Although supervision in social work is not a topic that has been on the agenda much in Turkey, it dates back to the first practices of the profession. Social work supervision, which started to come into existence in the late 1800s and parallel to the emergence and professionalization process of social work, corresponded to a need that was trying to be met through informal relationship networks and a professional solidarity motive in today's Turkey. Despite this, the studies conducted in order to question the existence of this need in depth, to examine the ways in which it is tried to be met and to understand the expectations of social workers have been quite insufficient. At this point, the reason for the emergence of the work you are reading now has come about and the spark was ignited with a thesis study in this field.

The part of the work that includes basic information about social work supervision belongs to the master's thesis study conducted by Aydın Olcay ÖZKAN under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Taner ARTAN, in which the supervision needs of social workers working in the Ministry of Family and Social Services were evaluated. This section, which explains social work supervision, touches on its history, presents its models and explains the current situation in Turkey, is thought to be useful in terms of clarifying the concept of social work supervision in the minds of the reader. As a matter of fact, in the in-depth interviews conducted within the scope of the thesis study, which were not included in the content of this work, it was seen that even social workers had limited knowledge about social work supervision or were able to define supervision in different aspects. For this reason, the information presented in this chapter aims to make it possible for social workers to define social work supervision, of which we are the practitioners and beneficiaries, to explain its functions, to understand its historical background and to have the necessary awareness about its different models.

Perhaps one of the most important elements in the supervision process is "communication". Effective communication between a supervisor and a supervisee is essential for the successful execution of the supervision process. From this point of view, in the second part of the work, the concept of communication was emphasized and it was tried to provide information about what should be considered for supervisors for effective communication.

The last part of the work includes supervision documents for social workers who will serve as practitioners or beneficiaries of social work supervision, which have not been presented before in the literature on this field in Turkey. These documents, which were produced within the scope of a project realized with the cooperation of the Ministry of Family and Social Services of the Republic of Turkey and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, aiming to initiate the supervision process in the field of social work in Turkey, are the supervision process documents that have already been used. Within the scope of the aforementioned project, in which the authors of the work are also involved, the documents, which were made available to the first supervisors who received training within the Ministry of Family and Social Services of the Republic of Turkey Istanbul Provincial Directorate and officially gained the status of social work supervisor, will have the chance to become widespread in the field of social work supervision in Turkey in the coming years through this work.

As the authors of this work, we are aware that we are still at the beginning of the road in our country regarding social work supervision, which has a long history in many countries. However, we continue our efforts with the awareness that social work supervision, which has been brought to the agenda with a few articles and thesis studies and piloted with projects, has the quality of eventually achieving a systematic, programmed, formal structure in Turkey. We hope that this work will contribute to the social work literature in our country and to all our colleagues.                                                                            

Aydın Olcay ÖZKAN
Dr. Aylin ARICI
Assoc. Prof. Taner ARTAN