Confidence is something that appears to wax and wane mysteriously at times, throughout people’s career. Even highly successful leaders flounder with insecurities at times throughout the working-life developmental cycle. However, there is increasing evidence to support that ongoing knowledge development through supervision and mentoring, leads to greater competence, which has a direct link to the practitioners perception of their capabilities and confidence (Taylor, 2015, Bogo, Regehr, Baird, Paterson & LeBlanc, 2017, Ducat, Martin, Kumar, Burge & Abernathy, 2016, Terry & Cutter, 2013, Chernack, 2001, Price-Dowd, 2017, Ducharme, Ashley & Wharff, 2015).
When you add the context of living and working in Indigenous society, or a remote community with cultural principles and laws that operate differently to ones originating in the socio-cultural life you’re used to, professional confidence is not something that can be easily taken for granted. Too much confidence leads to higher risks of culturally inappropriate or unsafe behaviour, putting the client or community at-risk, and not enough professional confidence can lead to taking on too much, and the personal risk of early burnout.
This is further evidenced by studies that have been conducted that revealed individual practitioners with low confidence have a tendency to be overcome by the emotional state of the client groups, which limits the ability to self-regulate and keep a degree of neutrality (Bogo, Regehr, Baird, Paterson & LeBlanc, 2017). On the other hand, overly confident people may overlook the nuances and situational anxiety that themselves, other people or communities might be experiencing, and subsequently fall short in the achieving best practice community development outcomes (Bogo, Regehr, Baird, Paterson & LeBlanc, 2017).
Practitioners with a high degree of competence; or in this case cultural awareness, respect, and safety; are not only more confident in a balanced way, but they are able to identify their own or situational anxiety, yet continue to use client emotional reactions as data, which integrated with service delivery objectives, collaboration with Traditional Owners, and individual practitioner knowledge base, informs their assessments and corresponding actions (Bogo, Regehr, Baird, Paterson & LeBlanc, 2017).
For me, competence and confidence are inextricably linked. No one wants to see a nurse giving them an injection with their hands shaking because they don’t have the confidence to do it. At the same time, a nurse who becomes overly confident can be a danger to patient care, so finding the right balance is important (Price-Dowd, 2017).
The same example may be extended from clinical health to other wellbeing-related remote service delivery. For example, a child care or youth development worker might lack the confidence to facilitate behaviour-management strategies with groups of young people and children, which in turn lowers competence and increases workplace health and safety risks to staff, clients and organisational liability. True competence is about knowing what an individual needs, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, and knowing that however senior your role, there are things you can do to learn new things in a rapidly changing world (Price-Dowd, 2017).
Figure 1. (Bogo, Regehr, Baird, Paterson & LeBlanc, (2017)
Research conducted in rural and remote Queensland studying the impacts of supervision of health practitioners, found that supervisees report “enhanced confidence, knowledge and skills” (Ducat, Martin, Kumar, S., Burge, Abernathy, 2016). This is both due to increased knowledge that is transferred in real-time when reflecting with a supervisor or mentor, and also the relief for a practitioner to gain access to a somewhat objective perspective on how they are regulating their emotion. This benefit is increased when the mentoring or supervision is gained from an external source, as it is done in a space without the risk of being judged as incompetent at meeting KPI’s.
(Ducat, Martin, Kumar, S., Burge, Abernathy, 2016).
Supervisors had similar views in the research results, in that their staff’s increased confidence was noticeable and translated into improved best practice and increased enthusiasm at work (Ducat, Martin, Kumar, S., Burge, Abernathy, 2016). Often there are barriers to ensuring the consistency of internal supervision however, often due to changing organisational structures and other related factors (Chernack, 2001, p. 107).
When supervisors themselves are juggling large geographical distances, dynamic encounters, office ‘face-time’, reporting, and a plethora of administrative components of the roles, there is often little time to focus on consistently working with staff on the range of potential techniques, problem-solving and evidenced based approaches that will make the work safer and appropriate for the their teams (Durcharme, Ashley & Wharff, 2015).
This is why external mentoring and supervision is often effective in benefiting internal supervisors and managers wellbeing, by ensuring they too are not ‘spread too thin’, sometimes leading to a false self-perception of being incompetent at meeting their staff’s needs, leading to a decline in professional self-confidence. Workloads are quantitatively different servicing remote, and sometimes that workload is too large. There is a large gap in the emperical research and literature on supervision and mentoring to remote practitioners, and further research could explore the parameters and barriers to effective support (Ducat, Martin, Kumar, S., Burge, Abernathy, 2016).
Of course, there are other factors that increase professional confidence, like for example decreasing prescriptive rules to ‘how’ leader and practitioners carry out the work they do (Taylor, 2015). Or in other words, giving staff more autonomy to find the key that ‘clicks’ in the work between the professional ‘use of self’ and that unique community. We know the very nature of remote practice of health, youth and community service delivery means that often your boss or direct supervisor is a several hundred kilometres away, so remote work inherently possesses greater autonomy than most jobs. This a positive that many community developers are motivated by, but it also has its limitations.
Obviously there are many greys between low confidence and over-confidence however, particularly when practising with an approach of sensitivity and collaboration in a remote Indigenous community. Sensitivity; which requires some careful steps; and collaboration; which requires robust and transparent communication, can sometimes seem as though they are opposites.
However that is where knowledge development around cultural safety and appropriateness leads to greater competence, and ultimately confidence. The idea that focusing on outcomes as the way forward in improving or developing services, whilst relevant, they alone often prove static. The evidence we do have, and extensive qualitative experience shows that putting more focused ‘inputs’ into the remote and isolated setting, by investing in staff who drive outcomes is going to benefit everyone in the long run (Taylor, 2015).
Madden, S. 2019
REFERENCE LIST
Bogo, M., Regehr, C., Baird, S., Paterson, J. & LeBlanc, V. R. (2017). Cognitive and Affective Elements of Practice Confidence in Social Work Students and Practitioners. The British Journal of Social Work, 47(3), 701–718. Doi: https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.1093/bjsw/bcw026
Chernack, P. I. (2001). The Relationship of Knowledge, Skill and Confidence in Hospital Social Work Practice. Michigan; Ben & Howell Information and Learning Company. Accessed by https://resources.lib.monash.edu/eresources/theses/chernack.pdf
Ducat, W. Martin, P., Kumar, S., Burge, V. & Abernathy, L. (2016). Oceans Apart, Yet Connected: Findings from a Qualitative Study on Professional Supervision in Rural and Remote Allied Services. Australian Journal of Rural Health 24(1), 29-35.
Ducharme, P., Ashley, R. & Wharff, E. (2015). Building Confidence in Social Work Interns Through an Evidence-Based Practice Seminar During Field Education. Field Educator, 5(1).Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/docview/1687707319?accountid=12528
Price-Dowd, C. (2017). Confidence and Competence is What Makes the Difference on the Frontline. British Journal of Nursing 26(15). https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.12968/bjon.2017.26.15.900
Taylor, I. (2015). Discretion or Prescription? Exploring Confidence in Qualifying Social Work Education. The British Journal of Social Work, 45(2), 493–510. Retreived from https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/10.1093/bjsw/bct124
Terry, J. & Cutter, J. (2013). Does Education Improve Mental health Practitioners Confidence in Meeting the Physical health Needs of Mental Health Service Users? A Mixed Method Pilot Study. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 34(4), 249-255. DOI: 10.3109/01612840.2012.740768
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