Seeing More, Better Sight: Using an Interprofessional Model of Supervision to Support Reflective Child Protection Practice Within the Health Setting

Despite an extensive history in developing, delivering and leading child protection (CP) services, social workers are not an explicit part of the health-based response to CP in the UK. In this setting, a biomedical discourse dominates, with doctors and nurses fulfilling the roles of named and designated safeguarding professionals. Supervision for these health professionals, while considered necessary, has a multi-layered system of governance with no clear policies to guide its content and purpose. This article will argue that the inclusion of social work expertise in health-based CP services, through an interprofessional approach to supervision, can offer clarity to the operationalisation of supervision and support integrated service development. A model for supervision, with experienced social workers engaged to supervise named safeguarding professionals, is outlined and informed by a psychodynamic perspective. With both CP and supervision an inherent part of the social work tradition, social workers are well placed to use specialist knowledge and insight within the health setting, through supervision, to strengthen reflective practice in this complex area of service delivery.