SPOKE: Sector Partnership for Optical Knowledge and Education

There are many potential benefits to your working life and career, including:

• Experiencing a greater variety of tasks in your working day
• The professional satisfaction of helping a fellow clinician grow and develop
• Helping develop someone else’s skills and knowledge helps you to reflect on your own practice and development
• Supervising helps you to keep abreast of the latest university education and changes to evidence-based practice
• Reflecting on your supervising experience can be part of your own CPD plan
• Participating in the shared responsibility to pass on what you know and help develop the next generation, as expected in the standards for optical students
• The student may well wish to continue working with you after registration and, if so, you will have helped to improve and strengthen your workplace team
• Even if they do not remain with you after registration, you will have expanded your future network of professional colleagues
• You will develop mentoring skills: feedback, observational, questioning and listening skills, to a high level
• You will acquire a skills base to expand your clinical roles into teaching and academia in the future, if you wish
• Many people who have not felt a previous desire, or the confidence to supervise, find that they enjoy it once they become involved
• You can even gain an affix as recognition of your contribution and commitment to educating others by completing the Optometric Practice Educator Affix.

It will advance your career by giving you experience of new situations and the opportunity to develop your skills. This may be your first experience of managing someone else, for instance, or your first experience of coaching and supporting a trainee. Helping another person to develop will undoubtedly help you to re- examine your own practice and make changes and improvements. Getting involved in managing someone, training and the area of education could well lead to new possibilities for your career if you wish to pursue them and is often extremely rewarding. In short, supervising should enhance your career prospects and your fulfilment as a healthcare professional.

However, especially in the early stages, supervising is likely to impact on your productivity owing to the time required for initial work with the student. Employers are aware of this, those with optometry students do receive a small grant (funding varies by nation across the UK) towards the loss of your ‘chair’ time.

Employers are also keen to see more optometrists and dispensing opticians entering the sector, they usually therefore agree with you on how this and any required training is to be handled, so that supervision enhances your career and your employer’s commitment to you without adversely affecting your income or career progression. You should, however, make sure you are clear about your position before you take on a supervising role.

Yes. If you are considering pursuing an academic/teaching career path or are interested in exploring whether you would gain job satisfaction from this area, then supervision would be a safe way to take a first step and find out. People with experience of supervision can become involved in working with students in university eye clinics or as part-time teachers, for example, so it offers the opportunity to explore a potential enhancement or change of career direction, diversification, or academic progression. You do not necessarily need a higher degree to be part of an academic teaching team. Equally, supervision offers great experience for those planning to become an Assessor.

The initial training you do to become a supervisor and any additional training you choose to do after becoming a supervisor can qualify for CPD points either through GOC-approved provision or as self-directed learning. For further information please see the GOC guide for registrants.

The GOC does not have a specific education domain for CPD, but all three non-clinical domains can be used by supervisors to log CPD for the work they do with students on an ongoing basis. Although there is no specific education domain, CPD for supervision can be created under the leadership and communication domains. The College of Optometrists, ABDO and other optical bodies are continuing to discuss more direct recognition of the role of supervisors in workforce development, with the GOC.