Providing home care to children with complex physical health needs is an emotionally challenging role. Extant literature and documents such as the Cavendish Review (2013) have reported that a large proportion of care for this population is carried out by non-registered staff (support workers). Provision of clinical supervision for nurses working in palliative care is increasing, however, supervision needs of support workers are commonly neglected. This paper sought to synthesise what is known about clinical supervision practices for support workers in paediatric palliative care (PPC). A literature review was conducted in accordance with integrative review guidelines. 315 papers were identified initially, 15 studies were included in this review. Four commonalities were identified: importance of team cohesion, varying degrees of formality, self-awareness and practicalities. Support workers received varying forms of supervision and some facilitators faced organisational difficulties involving staff in supervision. Support workers who received staff support generally appreciated it in recognition that their work is complex and emotionally difficult. This paper highlighted that further research should investigate the efficacy of clinical supervision as a method of reducing stress and burnout for support workers. Any implementation of supervision should involve a considered approach to training and supervision to ensure fidelity.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

No abstract

Support workers represent a large proportion of the NHS workforce and yet their supervisory needs are often overlooked. This study focused specifically on a cohort of support workers in a community paediatric palliative care setting. Peer supervision was implemented for this group, initially face to face and then virtually. The experiences of clinical supervision for this group were investigated through responses to an online survey ( n = 25) and two focus groups ( n = 7). Survey data were analysed concurrently with a thematic analysis. The following themes and sub-themes were developed from transcribed focus groups: (1) Barriers to engagement (2) Being Listened to (3) What Worked Well: Logistics. Overall, delivery of supervision was effective to a mixed degree – though support workers appreciated a space to be listened to, their distrust of colleagues and other barriers impeded the capacity of supervision to achieve more than support and catharsis for this group. Future projects should focus on introducing more preliminary interventions to promote reflection and peer support for these groups as well as continue to consider the supervisory needs of support workers.