The Supervisor’s primary role is to provide ongoing, intensive, professional supervision to the direct service staff. This may include either or both components of service, family support or family assessment. The supervision should be directed not only toward assuring quality of service provision, but also toward protecting the integrity and respect of the families served. As a result, the Supervisor should have weekly supervision time for each staff member, with at least two hours allotted for each session. Guided by the Critical Elements, this time should be directed at assisting the staff to support the families in developing realistic and effective support plans that will develop their capacity to become empowered to meet the families’ objectives/goals; to understand why a family may not be making the expected progress and determine effective methods of intervention; and to allow the staff to express their concerns/frustration in working with overburdened communities and families to avoid burnout.

The Supervisor also assists in the selection of staff, participates in the orientation and in-service training, conducts record reviews, assists in or maintains the data collection system, implements a quality assurance plan, directs and provides case management and monitors the performance of the Family Support Specialist/Family Resource Specialist. To support their competency, the Supervisor must be knowledgeable of and have maintained expertise in providing home-based services as well as be trained in and have experience in completing the assessment procedures utilized to determine families to be served by the program.

The Supervisor may also act as a liaison with other agencies and monitor contracts as well as the ongoing program development. The Supervisor usually functions as the team leader, conducting team meetings and providing daily support and crisis management.