Reflective Supervision.

Reflective Supervision is a Core Infant Mental Health Principle. Learn more about reflective supervision/ consultation and find our reflective supervision toolkit below.

"It’s a collaborative relationship for professional growth that improves practice by cherishing strengths and partnering around vulnerabilities to generate growth. Through this way of being, a holding environment is created—an emotional breathing space—where it is safe to explore accomplishments, insecurities, mistakes, questions, and different approaches to working with young children and their families."

– Shahmoon-Shanok 1991

Reflective Supervision/Consultation (RSC):

RSC is distinct due to the shared exploration of the parallel process. That is, attention to all of the relationships is important, including the ones between practitioner and supervisor, between practitioner and parent, and between parent and infant/toddler. It is critical to understand how each of these relationships affects the others. Of additional importance, RSC relates to professional and personal development within one’s discipline by attending to the emotional content of the work and how reactions to the content affect the work. Finally, there is often greater emphasis on the supervisor/consultant’s ability to listen and wait, allowing the supervisee to discover solutions, concepts and perceptions on their own without interruption from the supervisor/consultant.

 The primary objectives of RSC include the following:

  • Form a trusting relationship between supervisor and practitioner

  • Establish consistent and predictable meetings and times

  • Ask questions that encourage details about the infant, parent and emerging relationship

  • Remain emotionally present

  • Teach/guide

  • Nurture/support

  • Apply the integration of emotion and reason

  • Foster the reflective process to be internalized by the supervisee

  • Explore the parallel process and to allow time for personal reflection

  • Attend to how reactions to the content affect the process

RSC is required for the following categories of Endorsement®: Infant/Early Childhood Specialist; Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist; Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Mentor.  See the requirements for each category of Endorsement® for more information.

Reflective Supervision Toolkit.

ORIMHA is proud to announce the publication of Reflective Supervision: A Guide from Region X to Enhance Reflective Practice Among Home Visiting Programs. This set of guidelines provides a framework and shared language for reflective supervision/consultation (RSC) that are designed to support all reflective practice in the region. Self-assessment tools are included to promote the ongoing professional development of home visitors, supervisors, and programs.

Funding from the Region X Innovation Grant (Growing Together to Support Our Home Visiting Workforce) and a collaboration between Infant Mental Health Associations of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, with Jacqui Van Horn from New Mexico as the Reflective Specialist, supported the development of these guidelines.

Click here to watch an excerpt of the Reflective Supervision Guidelines Summit.