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Associate Professor Kieran O’Donoghue, Head of ������Դ’s School of Social Work, is heading to Singapore next week to deliver a keynote address to more than 250 social work supervisors at the seminar.

keynote address will explore the issues and challenges facing social work supervision in the 21st century and will emphasise the importance of a professional supervision culture, the need to build supervision capability, and the importance of evaluating the influence and impact of supervision on social workers’ practice with clients and their development as a practitioner.

He will also deliver a workshop on solution-focused supervision to field education supervisors at the National University of Singapore and share how social work supervision has developed in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“Over the past 20 years we have developed a professional culture in New Zealand where supervision has become integral to the development of social work practice and social work practitioners. The Singapore Social Work Accreditation and Advisory Board is keen to advance the professionalism of social work in Singapore through strengthening supervision.”

There are about 1200 registered social workers in Singapore, where registration is voluntary, having only been introduced in 2009. In New Zealand, there are about 6000 registered social workers. The government will introduce a bill to the House in August to make registration mandatory for all social workers in New Zealand.

“The social work workforce, like many other professions, is increasingly an international one. We need to share knowledge through collaborative research networks, and develop national and international standards for best practice,” he says.

One recent example of this is a recently published article entitled Constructing an evidence-informed social work supervision model in the European Journal of Social Work by Dr O’Donoghue and his colleagues Dr Peace Wong Yuh Ju, National University of Singapore and Professor Ming-sum Tsui, Adjunct Professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Massey’s School of Social Work leads research into supervision in New Zealand through student research, publications, professional consultancy and training, and its postgraduate diploma in social service supervision.

This is the second time Dr O’Donoghue has been invited to give a keynote address at the seminar. In 2015 he presented at the Social Work Supervision: Challenges and Advances seminar. Since that event, Dr O’Donoghue has provided ongoing support, workshops and advice to the Social Work Accreditation and Advisory Board and the Ministry of Social and Family Development in Singapore.