Supervision needs of nurses working in the community.

The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate a programme comprising a series of supervision sessions (based on a social work model) to meet the needs of nurses working in the community. Nurses are now working in programmes such as drug and alcohol withdrawal and community-based palliative care where they are increasingly assuming more of a counselling role with their clients. This is typified by an increase in the emotional intensity of the relational engagement. In this new environment, the old skills, strategies and support frameworks are no longer sufficient. Nurses in the project were asked to evaluate their experience of the programme in relation to self-regulated learning, developing self-awareness, skills competence and increase in counselling knowledge. The small sample size means that there are important restrictions on generalising the findings. Nevertheless, the findings show that the programme has been evaluated positively by the participants and should encourage further research.