1st Edition
Peer Supervision in Coaching and Mentoring A Versatile Guide for Reflective Practice
Supervision is increasingly required for a coach’s and a mentor's professional development, and engaging in reflective practice with peers can be a valuable way of meeting these needs. Peer supervision brings unique challenges though, including the possibility of collusion or stagnating at a shared developmental level.
This book is written by practicing professional supervisors who engage in peer supervision themselves and train communities of coaches and mentors. It guides practitioners to develop and integrate their range of individual and group reflective practice activities alongside professional supervision. It draws upon essential theory and methodology, explores challenges and ethical dilemmas faced within peer supervision, and provides concrete guidance, useful techniques and helpful templates.
This practical guide will be vital reading for individual coaching and mentoring practitioners and peer learning groups including within communities, universities and/or training programs. It will also support professional supervisors and organizations developing coaching cultures.
1. What is Peer Supervision?
2. Peer Supervision between Individuals
3. Peer Supervision in a Group
4. The Importance of Contracting
5. Ethics: The Elephant in the Room
6. Coaching and Mentoring Dilemmas
7. Managing the Pitfalls
8. When Should You Access Professional Supervision?
9. Taking Action
10. Looking Forward
Biography
Tammy Turner is based in Sydney, Australia and she develops leaders and other coaching professionals internationally. She has been Director, ICF Australasian Professional Standards and led the ICF’s global task force on coaching supervision.
Michelle Lucas is based in Weymouth, UK and her business focus is Coaching and Coaching Supervision and the development of Internal Coaches. She is the Supervision Education Lead at the Association for Coaching.
Carol Whitaker is based in Oxford, UK and specializes in Executive and Team Coaching, Supervision and Mentoring, and is a Senior Associate Lecturer for Oxford Brookes Business School.
"Such clarification on what the different supervision possibilities are in the absence of a professional supervisor is very welcome. Very thorough and anchored in practice, this book also brings an international light on the question."
Michel Moral, UNDICI International, France
"This book helps in a clear and practical way to set up and engage in the practice of peer-supervision and to have first-hand experience of its value. The authors provide a useful and detailed guide to practice that does not shy away from difficult questions and problems that might happen along the way."
Tatiana Bachkirova, Professor of Coaching Psychology at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies, UK
"The authors provide a thorough overview of an under-appreciated resource for coaches, supervision by a more experienced peer. The book is timely as coaches deal with increasing complexities, particularly for practitioners in countries where supervision is not yet widely used."
Dr David Drake, Founder and CEO, Moment Institute, USA
"This book fills a huge gap that hitherto existed in the examination of peer supervision and in that sense, it is long overdue and welcomed. It is a serious piece of work and comes with a sort of health warning: ‘we recommend this book as a resource for training programs and peer learning groups’. Indeed, such is the thoroughness of the academic roots of the book and the credentials of the authors that it will undoubtedly become a favourite reference book for students and practitioners alike.
But that is not to say it is inaccessible to the coaches and mentors that choose buy this tour de force. The introduction carefully positions the purpose of the book and centres it in the domain of ‘reflective practice’ which itself is defined and explained.
The authors raise the valid issues around the accessibility and cost of supervision generally, and caution against the loose informality of some well-meaning peer supervision practices that currently flourish. Any coach involved in peer group supervision would do well to reference this book and use it to help refine their own and their peers version of supervision.
As a reference work to help the coaching and mentoring profession harness peer supervision as a part of profession wide development in coaching and mentoring it is of exceptional value."
Andy Homer, Executive Coach & Mentor , Merryck & Co.
