ISN – The Journey So Far: Outcomes
On March 3rd Joan Wilmot spoke with John Wilson of Online Events about the intention and purpose of the Interdependent Supervisors Network and reflected on the following questions:
- Is it needed and by whom?
- How do we support each other in our work life as supervisors?
- What structures support us?
- How do we manage the creative tension between our need to belong and our need to do our own thing?
- How do we create community and connection when we are spread all round the country?
- How does technology help or hinder this?
The journey so far.
What emerged from the talk was a) recognising that ISN is a horizontal peer community supervision support system and that this very much complements and adds to the vertical hierarchical supervision support system of training bodies and organisations such as BACP and UKCP.
b) Its intention is to embrace supervision which is a reflective practice/time to think space for work so it is not only for supervisors in the helping professions but for any work.
c)Supervisors who have this breadth of practice have an identifiable body to which to belong and potential supervisees, groups and teams have an identifiable body to access supervision
What are the next steps? ISN is still small. Three groups, three dyads and one person looking to join or create a group. Steve Page, myself, Jim Holloway and Glenn Nicholls are meeting on Zoom on March 23rd to connect as two dyads. We will report back on our experience. John Wilson of onlinevents and I are looking at doing an online gathering on July 3rd. As part of exploring that I signed up to attend AOCS Association of coaching supervisors virtual conference on March 11th. I enjoyed both the presenters and their presentations and then going into break out rooms and chance to talk with people there from all over about their thoughts and responses to the presentations. And we also did some supervision in one of our breakout groups on the use of imagery to look at the supervisory relationship Just a six minute session but it worked very well. I still wrestled with the technology but they did have a tech person on hand to talk others and me through when we got stuck!

Thannks for writing