Reflective practice gives you the opportunity to review, reflect, and consider aspects of work you have already undertaken and consider the impact on current and future learning.  However, this September, I have been taking the opportunity to look back not just on my clinical work, but on my OT business and my personal growth.

We’re often very good at looking forward. Planning for the next goal or project, striving to do more. If we apply reflective practice to our broader growth and development, we can learn so much and carry it forward into future ventures.

Within OT supervision, there is definitely space to pause and notice what we have already done.

What can we bring into supervision conversations?

In supervision conversations, we bring clinical work or themes, OT business or service-related practice, and personal and professional growth and development.

When we think about supervision, we often think about the things we need to work through. Difficult situations, challenges we are unsure how to approach, or issues we want to think through and explore further. There may be recurring issues we want to reflect on more deeply. All of these are really important.

Can you bring positive things into the supervision conversation?

Yes, I encourage the OTs I work with to bring their wins to supervision.

Share what has gone well, new learnings, experiences you have overcome, and reflections on how you did it and how it feels. Importantly, things you are proud of, positive feedback from a client or colleague, for example.

These little moments of reflection can be really useful.

Including these wins regularly in your supervision record can create a useful record of your reflections and achievements that you can draw on for your CPD portfolio, supporting your HCPC requirements and evidence should you be called for audit.

Reflective Practice encourages us to take a moment to look back

I’ve been doing this myself recently.

September is always a time of new beginnings for me. It’s the start of a new academic year in my clinical work, but it’s also the month when, three years ago, I decided to take my OT supervision business online.

Before that, I completed a postgraduate certificate in clinical supervision because I wanted to review what I was doing rather than keep doing things the way I’d always done them.

Three years later, I have my OT Supervision podcast, I’m speaking at events, delivering training and supporting OTs through supervision, alongside continuing my clinical work.

If you’d asked me earlier in my career whether this is where I thought I’d be, I would not have thought it was here. My career has evolved over the years; I’ve learned to listen to my voice and work in a way aligned with my values, boundaries, and OT goals.

Our careers don’t always follow a straight line. There are challenges, opportunities and unexpected turns. Just like life, sometimes we make career decisions to support what is happening in our lives, and that can take us onto new paths. We don’t need to have it all set out.

Using supervision to pause, reflect on what you have already achieved and overcome to get to where you are today is really positive and empowering. Like all reflective practice, it can inform us of what we do next.

Takeaway

Take a few minutes to reflect on:

• What have you done that has brought you to where you are today?
• You could look back over the last year, or three years or your whole OT career.
• Notice what you’ve learned, what you’ve overcome and what has gone well.
• Bring one of those wins to your next supervision session and share with your supervisor.

Reflective practice isn’t only about reflecting on challenges but the whole experience, your personal and professional growth and mindset.

It can be about recognising what’s already there, what experiences and skills influence your practice, how to bring them forward, and what to put down and leave aside.

Also consider that if you’ve been running at full speed, perhaps your reflection will tell you that what you need next isn’t another goal at all. Perhaps you need some rest, and please give yourself permission to do this. Your wellbeing is key.

If this has make are curious about looking back and reflecting then have a listen to my OT Supervision Podcast, episode 6, September, Let's take a moment to pause and reflect.

Written by Lynsay McFarlane-Shaw OT Supervisor, Independent Occupational Therapist