The roots of social work supervision: An historical review

Abstract

This paper is an historical review which identifies the roots of social work supervision and traces its development in the history of social work practice. The history of social work supervision is classified into five developmental stages with different themes. It was found that the development process of social work supervision has been much influenced by both the external demands of the environment of social welfare and the internal demands of the professionalization of social work. Based on the historical review, there is also a discussion to explain why social work supervision still exits in the 1990s with its own distinct features.