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What does this guidance cover?

The following guidance specifically covers the method of designated CYPT staff (Practice Managers or above) recording case supervision notes on CareFirst.

It is designed to sit alongside more specific procedural guidance regarding the Children and Young Person Trust's actual Supervision Policy. In essence this guidance covers how the supervision notes that relate to a particular client are recorded on CareFirst. The procedures relating to who is responsible for staff supervision, its regularity and other related procedures is covered clearly within the existing Staff Supervision Policy.

Basic principles

The following guidance DOES NOT relate to supervision recordings relating to the staff member themselves- only to the supervision notes relating to the clients they are working with.

We will no longer record case supervision notes as free text recordings on CareFirst. This method will be replaced by using a new form that will be added and viewed within the Assessment Records section of CareFirst.

Each child who is subject to case supervision within these arrangements should have their own individual record on CareFirst updated accordingly.

A case supervision record form can be added in the Assessment Records section of any client in the normal way. The form you are looking for on the drop down menu when adding a new form of this type is Supervision Record. The form should be added in the name of the manager who undertook the case supervision.

However it is vitally important that managers/users add these forms with a Start date and an End date that represents the date that the supervision meeting actually took place- not the date you are now adding the form. Example: If as a manager you completed a supervision meeting on a specific child on 23-05-09 but are now going to record this visit on 13-06-09- the START and END DATE for the Supervision form should be 23-05-09. If you do not follow this guidance then the entry will not appear in the correct place in the chronology when you run that for this particular child. This is extremely important.

Filling Out the Forms

The Supervision Record forms have headings/prompts within them that guide the manager/user to answer and address certain issues that are necessary in these records.

Use the VIEW LAST button to remind yourself about the situation from the last Supervision Record and you can also bring this answer through to then update/edit- saving you time when recording.

The Link with the Chronology

The new forms retain a clear link with both case notes and the CareFirst chronology. The text that you enter into specific text boxes on these Supervision forms will populate automatically into a case note and therefore the chronology when you fill out and then authorise these new forms.

Specifically the text that you enter into the Summary section of these forms creates a case note that is automatically completed once the form is authorised. This provides a 'quick look' up for users in case notes whilst also maintaining the full recording in the relevant form on the Assessment Section of that child's record. The case note that is created has the specific relevant heading to make sure it stands out from 'normal' case notes. In this case the heading would be 'Supervision CYPT'.

Example:

As a Practice Manager I open and complete a new Supervision Form for a child - I give it a start and end date of 23-06-09 as the supervision meeting took place on that date. I open the form in my name.

I answer the questions accordingly- using the prompts/headings to guide me. When I come to the Summary section I provide a summary of the points I have made in earlier sections. When this form is then authorised the system automatically creates a separate case note recording headed 'Supervision' that sits in the case notes section of CareFirst. It contains all of the text I put into the Summary section of the form- thus providing a 'quick look up' for use of practitioners- whilst the full recording also remains in the Assessment section. When I run the CareFirst chronology for that child I will see an entry relating to the summary of that Supervision meeting. I can then edit this entry in the chronology if I want to as before. Because I gave the form a Start and End date that matched the date of the supervision meeting it comes out in the right place within the chronology.

Manager Authorisation of these Recordings

In line with clear CYPT policy and procedures only certain designated staff members undertake casework supervision.

Managers can either write up these notes themselves on CareFirst (as set out above) or alternatively they may choose to write up the notes in an alternate format (e.g. - hand written notes) and pass these to an administrative assistant for typing up onto the system.

Blank templates of the new Supervision Form on CareFirst will be available for this purpose.

Within the new Supervision Form there is a question whereby the identity of the Social Worker working on the case has to be entered. This ensures that an alert is generated and sent to the case worker to tell them the Supervision Record is available for them to check and read once the form has been completed and authorised on CareFirst. This works in the same way as many other CareFirst assessment reports. The manager should complete both the COMPLETED BY and AUTHORISED BY text boxes themselves.

Social Work practitioners should then check the supervision record to make sure they are both familiar with the issues that were agreed during the supervision session and that the notes are correct and accurate.

What if the notes are not felt to be accurate and have been authorised and locked?

If the manager feels that an error has been made in the recording of the notes in terms of accuracy then either they or their Administrative Assistant should complete the following process:

• Duplicate the existing supervision document onto the same client's record with the same start date.
• This will mean you now have 2 documents that are effectively the same but that the newly generated one will now be an open document.
• Go into the newly generated document and make the changes that you have agreed.
• Authorise the newly generated document- the end date should always be the same as the start date- the date the supervision session took place- not the date you are now recording it.
• Abandon the first document.

Duplicating this record to other siblings/related children

CareFirst will allow you to duplicate any of these forms to another child who has a record on the system. This is the case for any 'assessment record' that is found on CareFirst.

Simply highlight the record (Supervision form) that you wish to duplicate in the ASSESSMENT RECORDS section and press the DUPLICATE button on CareFirst. Insert the details of the Start Date you want for the new duplicated record (very likely to be the same date as for the existing one) and the details of who you want to duplicate this record to. Press DUPLICATE.

The system has in effect taken a photo copy of the existing form and placed it on the record of the second child. You must now go to the record of the second child and edit the form/recording to make it specific to them- the extent to which this is necessary is a practice judgement dependant upon the circumstances of the case. The newly duplicated record will then need to be completed and authorised in the usual way. It will not be completed /authorised until you as the manager go to the record and complete that process.

How does this work if my TA types up these notes for me?

Some managers ask their Admin workers to help type up these notes. The new process allows for this arrangement to continue.

The PM/SM would pass to the TA the handwritten notes from the Supervision session. These can be written up on the blank forms provided to all teams. These blank forms have the same headings as found on the new CareFirst Supervision Record form.

The TA would then open a Supervision Record form on CareFirst on the relevant client's record. They would open the form in the name of the manager who performed the supervision- not the social worker or themselves.

The START DATE would be the day the supervision took place- as set out above.

The TA would type up the notes into the corresponding text boxes on the CareFirst form.

The TA would enter the details of the SW in the text box that is headed 'Notify Social Worker?'

On the FINISH and SAVE page the TA then has a choice- depending on the instructions from the PM/SM

1. If the PM is happy for you to complete/authorise the form without them checking it first enter your details in the COMPLETED BY/AUTHORISED BY boxes- double click the mouse to do this. An alert will now go out to the SW telling them the document is ready for them to read. The document is now locked. The TA should type in the AUTHORISED COMMENTS text box:
   
   AUTHORISED ON BEHALF OF PM BY TA
2. If your PM/SM wants to read the notes themselves first before they go out then they must tell you this. You should follow the guidance above but once you get to the Finish and save page- leave it blank- e mail or tell the PM/SM the notes are ready for them to check. They can then check them and if they are happy- fill in the COMPLETED BY/AUTHORISED BY boxes themselves.

Maintaining a hard copy record/recording workers agreement

The forms can be printed off from CareFirst in PDF format and placed on a hard copy Supervision file. The PM/SM can then take this file into supervision with them as a guide for the supervision session.

Managers can get workers to sign the hard copy record of the supervision notes and this copy can be retained on the hard copy file- as a record that they agreed to the notes produced.

End