Critical reflection on peer supervision underpinning inter-agency work: EPs working experientially with a Youth Offending Service

Abstract

Aims:This article offers critical reflections on experiences of peer supervision as a form of inter-agency working between educational psychologists (EPs) and a Youth Offending Service (YOS).Method/Rationale:Our rationale was that peer supervision could be used as a vehicle for the critical exploration of inter-agency work between two services. As EPs, our theoretical assumption was that we were developing our own peer supervision and reflective practice in parallel with our supervision of this process in the YOS. Supervision sessions included (explicit) descriptions of reflections on personal and professional engagement with reflective practice within peer supervision, from both EPs and YOS.Findings:Our method of engagement with critical reflection offers readers the notion that exploration of identity, within a boundaried non-hierarchical space, such as peer supervision, can act as a basis for effective inter-agency working involving mutual understanding of roles, open communication and acknowledgement of established experiences of inter-agency working.Limitations:This article presents critical reflections from three psychologists on the basis of their (our) own experiences of reflection and practice. The reader is offered an opportunity to reflect on these experiences and to engage with concepts and selected discourses around inter-agency work, peer supervision and reflective practice. The influence of these ideas will be particular to each reader, and may be constructed and reconstructed over time.Conclusion:We propose that peer supervision can be constructed as a vehicle to facilitate and support inter-agency practice in a principled and embodied way. We offer the reader theoretically informed reflections to support thinking around the future practice of EPs engaged with inter-agency work.