Reducing stress in the profession - Peer Supervision

CuddleDuncan

This may already be a thing, but I haven't heard of it in the professional cuddling community. It's common in certain therapeutic professions, and sometimes compulsory.

The basic idea is that a group of professional peers - in this case, cuddlers - meet on a regular basis to discuss anything they like relevant to their work. Most commonly this is difficult situations or emotions connected to their clients or colleagues. Emotional support can then be provided, possible solutions discussed, and in the long term everybody learns better ways to manage professional challenges and therefore reduce stress.

The origin of the word "supervision" in this context comes from the idea of a "supervisor", meaning a mentor or tutor. Many people have a supervisor while under training or as a junior, but once they become an established member of their profession they no longer have a supervisor. Instead, they are supervised (i.e. advised, counselled and supported) by the group.

Such groups are formally leaderless and unorganised (so as to avoid any power inbalances) but of course somebody has to initiate the arrangments. Meetings may be weekly, fortnightly or monthly, depending on the group. In the context of cuddling, it seems that two models are possible - online, or local, although there are only a handful of places where there are enough professional cuddlers close enough together to make this a realistic possibility.

It is important to note that professional cuddlers are not in competition with each other in any meaningful way. This is a big enough topic for its own post. Having said that, peer supervision groups should be careful not to break any laws, for example on price-fixing. (For example, if all the cuddlers in an area agree to charge the same price, that would be illegal in most jurisdictions.)

It's also important to remember that one of the key objectives for the cuddling community as a whole is to expand the market. There are literally millions of people out there who need a cuddle, or at least a big hug.

I would love to see more professional cuddlers working together to support each other and therefore their clients.

A few random links I've just found to help you get started:

http://www.peer-supervision.com/

https://www.coachingmentoring.co.nz/articles/peer-supervision-no-one-knows-much-all-us

https://www.hcpc-uk.org/globalassets/resources/reports/research/effective-clinical-and-peer-supervision-report.pdf

CuddleDuncan

People! This is an opportunity to get together and swap stories about dreadful clients! Do you really not want to do that??

nurturingman

Thanks for starting this discussion, @CuddleDuncan !

I have been a trained supervision leader for the past eight years, specializing in using Demand-Control Schema (see https://www.iirasinternational.com). My title is supervision leader, not supervisor, because my role is to lead (or facilitate) the supervision (i.e., the "looking over") of a case presented by a practitioner. The job of the supervision leader is to foster a safe environment for a structured, professional discussion of the work. The case presenter recounts what they faced on a particular job, be it a one-time or ongoing assignment, detailing the demands of the case (what happened) and the controls they employed (what they did). The supervision leader and the supervision group members ask the practitioner clarifying questions to encourage the case presenter to present all the salient details of the case; then the supervision group (including the leader, group members, and case presenter themselves) brainstorms a list of controls, or possible approaches/solutions they could use if such demands recur. Everyone in the group learns from the challenges of each case and how they might handle similar cases in their own practice.

The word supervision in this realm refers to the "looking over" of a case by the case presenter themselves and by the group in order to analyze work that has been done or will be done, with the goal of improving the work of practitioners, not changing the demands of their clients. It is not a gripe session in which to swap war stories and bash clients. The focus needs to remain on what the practitioner faced, how they handled it, and how they might handle it more effectively in the future. The benefits of such group supervision include feeling understood and supported, gaining superior perspective (another way to look at the word supervision) by hearing from multiple peers, and preventing burnout.

I would be happy to serve as a supervision leader for a group of professional cuddlers, either in person or over the Internet/phone. I would charge a reasonable fee for my service since this is something I have trained for and done for a long time. I did not write this reply to promote my services, though; I wrote it to encourage practitioners to seek this kind of support.

CuddlesByGracie

Interesting discussion point @CuddleDuncan and it sounds @nurturingman like you would be a great leader in that type of group ☺️ I haven't participated in a program quite like that but I've definitely found informal peer groups very useful for working through issues and gaining insight and advice from others' experience. This is particularly useful for me, not just for cuddling but in various aspects of my work, as all of it is freelance so I'm often not working alongside other people in my fields day to day. So I'm sure this kind of thing would be valuable!