Supervision & Coaching

Supervision services focus on providing protected, safe and confidential spaces to inform reflective best practice. This might be to utilise problem-solving frameworks to elicit strategies to support children with SEND in the classroom and/or home/community. Or this might focus on the emotional impact the work or other aspects of your life might be having on your role serving a more psychological, emotional and supportive function or this space might provide an easily accessible no-pressure drop-in where staff or parents/carers can access a psychologist and increase their knowledge about SEND or child development.

Supervision in this context is NOT line management supervision but psychological supervision which can enhance problem-solving, ensure clarity of thinking or support, emotional containment/regulation/wellbeing and/or educative (learning) functions.

Some examples of supervision on offer:

• Supervision for head teachers and senior leaders. Leadership psychology, organisational development frameworks and emotional/supportive supervision sessions can contribute to increased ease and performance in high-stress leadership roles.
• Supervision for Emotional Literacy Support Assistants - ELSAs - Enhanced supervision for ELSAs in your school on top of their local authority monthly supervision is a fantastic way to build extra capacity in your school or organisation and to ensure that ELSAs remain supported and reduce the risks of emotional/psychological burnout in this highly active role.
• Supervision for Mental Health Support Leads - Educative, Supportive or Psychological/emotional regulation and containment can help to support long-term success in this role.
• Supervision for safeguarding and child protection - Educative, Supportive and psychological/emotional regulation and containment is vital to ensure clear thinking in these roles. Any supervision here is carefully contracted to provide emotional and psychological support and enhance staff wellbeing and reduce burnout risks. As with all these supervision types, it does not serve any line management or direct safeguarding processes.
• Supervision for class teachers - all functions are available including informal drop-ins to ask about strategies for different SEND needs (also see consultation).

Coaching is similar to supervision but differs in that it tends to focus on goal achievement and helping people to achieve their own goals. A good definition is:

A collaborative solution-focused, results-orientated and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee.

Association for Coaching (n.d.)

So in Supervision, we might explore a problem together, collaboratively engage in explicit and understandable psychological formulation to increase understanding, learn about different psychologies and use these perspectives to analyse a problem or find a solution but we may also not have a goal at all and benefit from unpacking our emotions, thoughts and experiences in a supportive and confidential space.

Coaching on the other hand supports clients to be the best version of themselves through a structured process of psychology which enables them to increase their performance in particular skills or areas of their life in order to achieve meaningful goals which are set by them. Both approaches are useful and can be vital and a blended approach is also on offer from Daniel Cumber Psychology to suit needs.

Some types of coaching that may be helpful include:

• Psychological coaching for staff or parents/carers to increase SEND understanding or implement interventions and ensure their fidelity and effectiveness.
• Psychological and emotional coaching for school staff to promote wellbeing and self-efficacy (confidence and impact in their work)
• Motivational Interviewing directly with Children and Young People to increase motivation for learning, staying well or making good choices.
• intervention support coaching for individuals or groups to help support the implementation of interventions e.g. precision teaching, ELSA, Lego Therapy.