The Centre for Supervision and Team Development is delighted to announce that it is launching a new organisation – The Institute for Reflective Practice. Membership of the Institute will be automatic for those who presently hold our certificate and all those who hold obtain it in the future will be invited to join. No fee will be charged.

An important aspect of the Centre’s philosophy is continual personal and professional development, so we will be offering the following.

1. Opportunities to network with other supervisors
2. Provide a register of members so that practitioners can set up peer supervision.
3. Opportunities to be listed as a supervisor on our website
4. Ongoing professional development  (see below)

Ongoing Professional Development activities and courses provided by the Institute will develop over time and may be provided by members as well as by CSTD staff.

Already planned are twice yearly groups run by Robin Shohet where participants can bring important issues and deepen their work and learning. These will be limited to 8 people. The first of these will replace the scheduled Training the Trainers course which will be re-scheduled for 2009 and will be an activity of the Institute.

Also one day writing groups with Robin Shohet.   The group will be limited to 8 participants so there will be time for feedback on current writing as well as exercises to stimulate new writing. 

Each group will draw its agenda from the needs of the participants but will have in common the following four themes.

(a) The creation of an ongoing professional learning community.
(b) Giving and receiving supervision
(c) The opportunity to reflect on your current practice and develop it. For senior practitioners it is no less important to be in regular supervision than at the beginning of one’s career, but it is sometimes hard to find others who will stretch us in a beneficial way.  We see these groups as an opportunity to provide this kind of challenge.
(d) Career supervision.  Where are we in our personal and professional life cycle?  Is work offering us what we want and need? Are there opportunities to go into new areas, take risks maybe and if so what support and challenge might we need? 

In addition we will be setting up writing groups, spiritual retreats and training the trainers workshops.  

Ethical Maturity in the Helping Professions on 9th November 2009 at Barrow Castle, Bath
 
16 participants from BCG and CSTD attended the post-graduate training day. There was a good balance of slides, handouts, dialogue and exercises from Michael.

Extracts from the day:

We are born with a moral compass

Ethical Maturity:  Having the reflective, rational and emotional capacity to decide what is right or wrong, having the courage to implement that decision and being accountable for the decision.

Elements in Mature Ethical Decision Making
1.    Ethical Sensitivity and Thoughtfulness (Moral Education)
2.    Ethical Discernment and Decision Making
3.    Ethical Conversations (Going Public)
4.    Ethical Implementation (Ethical Competency)
5.    Ethical Peace (Living with the Ambiguities of Ethical Decision Making)

A Model for Ethical Decision Making
Stage 1: Creating Ethical Sensitivity
Stage 2: Formulating an Ethical Course of Action
Stage 3: Implementing an Ethical decision
Stage 4: Living with the Ambiguities of Having Made the Decision

We looked at how humans operate in different states or modes; when we are in a state of shock, trauma or being taken by surprise we go into survival mode and away from competence mode.  In fact at such times there is little connection between the two parts of the brain, between the amygdyla and the neo-cortex and the connection can only be made via the limbic system. 

To quote Michael Carroll, “If you want to be unethical do not give people time to think.”  He suggests that most of our codes are written from a survival mode.  “We need to create an environment of reflection and respect to be able to think ethically”. 

Michael presented four levels of reflection and learning.
Level One is a non-reflective stance where there is stuckness in one’s reactions and feelings.
Level Two reflections allow some distance from the event and beginning to take more of an observer and reflector point of view.
Level Three reflections follow a dialogue where we begin to share the issues and begin to see that many of them are relational.  We can work out a way of working together.
Level Four is the self transcendent position that means I can begin to look at me and how I can so easily set up the these situations I am in.

We find write-ups of workshops helpful so would be happy to post, on our website, write-ups/and/or observations from other participants on the Ethical Maturity workshop.

We are planning to put on further postgraduate workshops including Michael’s offering this workshop again and would like to hear from you about your interest in this topic and other topics you would like to see met in this way.

Please feel free to contact Robin on 01309-691383 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   as the contact person for these events, or our administrator on 0844 669 1880 or e-mailing to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .