Creating space for supervision
Whether provided locally or accessed through the National Centre for Supervision of Parent-Infant Relationships (NCSPIR), clinical supervision is essential to ensuring effective parent-infant relationship interventions. There are parallels in what babies and families require from us – time, space and a warm, supportive relationship – and what we need from the wider system. Our clinical work does not exist in a vacuum, we and our clients exist in a system of services, pathways and funding decisions.
For a system to effectively support babies in the 1,001 critical days, there needs to be engagement at all levels; including commissioners, service managers, practitioners and families. An interlinked, communicative system benefits families and ourselves as practitioners, creating understanding and effective interventions in which clinical supervision can be embedded. System consultation supports this process by bringing together stakeholders in the parent-infant relationship world.
Parent-Infant Relationship Consultations
The Parent-Infant Foundation has been supporting Local Authorities with their Best Start in Life (previously Start for Life) goals since its conception, focused on driving the growth and quality of parent-infant relationship teams across the UK. We are keen to hear from Best Start in Life programme leads to discuss how we may be able to support your Local Authority. In the past we have supported areas with:
- Developing parent-infant relationship strategies.
- Setting up specialist teams and interventions.
- Analysing strengths and gaps in service provision and making recommendations for use of funds and free services such as NCSPIR.
- Facilitating workshops to bring key stakeholders together.
Creating a system of reflection and action
These consultations with stakeholders can help reinforce the importance of the work practitioners working with families in the first 1,001 days do and the need for clinical supervision to support this. When leaders value reflective practice, they are more likely to encourage and support attendance in clinical supervision sessions.
As with the parallels between clinical work with families and clinical supervision, there are further parallels with system consultation. Consultation acts as a system container, helping stakeholders to understand the complexities of early relationships and the need to invest in further support for families and practitioners.
Strategic consultation can support a system to work collaboratively; helping pathways become more intuitive for families and ensuring babies get the support they need at the earliest possible opportunity. We help to communicate the needs of babies, families and practitioners into data and actions for commissioners, service providers and other leaders.
The Parent-Infant Foundation consultation offer is an opportunity to bring together stakeholders from a Local Authority; to encourage communication between commissioners and practitioners. We offer a free consultation session to each Local Authority; please email charlotte@parentinfantfoundation.org.uk to discuss this further – and if you know your strategic stakeholders, please invite them to join.