NATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL STANDARDS

National Occupational Standards



National Occupational Standards

Introduction

National Occupational Standards (NOS) are statements of the skills, knowledge and understanding needed in employment and clearly define the outcomes of competent performance. NOS have numerous uses in the workplace or in the development of the individual. These include: recruitment, staff development review, promotion, identifying training or Continuing Professional Development (CPD) needs, and staff planning (Egan 2002, 12-98).

The process of a jobholder and line manager reviewing units within a job description is particularly effective as part of the supervision and/or appraisal process. For example, during an appraisal discussion, a jobholder and line manager may agree to review the outcomes of effective performance, and behaviours that underpin effective performance from selected units. This provides an objective standard against which to appraise the jobholder's performance. This might also lead to: recognising a job holder's achievements - eg outcomes achieved or skills developed identifying existing skills, knowledge and experience identifying development needs (Koprowska 2005, 10-45).

Discussion

The Standards are written in such as way as to ensure a common understanding, not only of the tasks of a specific job, but a description of what that actually entails. They provide clear benchmarking criteria and an objective approach to supervision and appraisal. This enhances discussion between manager and employee, enabling behaviours or knowledge to be highlighted as areas of excellent practice or areas for development. It is possible to use the Standards to specify areas for future development and reduce poor communication and confusion of expectations Supervision sessions should be a vital part of “managing, motivating, supporting and training staff” (Pierson, Thomas, 2002, 1-21). Supervision is one of the management tools that assists drug treatment services to deliver quality services. The extent to which someone is meeting a service's aims and the tasks outlined in their job description is assessed and monitored by the supervision process. The three principal functions of supervision include managerial, personal and clinical (specialist or practice) supervision. These may be provided separately or in different combinations.

Managerial Supervision

Managerial supervision involves issues related to an employee's job description or their workplace and includes:

prioritising workloads

monitoring work and work performance

sharing information relevant to work

clarifying task boundaries

identifying training and development needs. Personal (or pastoral) (TOPSS UK 2002, 01-08)

supervision Personal supervision relates to personal issues raised through work and includes:

discussing how outside factors are affecting work

enabling people to deal with stress.

Clinical (Or Practice/Specialist) Supervision

As well as the managerial and personal supervision outlined above some individuals working in drug services (e.g. counsellors, nurses and social workers) will require specialist, practice or clinical supervision. The name given to this type of supervision will depend on the culture of the work setting and content of the supervision (e.g. nurses may have clinical supervision while social workers may have practice supervision). Clinical, practice or specialist supervision is a professional relationship between the practitioner engaged in professional practice and a clinical, specialist or practice supervisor. Clinical supervision is defined as “a formal process of ...