Clinical supervision for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Safeguarding professionals in Education

Working in student mental health, wellbeing, welfare or safeguarding can involve a constant push and pull between what a student needs and expects and what your service can provide.You may be supporting increasingly complex presentations within an education setting, sometimes without the multidisciplinary team or specialist resources available in NHS services. A student may clearly need more support but not meet the threshold for statutory services, or be facing a lengthy waiting list with nowhere obvious to turn in the meantime.

Alongside this, you may be balancing risk, safeguarding, confidentiality, duty of care and student autonomy, while managing expectations from academics, colleagues, parents and other professionals. Sometimes there simply isn't an obvious answer!

I have worked in higher education mental health and wellbeing services for many years, supporting students and working alongside the wider systems around them. I am an Accredited Member of UMHAN and hold a safeguarding lead position within a large university. This gives me a practical understanding of the pressures facing education-based mental health and safeguarding professionals, including complex student need, organisational responsibilities, referral thresholds and the realities of working within limited resources.

A space to think about the difficult stuff

Supervision gives you protected time to step back from the immediate demands of your role and think through situations that are complicated, uncertain or have stayed with you. You might be reflecting on safeguarding concerns, exploring risk, considering confidentiality or duty of care, a complex student presentation, or a situation where professional and organisational expectations seem to pull in different directions.

We can also think about your response to the work, particularly when you feel responsible, frustrated, helpless, protective or simply exhausted by the level of need you're holding. The aim isn't to give you the “right” answer. It's to help you develop your thinking, make confident professional and ethically informed decisions in your role.

Reflective supervision for education professionals

My supervision is collaborative, reflective and curious, drawing on the Seven-Eyed Model. We can consider the student, your professional relationship, your own responses and the wider organisational and systemic context. You don't need to arrive with a perfectly formed supervision question. Sometimes “I'm not sure what to do with this” is enough to begin!

Who I work with

I offer individual and external team supervision for professionals including:

Mental Health Advisors | Wellbeing Advisors | Mental Health Mentors | Student Welfare & Pastoral Staff | Safeguarding Professionals | Mental Health First Aiders | Student Support Practitioners | ISVA and IDVA caseworkers |

I particularly welcome enquiries from professionals working in higher and further education!

Make a supervision enquiry now

Clinical and reflective supervision for mental health, wellbeing and safeguarding professionals in education. Birmingham & online.