Professional Supervision Programmes

We are a private company operating since 2002 and specialising in the field of supervision, communication skills training, research, education, evaluation, resource development and related project delivery. ABACUS is nationally based and is comprised of three principals based in Auckland and Wellington.

ABACUS maintains a team of more than one hundred Professional Supervisors throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, all with Supervision experience, plus considerable experience in the field of health, social sciences and their allied professional field. All Professional Supervisors have tertiary professional qualifications, training in Professional Supervision, have membership with professional health bodies, and have their own professional supervision. ABACUS prides itself on its relationships with the team of Professional Supervisors.

ABACUS and its network of Professional Supervisors have over twenty years’ experience delivering supervision and managing supervision contracts with a wide range of government and non-government organisations, including those that may not have previously received supervision. ABACUS therefore understands the requirement and responsibility in providing clear messaging on the purpose and benefits of Professional Supervision and importantly, tailoring this for each organisation and the complexities that each organisation may uniquely experience.

ABACUS has worked with other organisations focused on education, and working with the whanau and communities where education is delivered, and understands the complexity of issues that come with this work. ABACUS also delivers training regarding the management of complex issues including mental health issues. Therefore, we will ensure that supervisors selected from our team for your supervision work have appropriate training and experience and an orientation that would support this work.

ABACUS provides face-to-face Supervision either at the Supervisee’s workplace, the Supervisors’ premises, or the ABACUS offices.

Remote Supervision is also offered, either visual or phone, and this can also be used interchangeably with face-to-face provision throughout the year.

Supervisee’s are able to select their own Professional Supervisor from a list of Supervisor Profiles allocated to their workplace location. They will also have access to our nationwide remote-list of Supervisor Profiles; this can be particularly useful when a particular match is required i.e., ethnicity, professional registration, gender or any other requirement. Supervisee’s are able to change their Professional Supervisor at any time.

An efficient and effective networking process has been developed to ensure that Professional Supervisors become fully cognisant of the work of their Supervisees and the challenges and needs of Supervisees, through training, relevant articles and regular supervision by ABACUS management. Additional orientation processes would be negotiated with the organisation

ABACUS maintains a range of safeguards to ensure that risks to health and safety are identified, addressed, and reported promptly, to avoid any consequences of the New Zealand Health & Safety at Work Act, 2015. ABACUS also evaluates the quality-of-service provision through a range of monitoring activities.

ABACUS has been registered as a New Zealand Qualifications Authority provider of services (No. 4750/1) since 2004 and meets and maintains the highest standards in its delivery of services. The NZQA audits of ABACUS, most recently 2022, are publicly available on the NZQA and ABACUS websites [ acts.co.nz ].

ABACUS can report in a range of ways to best suit the organisation. Our primary recommendation is monthly reporting by themes. This has the benefit of actively meeting requirements to identify risks to health and safety arising from work carried out as part of the business or undertaking, as necessitated by the New Zealand Health & Safety at Work Act, 2015 (HWSA). Health is described in the HSWA as including psychological health, and the psychological work environment, including overcrowding, deadlines, work arrangements (e.g. the effects of shift-work and overtime requirements) and impairments that affect a person’s behaviour, such as work-related stress and fatigue, and drugs and alcohol (Worksafe: www.business.govt.nz 2016).

As part of this reporting, risk that was at a level of concern for organisations would be reported to the contract manager, and contracting with individual Supervisees would reflect this requirement. Contracting would address all of these factors regarding confidentiality so this is transparent and a way of addressing all safety concerns.

Further benefits of reporting in this manner are that staff attendance (and non-attendance), trends, identified training needs, and any issues of concern would be reported in a consolidated manner, while maintaining the confidentiality of the specifics of the content of the individual sessions.

We would be pleased to discuss a Supervision Programme for your Organisation.

We have several documents that may assist you in understanding Professional Supervision:

• Information for Supervisees receiving ABACUS Professional Supervision
• Differences between EAP and Professional Supervision
• Professional Supervision Frequently Asked Questions
• Purposes and Topics for Professional Supervision
• Questions for Professional Supervision Contracting Conversations
• Workplace Stress
• Themes of Professional Supervision
• What is Group Professional Supervision?

Initially, please send us an enquiry email , or a brief outline of your organisational Professional Supervision needs.