Alack of proper supervision can mean serious harm to children. The Vanessa George serious case review into sexual abuse of children found that a lack of formal staff supervision at Little Ted’s nursery in Plymouth contributed to catastrophic safeguarding failings. Over six months, George made more than 100 indecent images of children, and also admitted seven sex assaults. Warning signs included her showing hardcore pornographic images of adults on her mobile phone to staff, and open discussion of her sex life, using crude language, which was allowed to become the norm. The review found that staff were worried about the developing culture, but felt they had nowhere to take their concerns.
Despite its importance, experts say supervision is one of the most misunderstood parts of the EYFS. Debbie Alcock, a freelance early years consultant who worked for ten years at Ofsted, says, ‘The guidance says that effective supervision must be in place, but it doesn’t describe what effective supervision is,’ she explains. ‘So it doesn’t say how often you have to do it, who should do it, or where it should happen. It’s incredibly loose and as a result people don’t understand how to meet the regulations. They also removed the regulation about appraisals, and I find that some people are confused about the difference.’ Appraisals, she says, are good practice, rather than statutory; an annual chance to review a practitioner’s progress.
So what do the rules say? The EYFS states that: ‘Effective supervision provides support, coaching and training for the practitioner and promotes the interests of children. Supervision should foster a culture of mutual support, teamwork and continuous improvement, which encourages the confidential discussion of sensitive issues.
‘Supervision should provide opportunities for staff to discuss any issues – particularly concerning children’s development or well-being; identify solutions to address issues as they arise; and receive coaching to improve their personal effectiveness.’
Interpretations as to what this looks like in practice are different even among the experts.
For Ms Alcock, ‘Supervision is a one-to-one. If you talk to a manager and ask what hey cover in one-to-ones they will say they talk about the children, and any concerns they have – whether these are developmental or safeguarding.
‘The word “supervision” was taken from social services. This is where social workers get the chance to talk to their manager about each case they have. So in early years this would translate for practitioners into every child they have and for managers into every member of staff they manage.’
Nicola Amies, director of early years at Bright Horizons, has a different view. Ms Amies sat on the expert panel for the 2011 Tickell Review, which recommended the requirements for supervision were made clearer in the EYFS (previously it was mentioned only briefly). For her, supervision is for more complex or serious cases where staff need emotional well-being support, such as child protection strategy meetings, or supporting a child returning to nursery following the death of a parent. She says supervision comes in, ‘If you’re working with a child who’s been abused or has profound learning difficulties or challenging behaviour.’
She adds, ‘Supervision is actually quite different from one-to-ones, appraisals and performance management. One-to-ones should be done regularly – that’s when you go through the key children and your day-to-day practice. Some people call it a catch-up with your line manager.’
WHAT DO PEOPLE AGREE ON?
It’s clear that it is essential to create an environment in which practitioners feel able to discuss sensitive issues as needed. As evidenced in the Vanessa George case, safeguarding is, of course, reliant on good supervision.
Staff well-being is also inevitably tied in with this idea of a safe space. Margy Whalley is director at Pen Green Centre, which not only offers individual supervision meetings once a month and other meetings for technical support where needed, but also provides training for staff to help them understand the point of supervision. ‘It’s assumed that one has the professional capacity to cope with things under great pressure,’ she says. ‘But what practitioners are doing is challenging; it’s complex and it’s really important work. If problems aren’t dealt with or people don’t have a space to discuss emotional issues, they can become burnt out or start acting out. With strong, grounded supervision, that doesn’t happen.’
Ms Whalley says the meetings are an opportunity to look at home/work-life balance, the relationship with the team, and staff engagement with parents and children – and this has positive knock-on effects for settings from a management perspective in terms of ‘outcomes for children and high levels of performance, less staff sickness and less attrition of staff’. She adds, ‘We have a very stable staff group, and I absolutely believe it’s because of supervision.’
Pen Green also evidences the link between supervision, safeguarding and good multi-agency working; staff have the space within the working environment to test out concerns with other agencies before making anything formal. ‘We have our meetings with health visitors and midwives on a monthly basis, we have a family support team, a home visiting team – and all are very connected to each other, so it’s about integration of services and the pooling of knowledge, which makes for very safe practice,’ Ms Whalley says.
TIME FOR REFLECTION
For Ms Amies, supervision should be a circular process. Some key steps would include the supervisee presenting a problem or dilemma, the supervisor and supervisee developing a strategy to tackle the problem, the revisiting of the issue to consider how well the strategies have worked before thinking about next steps, and so on. ‘It’s important that when you leave a supervision session, you know that you’re going to be able to come back and revisit the topic,’ she says.
Jane Cook, who offers supervision training to practitioners and supervision sessions to heads of early years and head teachers through consultancy Linden Learning, adds that a good session should be fulfilling multiple functions. ‘When you’re offering supervision, you’re operating at a number of different levels,’ she explains. ‘You’re providing a sounding board but also providing challenge to ensure quality is happening, as well as a place to explore any potential difficulties that might concern you about a member of staff, a child or a parent.’
And when it comes to taking responsibility for good supervision, the supervisee has just as much of a part to play as the supervisor. Ms Cook’s training course, run by Early Education, focuses on encouraging practitioners to think for themselves. Rather than the supervisor telling them how they should be dealing with a problem, it is about people coming to their own conclusions. ‘A good supervision relationship is one of equal respect and adult talking to adult rather than a parent talking to a child. Even if you have authority as manager, you need to remember that the person you’re supervising is the expert on themselves,’ she says.
‘The supervisor can help to come up with suggestions, but at least offer two suggestions so that the person chooses one and is therefore taking ownership of it in that choice. If the manager just gives advice and it works, that only reinforces that the manager is better than the supervisee; if it doesn’t work it can be seen as the manager’s fault, not the supervisee’s.’
Reflective practice is the key phrase here, says Annette Brooker, senior advisor in the intervention team of the Early Years Service at Cambridgeshire County Council, which has put together guidance on supervision for early years settings. ‘A reflective practitioner will embrace the supervision process and be contributing thoughts about their own practice development as well as supporting the development of the quality of the whole provision. I think there’s a strong contribution from the employee to the process that will impact on team development, overall quality, children’s outcomes and safety.’
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
How often supervision or supervision training should take place is another key question. Ms Brooker believes this should be flexible and will depend on each setting, its individual challenges, and what staff and managers decide is required to best support the children in the setting’s care.
Ms Alcock recommends monthly supervisions. She says, ‘If supervision is to provide opportunities for staff to talk about child development then, in my opinion, supervision must be regular enough for managers to be alerted to any developmental delays.’
Ms Amies advocates regular one-to-ones and supervision on a case-by-case basis.
What was agreed by all to be crucial is that staff should feel comfortable with bringing up concerns for discussion at any point. Care should also be taken to ensure that supervisors themselves – whether that’s the manager or another lead designated person – are receiving supervision. Ms Brooker advises that this should be provided or enabled by the registered person, but must always be offered by ‘someone who has a good understanding of education, child development and safeguarding’.
Ms Alcock adds, ‘Some basic failures are committees who employ managers but don’t give them regular supervision – yet the regulations are clear that every member of staff must have supervision. Owners or companies should give supervision to their managers. It is often the managers themselves who don’t get good-quality supervision.’
Making sure you set expectations about the supervision is vital, says Ms Brooker, because some practitioners have incorrect expectations about what they will get from supervision and may be disappointed with how sessions play out. Cambridgeshire County Council’s guidance includes example documents that may be useful for this purpose – guidance notes for supervisors and supervisees, a model supervision policy, model supervision agreement and a form for recording supervision.
Ultimately, says Ms Whalley, the aim should be ‘self-aware, self-critical practitioners who not only have safe practice but are also creative, because they’re not feeling overwhelmed’.
LINKS
Linden Learning, http://lindenlearning.org and www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/feature/1156518/my-best-course-thinking-for-themselves
Cambridgeshire County Council guidance forms, http://bit.ly/2ccEjfD
