6.4 Challenges of Supervision
You may encounter problems reaching some of your goals during the internship. Typical issues include not feeling you are learning as much as you expected, feeling lost, or feeling like a burden. Such problems can be discussed with the supervisor, professor, and classmates. Classmates and professors are outstanding resources and can be used as information tools for self-monitoring and reflection during the internship. They may help you find ways to make the experience more satisfying. Often, people use role-playing scenarios in the classroom to help deal with a problem concerning one’s supervisor or a given staff worker. The goal of a good “working alliance” with your supervisor is to create an atmosphere where both of you feel free to talk to one another honestly.
Sometimes, students find themselves feeling like they are not getting the type of experience they expected. For instance, their priorities or goals may have been pushed aside or their work at the agency has become routine. These situations arise for several reasons, most of which are not the students’ fault. For example, it could be the agency’s busy season is at another time of the year, or the funding streams have changed in ways that make original agreements impossible. It is vital to continue to advocate for your learning, even if the situation has changed. Many students found themselves in this predicament when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the way services were provided. The most successful outcomes involved the student and supervisor working together to adapt to the changing environment. Some of these examples are listed later in the chapter.
In general, the agency’s priorities come first, so the intern needs to adjust, not the other way around. The professor and your peers can help you adjust your goals or find new ways of meeting them during the remainder of the internship. Brainstorming ideas may help you know how to approach the supervisor, find other alternatives to meet your goals, and restructure your goals.
Challenges can arise when your goals do not match your assigned work. Jane was interning at a crisis center and had the goal of working face-to-face with clients in crisis. Unfortunately, since starting her internship, she was unable to sit in on an intake session for various reasons not of her making. Instead, Jane’s work was focused on organizing paperwork and making copies for her supervisor. While Jane understood the importance of the work she was doing, she feared she would go through the entire internship missing out on other valuable experiences. Jane discussed her concerns in the classroom, and classmates encouraged her to have a discussion with her supervisor. Jane then made some suggestions to the supervisor about how to include more client contact into her routine without dumping all the paperwork on someone else. The supervisor tweaked the suggestions a bit, and together they found a strategy that met Jane’s goal of increasing