Supervision in the Early Years
This training is for professionals and clinicians working in infant and early-years mental health looking to take on a supervisory role.
About this training
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.
Please note - before booking your place on this course, you must complete an application form and have your place approved by a course tutor.
Aims of the training
To develop a pathway for experienced early years practitioners to move into supervision roles;
To develop specific skills for already experienced early years supervisors;
To equip supervisors with knowledge and skills particular to reflective supervision that supports the mental health and development of children in the early years;
To embed and enrich knowledge and skills in supervisory practice.
Who is this training for?
This course is suitable for any mental health clinician or early years professional who is working with families with children aged 0–5 in a managerial and supervisory role. This includes professionals working in the following teams and services:
Perinatal and infant mental health
Parent-infant/Birth
Parenting
Early years
CAMHS
Family Nurse Partnership
IAPT Under Fives
Specialist health visitors
Early Attachment Services
If you have any specific questions about the suitability of the module for your practice, please email training@annafreud.org.
Viktoria Bekeniova-Cestaro
Counselling Psychologist
Dr Dickon Bevington
Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Medical Director, co-founder of AMBIT and Consultant to the Programme
Dickon is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and has worked for than thirty years in the NHS, where he leads a team for young people with substance use and multiple other needs, and is Mental Health Lead for the planned new Cambridge Children’s Hospital on the Addenbrookes site. Alongside this, he has been Medical Director and Designated Safeguarding Lead at Anna Freud for nearly twenty years. Prior to his medical studies, Dickon completed a degree in Anthropology and Comparative Religion, and his interest in marginalised and excluded populations began through working with street homeless in London in the 1980s and 1990s. With Peter Fuggle, he co-founded AMBIT, and he now works as a consultant to the AMBIT Programme at Anna Freud. He has published widely on mentalizing, evidence-based approaches to treatment, AMBIT, fatherhood, and is known as a lively and engaging speaker and teacher.
Michela Biseo
Deputy Head of the Early Years & Prevention Department
Dr Emily Durling
Modality Lead, 0-5s
Dr Zack Eleftheriadou
Chartered Counselling Psychologist
Nicola Labuschagne
Parenting Interventions Lead in the Early Years Parenting Hub
Sheila Ritchie
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and Group Analyst
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