Facilitating reflective supervision in an early child development center

Abstract

Reflective supervision (RS) has not been a tradition in most early child development settings. The infant mental health consultant, in successfully implementing RS, helps to articulate and affirm some basic values necessary for a community of reflective practice. These emphasize (a) participating in an environment of continuous learning and improvement and (b) engaging in an ongoing commitment to professionalism. Sets of dimensions of RS, therefore, include sharing and learning, emotional support and dealing with vulnerability, and systems sensitivity. Issues for RS training involve using yourself as a tool and learning about the science of being with others.

Emotional Competence and Emotion Socialization in Preschoolers: The Viewpoint of Preschool Teachers

“…It is understood from this study that teachers neither expressed a complete concept nor made a complete definition for emotion socialization behaviors. In order for teachers to understand socializing emotions in preschool better, they need to increase their knowledge about emotional competence and they need positive developments related to their competency in teaching (Emde, 2009;Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). In addition, the European Qualification Framework (European Commission, 2008) stresses "cognitive competence" (the use of concrete information, theories, and concepts gained through experience) within the framework of general vocational competencies and in "developmental areas" within preschool teachers' special area competencies.…”

Early Childhood Teachers as Socializers of Young Children’s Emotional Competence

“…Use of reflective supervision could also aid teachers in giving them access to emotion vocabulary, and increasing their ease in discussing feelings (Emde 2009;Gilkerson 2004). Further teacher training could focus on ways of helping teachers to value teacherchild emotion conversations, and sustain such interchanges about emotions in classroom activities and dialogues about ongoing classroom interactions.…”

“…Better understanding of early childhood teachers' mechanisms of emotion socialization, and helping them maximize their own emotional competence, could lead to positive developments in teacher training (e.g., reflective supervision, mindfulness, stress reduction, and introduction of new teaching strategies ;Emde 2009;Jennings and Greenberg 2009). Teachers' own emotional competence affects their abilities to be positive socializers of emotional competence (Perry and Ball 2008).…”

Critical Components of Reflective Supervision: Responses From Expert Supervisors in the Field

“…Some progress toward identifying components of reflective supervision can be found in work with non‐mental‐health provider groups such as infant and early childhood home visitors and early care providers (Gilkerson, ). This includes Emde's () outline of dimensions of reflective supervision as implemented in a childcare environment: sharing and learning through observations of infants, toddlers, and their families to understand their strengths and vulnerabilities; emotional support and regulation; use of self as a tool for understanding others in relationship work; parallel process or systems sensitivity; attunement and scaffolding; empathy; a collaborative relationship for learning; and insightfulness or capacity to see from multiple points of view. Virmani and Ontai () also found support for the use of reflective supervision in increasing the insightfulness or reflective capacity of childcare providers.…”