging in a variety of activities.
Permeable practitioners expect and recognise uncertainties in practice. This is because they are self-aware, aware of and for others, awareness-sharing, feedback-seeking, open to alternatives, critically aware and willing to change.
When I spoke with health professionals about supervision in my PhD research, I noticed how often they talked about their uncertainties in day-to-day practice. I noticed three main sources of uncertainty
A platform for practice refers to a synthesis of our knowledge, skills, experiences in and out of work, personal qualities and preferences. In combination, these elements underpin and support us to prepare, engage in and deliver our everyday practice.