Culturally responsive supervision: a reflective account on the value of acknowledging and working with difference within supervision

Aims / Intention of the paper: This paper reflects on our use of a transcultural supervision exercise within our triad consisting of a university supervisor and two trainee educational psychologists. We consider the implication for our relationships, how we understand each other and our cultures and how we would use such activities in the future.

Process of reflection: We selected Gibbs’ reflective cycle (1988) because it provides a structured framework for critical reflection of a learning experience.

Implications for theory / practice: We found the implications are that this exercise enabled us to recognise and appreciate our differences and therefore take an ethnorelative approach where each of us had a greater understanding of each other and our perspectives. This helped us recognise our ethnocentricism and when this might impact on our understanding of each other and those we work with.

Conclusions: We concluded that this activity and others like it, where each of us share our culture and is curious about the culture of those we undertake supervision with, is supportive of developing safe spaces. From our perspectives, it enabled openness and subsequently a deeper discussion of issues that provoked emotion including those of racism and inclusion.