Access to consistent reflective supervision gives practitioners a secure space to explore their feelings and review their approach, enabling growth and discovery within the context of a trusting relationship. This in turn supports more parents and their infants establish and build close and nurturing relationships.
Supervisors help practitioners to hold the needs of the baby and the parents-infant relationship in mind. Sharing their knowledge of infant development, supervisors help practitioners to understand what the baby is communicating and can support formulation of the needs of the baby and family.
With specialist supervision, practitioners can be helped to reflect on their work with parents and infants, enabling individuals to process the emotional content of the work, attending to all of the relationships, keeping the baby and both parents in mind.
Anyone working with the parent(s)-infant relationship in a Best Start Family Hub and Healthy Babies area is eligible to access supervision and other services through NCSPIR- whether you work directly with parents and infants or supervise or manage those who do.
Explore our resources to stay up to date with the latest thinking in parent-infant relationships.
Dr Charlotte Dunster-Page, Clinical Psychologist and Associate Consultant with the Parent-Infant Foundation, discusses the benefits of effective system consultation for parent-infant supervision.
This Infant Mental Health Awareness Week, NCSPIR Supervisor Rosemary Winter explains why it is important to recognise the emotional demands placed on practitioners working with babies and their families.
A key part of NCSPIR Administrator Kaela Postlethwaite’s role is reviewing feedback from supervisees and, as we mark Infant Mental Health Week, one theme has stood out; the importance of supervision in helping practitioners keep the infants’ experience at the centre of their thinking.