what is Supervision?
As part of the Bright World Mental Health initiative, and as we learn more about how to better support our students, we have started to have Supervision sessions with our nominated expert, Kate Day of KRD Training. Safeguarding children and supporting their mental health can be challenging and worrying, so at Bright World we believe that supervision from an expert needs to be built into our processes. As part of our Mental Health initiative we now book in regular and protected supervision time with Kate Day of KRD Training.
an opportunity to review and reflect
Each time we have a student who reports mental health issues or whose school asks us to assist with, drawing on the training that we have had and the processes and risk-assessments we have put in place under supervision, we have a dedicated Head Office group who discuss the best way forward for each child.
We follow guidance from the school and from medical professionals and follow our own processes. This can often involve the student spending a short time away from school in a host family to have space to rest and relax. It is important that we follow proper and well-advised processes in these cases to make sure the student can remain safe under our care and that this solution is the best one for them. We have found that the support that we and our host families offer can be very positive and can really help so we are keen to do this but want to do it properly.
a clear Care Plan and emergency procedures
Through our supervision sessions we have learnt that it is very important that all parties; Bright World Care Manager, Bright World Local Coordinator, Bright World host family, student, school and parent, agree to a Safety Care Plan. This is usually drawn up by the school but can also be drawn up by the DSL (Designated Safeguarding Lead) at Bright World. It ensures that the student's welfare and safety remains at the centre of all decisions and means that they will receive the very best of care with all parties working together.
We have also learnt that is is vitally important that everyone understands the procedures and processes they should follow if they are concerned about a child under their care and also what do to in an emergency.
helping us to gain confidence, improve and ultimately do a better job
Each term, we get together with Kate Day of KRD Training to review any student cases one by one. The process is completely confidential. We get the opportunity to explain and discuss with Kate the actions that we have taken and plan to take going forward and ask for her guidance on how we could have done things differently or better.
We had our first Supervision session in late February and we found it so useful to share our experiences and any doubts or worries that we have with an expert. We came away from the session feeling more confident in our decision making processes but also armed with a lot more work we can do to improve processes for the better of the child.
