Supervision in the Early Years

Please note - before booking your place on this course, you must complete an application form and have your place approved by a course tutor. More information on the application process can be found towards the bottom of this webpage.  

This course is designed for professionals and clinicians working in infant and early years mental health who wish to take on a supervisory role or may have been in a supervisory role for some time but want to develop their skills in this area.  Through teaching seminars and smaller work discussion groups, supervisors in training will have the opportunity to reflect on and develop their supervisory practice.

Early years mental health (or 0-5s) is a unique area of practice in which professionals simultaneously address the needs of the young child and wider family, whilst holding the needs of the former at the centre of their practice.  It is well documented that it is an area of work that can be particularly emotionally taxing because of the vulnerability of the baby and the rawness of emotions in the perinatal period.  Supervision of this area of practice therefore requires an additional skill set to enable supervisors to support supervisees to carry out their work with diverse families with complex needs, as well as to reflect on supervisors' own experiences and emotional resonances.

Key learning topics include the uniqueness of infant mental health supervision, transcultural supervision, supervision of cases which raise anxiety, parallel and group processes in supervision, supervising in mental health settings – mentalising the team, and using routine outcome measures in a meaningful way.  These will be covered over a series of seminars.   

Four follow-up monthly work discussion groups will take place between January and April 2022 and will be led by experienced infant mental health supervisors.  These will be smaller groups of up to 6, where participants will bring recordings of supervision to discuss and consider with the facilitator and their peers so that you can learn about your supervision style and develop your supervisory practice.  This part of the course prioritises experiential and reflective learning, rooted in real cases, thereby enabling participants to put their theoretical learning from the seminars into practice, to further develop their supervisory practice. 

Please view the timetable for more information on the daily structure of the course.

Anna Freud brings together those with a stake in the mental health of children and young people. Please subscribe to our mailing list to receive a bi-monthly e-newsletter and occasional updates about Anna Freud's training and events.