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Safeguarding Supervision Policy

Version: V8

Ratified by: Strategic Safeguarding Group

Date ratified: 12/12/2025

Job Title of author:

Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children and Head of Safeguarding

Reviewed by Committee or Expert Group Strategic Safeguarding Group

Equality Impact Assessed by:

1. Introduction

Safeguarding Supervision is mandatory for all Health Professionals working with children and families. Safeguarding Supervision pertains exclusively to the Health group that work with children and does not extend to the national group.

Safeguarding supervision has been demonstrated to be fundamental in supporting frontline practitioners in delivering high-quality care, providing risk analysis and individual action plans (NSPCC, 2019).

This policy is written to support the supervision process. It incorporates statutory guidance within ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (HM Government 2023), local guidance within Provide ‘Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy (SGPOL2)’ and expectations defined within the ‘Intercollegiate Document’ (RCPCH 2025).

This policy emphasises a child-focused approach, regular sessions with clear agendas, detailed written agreements, and robust recording of discussions and actions. The policy aims to improve professional confidence, knowledge, and practice, ensure accountability, promote well-being, and foster a culture of continuous learning to enhance safeguarding outcomes for all.

Effective professional supervision can play a critical role in ensuring a clear focus on a child’s welfare or the welfare of the person with care and support needs. Supervision should support professionals to reflect critically on the impact of their decisions on the child and their family (Working Together 2023).

2. Definitions

Safeguarding supervision is fundamental in supporting frontline practitioners in deliver high quality care, providing risk analysis and individual action plans (NSPCC, 2019). The importance of effective safeguarding supervision has been highlighted as a key theme in serious case reviews. Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023, P107) states “Practitioners should be given sufficient time, funding, supervision, and support to fulfil their child welfare and safeguarding responsibilities effectively”.

Laming (2009 p.32) defines effective supervision as, ‘open and supportive, focusing on the quality of decisions, good risk analysis and improving outcomes for children rather than meeting targets.’ Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance (HM Government, 2023, P59) states “Effective supervision can play a critical role in ensuring a clear focus on a child’s welfare and support practitioners to reflect critically on the impact of their decisions on the child and their family.”

Safeguarding supervision is also a good opportunity to explore with staff their own feelings when dealing with complex safeguarding situations. The NSPCC (2019, P26) states “Create a safe environment for exploring difficult and challenging work, which has an emotional component, in which feelings can be identified and explored (within the boundaries of the process – supervision should not be a counselling session)”.

3. Purpose

This policy aims to clarify the safeguarding supervision process and applies to all health professionals employed by Provide, who work with children and their families.

Working to ensure children are protected from harm requires sound professional judgement and can be distressing and stressful work. All staff involved should have access to advice and support from peers, managers and the safeguarding team, and via the process of regular safeguarding supervision. Additional supervision and advice on specific issues is available by telephone, Microsoft Teams or email on an ad hoc basis if required, by contacting the Safeguarding team directly.

Supervision has four core functions (management, education, support, mediation) and should include reflecting on, scrutinising and evaluating the work carried out. The supervisor should assess the strengths and weaknesses of the practitionerand provide coaching, development and pastoral support (NSPCC 2019). Effective communication between the supervisor and practitioner is the basis of effective supervision, furthermore supervision promotes child-centred focussed discussion within the session and within the multiagency arena. Supervision facilitates reflection using a recognised learning cycle, and through this process, the development of innovative and authoritative practice. Supervisors are expected to professionally challenge supervisees and together develop action plans for the cases discussed.

Best practice recommends that safeguarding supervision is undertaken as a standalone activity and not incorporated into clinical or management supervision (Wonnacott 2013)

Safeguarding Supervision is a mandatory expectation for all staff to attend quarterly. Protected time and prioritization for this should be demonstrated by both the supervisees and their managers

Supervision enables practitioners to explore, and risk manage caseloads, alongside the ability to critically reflect and to address their own anxieties and emotions.

4. The Process

Supervisors

Supervisors are available to practitioners as an important source of safeguarding expertise and support and may be required to endorse judgements at key points in time. Effective supervision will take an anti-discriminatory approach and recognise equality and diversity issues appropriately. Supervisors are expected to demonstrate positive leadership behaviours; Bradbury-Jones (2013) suggests leaders who demonstrate vulnerability and compassion, enable expression and containment of emotions, and enhance the quality of safeguarding supervision and care delivered to the child (NSPCC 2019). Supervision should be explicitly linked to addressing discrimination and bias. Supervisors are expected to facilitate discussions that consider protected characteristics, cultural context, and structural disadvantage.

• Supervisors must have undertaken NSPCC Safeguarding Supervision Skills course, or equivalent safeguarding-specific supervision training.

• Safeguarding supervision is delivered under the guidance of the Safeguarding team, and supervisors will undertake supervisor-supervision delivered by the Safeguarding team.

• In line with the ICB procedures, the Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children and Adults will access Safeguarding supervision from the ICB Designated Nurses. The remaining of the Safeguarding Team will have access to Safeguarding Supervision from the Head of Safeguarding.

Responsibilities of the Supervisor:

• Ensuring they have received training in supervision skills and have up to date knowledge of the legislation, policy and research relevant to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.

• Addressing any practice, training or caseload issues which require intervention following discussion with the supervisee/s

Responsibilities of the Supervisee(s)

• Ensuring they familiarise themselves with this Safeguarding Children Supervision Policy and to ensure that the principles are applied to practice

• Understanding their responsibilities in relation to safeguarding children by attending appropriate safeguarding training and updates.

• Avoiding cancellation of the session once booked except by mutual agreement with the supervisor - if a session is cancelled for a second time, the individual’s line manager should take action.

• To be aware of safeguarding escalation process and ensure it is used when appropriate.

• To engage in for constructive and professional challenge to improve outcomes for children if required Professional curiosity serves as a core function of supervision, ensuring that supervision facilitates the appropriate use of escalation procedures in situations involving inter-agency disagreement.

Health Professionals Working with Children and Families

Health Professionals working with children, play a key role within the multi-disciplinary team in the identification and prevention of child abuse, and in the on-going work with families. Group Safeguarding supervision will be provided to all staff working with children in compliance with the Children’s Intercollegiate Document, RCPCH 2025.

All identified staff will attend safeguarding supervision once per quarter in line with Key Performance Indicators. The quarters run April to June, July to September, October to December and January to March. Appropriate dates for the year will be agreed between all participants and the supervisor in quarter 4. Following a recent audit, an analysis was undertaken and it was identified that safeguarding supervision will continue to be delivered via Microsoft Teams. There will be opportunities for face-toface supervision if a group highlights this with their supervisor.

Sessions will be offered in Groups of no more than 10 supervisees and will last for up to 2 hours. Group safeguarding supervision is a collaborative, structured process where professionals discuss challenging cases, pool knowledge, and reflect on practice to improve child/adult protection, build shared responsibility, reduce isolation, and ensure consistent, effective care, focusing on learning and strategic thinking rather

than immediate decision-making. It helps staff feel supported, generate new ideas, understand complex cases, and develop a cohesive, child-focused approach It is the responsibility of the practitioner to book onto a supervision session and to notify the supervisor if they are unable to attend their allocated session and to request access an alternative session. If a supervisee does not attend their planned session and fails to inform their supervisor beforehand, the supervisor is to follow this up via email with the supervisee and include their line manager into the email. It is the responsibility of the supervisee to inform their supervisor of any need to attend an alternative session.

A supervision contract will be completed at the start of each financial year; or when appropriate within that year. The supervision contract results from a discussion between supervisor and supervisees, clarifying expectations and process. (See Appendix 1)

Each supervisee should bring a case or issue to discuss within the supervision session. For complex cases one to one supervision can be arranged between the supervisee and the Safeguarding Team.

Learning from supervision should be applied to other similar situations that the practitioner encounters. The supervision session should be documented on the SystmOne supervision template in the child’s records by the member of the group bringing the case, recording an agreed summary of the discussion and action plan.

Attendance at Safeguarding Supervision will also be recorded in SystmOne by each of the practitioners in the group, using new staff activity. The supervisor will document the supervisees attendance on a spreadsheet saved in the Safeguarding Shared Drive to monitor compliance. Records must be accurate, concise, necessary, and proportionate. Information sharing and storage must comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.

Supervisors will complete and disseminate to the attendees a record of the discussion and action plans. These are saved in the Safeguarding Shared Drive. Attendance is recorded on the Child Safeguarding Spreadsheet.

Attendance at Safeguarding supervision is monitored and reported through the Strategic Safeguarding Group as a Key Performance Indicator to Commissioners who expect 95% attendance per quarter.

Every effort will be made to be flexible with timing and dates of formal supervision. If the supervisee fails to attend two consecutive sessions the Supervisor will inform the relevant line manager, head of safeguarding and service lead and copy the supervisee into any correspondence.

Concerns Escalation

The supervision process promotes open and honest communication between the supervisee and supervisor. If concerns are raised by either the Supervisor or supervisee regarding competence, performance, behaviours or general conduct, this should be discussed in the in the supervision session in the first instance. However, if this is not possible, or the concerns are not resolved in the discussion, then they should be escalated to the line manager.

Principles of Effective Supervision

Effective supervision should:

• Be open and supportive, focusing on the quality of decisions, good risk analysis, and improved outcomes for children

• Strengthen the practitioner’s analysis thus ensuring that practice is safe, as well as offering practitioners the opportunity to identify concerns early and put appropriate intervention in place to safeguard the child.

Accountability

Safeguarding supervision is underpinned by the principle that each practitioner remains accountable for their own practice and professional judgement; this includes their actions within or following supervision. Safeguarding supervision does not replace, nor should it delay the individual’s responsibility to refer to statutory agencies where there are concerns that a child may be at risk of significant harm. In such cases staff are expected to follow the Safeguarding Children Policy. The safeguarding supervisor does not take on this responsibility but supports colleagues through supervision, observation, support and advice.

Confidentiality

Safeguarding children supervision sessions are confidential unless professional competence is brought into question. If so, this will be addressed separately through HR procedures. HR and clinical managers may consult the Safeguarding Team about expected practice if necessary.

5. Review

There will be a biennial supervision audit of practitioner satisfaction and learning from supervision. This will include feedback of Supervisor performance and will be undertaken and reviewed by the Safeguarding team.

The Safeguarding supervision audit will be reported to the Strategic Safeguarding Group and integrated into supervision guidance. The Safeguarding team will undertake regular sample audit of supervision action plans.

6. Dissemination and Implementation

Recommendations from audits, legislation and guidance to be disseminated to staff via supervision, safeguarding training, staff communications, email and The Provide Community Platform as appropriate. The supervision policy will be reviewed by the Safeguarding team biennially to ensure relevance.

7. Reference List

• HM Government (2023) Working Together To Safeguard Children. London, Crown Copyright. Found here

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6849a7b67cba25f610c7db3f/ Working_together_to_safeguard_children_2023_-_statutory_guidance.pdf

• Laming H. (2009) The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report. London, The Stationary Office. Found here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7eb005e5274a2e8ab478fb/ The_Protection_of_Children_in_England.pdf

• National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children [NSPCC] (2019) Supervision Skills in Safeguarding, NHS England. London, NSPCC

• Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health [RCPCH] (2025) The Intercollegiate Document. London, RCPCH can be found here https://www.rcn.org.uk/Professional-Development/publications/pub-007366

Appendix 1: Group Supervision Contract

SUPERVISEES

SUPERVISOR

Clinical supervision will be conducted as follows:

Frequency of sessions Every 3-month period (minimum)

Duration of sessions 2 hours or as agreed

Venue Teams

Agreed action for cancellation of planned Supervision:

Supervision is a mandatory expectation for all staff to attend quarterly safeguarding supervision. Protected time and prioritization for this should be demonstrated by both the supervisor and supervisee.

Cancelled by supervisee: Telephone contact or email supervisor at the earliest opportunity and arrange to attend another groups supervision.

Cancelled by supervisor: If supervisor cancels supervision (repeatedly), immediately informed supervisees team leader and the safeguarding team. Supervisor to arrange cover session with colleagues.

Issues not considered appropriate for Supervision

Managerial issues not pertaining to safeguarding, personal issues.

What the supervisor expects from supervision

What the supervisee expects from supervision

Supervision will be conducted in a professional manner and in line with this contract:

• Cases must be brought to supervision to discuss. The person bringing the case to supervision must record the supervision within the child’s record.

• Both the supervisee and supervisor, when working from home and accessing via Microsoft teams should ensure they are in a confidential space so full participation and maintenance of confidentiality can be maintained.

• The focus will remain on the child/young person. Commitment to arrive on time and remain for whole session.

• Informing supervisor of non-attendance, as soon as possible, and arrange to join another group for one off session.

• To fully enter into discussions, value and actively listen.

• To question differences constructively and respectfully and to consider the thoughts and feelings of both parties.

• Advice offered and actions taken or to be taken will be documented on the appropriate supervision template.

• Supervision will consider diversity and equality.

• Information and data will be used anonymously for audit purposes.

• All parties understand that all information (that relates to people or agencies) disclosed during child protection supervision should be treated with strict confidentiality and must not be disclosed outside the session except where it is necessary to protect a child or to seek advice.

• Effective learning requires openness honesty and reflection.

• In the event that professional competence issues cannot be resolved within the supervision arena, we may need to consult with line managers.

• The supervisees will be informed should this decision need to be taken.

• Every effort will be made to be flexible with timing and dates of formal supervision. If the supervisee fails to attend two concurrent sessions the supervisor will inform the manager and copy the supervisee into any correspondence.

Informing supervisee if session is cancelled and as soon as possible re-arrange a mutually convenient date.

If supervisor repeatedly cancels supervision, supervisee’s Team Leader and the Safeguarding Team are to be informed immediately.

Confidentiality discussed and limitations agreed YES/NO

Signature of supervisor: …………………………

Signature of Supervisees:

Appendix 2: Group Supervision Record

Safeguarding Supervision Record

Name of group:

Attendees:

Name of supervisor:

Date and time:

Ground rules discussed:

General issues discussed

Safeguarding social care referrals made this quarter:

Case(s) discussed at supervision today if appropriate

Dates of next group supervision

Appendix 3: Audit Tool – Group Safeguarding Supervision

1. How many supervisions sessions have you had in the past year:

2. How many families have you discussed?

3. Did the length of time offered at each session meet your needs?

4. Did you require extra sessions?

5. Did you have opportunity to discuss all families that you are concerned about?

6. Were any general safeguarding issues discussed during supervision session?

7. Were your safeguarding training needs discussed, or you directed to articles and research papers?

8. Did your supervisor encourage reflective thinking?

9. Did you feel you could be open and honest with your supervisor?

10. What did you feel was positive about one to one / group supervision (please state which applies)

11. What do you feel is negative about one to one/ group supervision (please state which applies)?

12. Which style of supervision do you fine most effective for managing complex cases?

Name and base (optional):

EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE

Stage 1: ‘Screening’

The Equality Impact Assessment needs to be completed so that any decisions made are compliant with the aims of the Public Sector Equality Duty – and that any adverse impact for any protected characteristics are identified and resolved.

Policy Title

SGPOL03SafeguardingSupervisionPolicy

Provide a brief summary (bullet points) of the aims of the Policy Safeguarding Supervision is delivered to satisfy managerial and organisational responsibilities.

To encourage reflection and enhance confidence and competence in Practitioners offering safeguardinginterventions.

Tooffergoodqualityandsafeservices.

EQIA Assessor Name and Job Title Date of Assessment

Head of Safeguarding 17/11/25

This stage establishes whether a proposed initiative will have an impact from an equality perspective on any particular group of people or community or whether it is “equality neutral” (i.e. have no effect either positive or negative)

Q1. Will this policy affect one of the following groups more or less favourably than another?

Details

If more or less, explain impact and any valid legal and/or justifiable exception. Include the source of any evidence

Age

Consider impact and detail across age ranges on old and younger people. This can include safeguarding, consent and child welfare

Disability

Consider and detail impact on attitudinal, physical, and social barriers.

Sex

Consider and detail impact on men and women (potential to link to carers)

Gender reassignment (including transgender)

Consider and detail impact on transgender and transsexual people. This can include issues such as privacy of data and harassment.

Pregnancy and maternity

Consider and detail impact on working arrangements, part-time working, infant caring responsibilities.

This policy applies to staff working with children aged 18 and under. As per The Children’s Act 1989 a person is a child until they reach their 18th birthday.

Race

Consider and detail impact on different ethnic groups, nationalities, Roma gypsies, Irish travellers, language and communication barriers.

Religion or belief

Consider and detail impact on people with different religions, beliefs or no belief.

Sexual orientation

Consider and detail impact on heterosexual people as well as lesbian, gay and bi-sexual people

Carers

Consider and detail impact on part-time working, shift-patterns, general caring responsibilities

Other identified groups

Consider and detail on different socioeconomic groups, area inequality, income, resident status (migrants) and other groups experiencing disadvantage and barriers to access.

Guidelines: Things to consider

Is the impact of the initiative – whether positive or negativesignificant enough to warrant a more detailed Stage 2 assessment?

Equality impact assessments at Provide take account of relevant equality legislation and include age, (i.e. young and old,); race and ethnicity, gender, disability, religion and faith, and sexual orientation.

The initiative may have a positive, negative or neutral impact, i.e. have no particular effect on the group/community.

Where a negative (i.e. adverse) impact is identified, it may be appropriate to make a more detailed EIA (see Stage 2), or, as important, take early action to redress this – e.g. by abandoning or modifying the initiative. NB: If the initiative contravenes equality legislation, it must be abandoned or modified.

Where an initiative has a positive impact on groups/community relations, the EIA should make this explicit, to enable the outcomes to be monitored over its lifespan.

Where there is a positive impact on particular groups does this mean there could be an adverse impact on others, and if so can this be justified? - e.g. are there other existing or planned initiatives which redress this?

It may not be possible to provide detailed answers to some of these questions at the start of the initiative. The EIA may identify a lack of relevant data, and that data-gathering is a specific action required to inform the initiative as it develops, and also to form part of a continuing evaluation and review process.

It is envisaged that it will be relatively rare for full impact assessments to be carried out at Provide. Usually, where there are particular problems identified in the screening stage, it is envisaged that the approach will be amended at this stage, and/or setting up a monitoring/evaluation system to review a policy’s impact over time.

QUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE

Stage 2

To be used where the ‘screening phase has identified a substantial problem/concern)

This stage examines the initiative in more detail in order to obtain further information where required about its potential adverse or positive impact from an equality perspective. It will help inform whether any action needs to be taken and may form part of a continuing assessment framework as the initiative develops.

Policy/ Project Title

EIA Assessor Name and Job Title Date of Assessment

EIA Review by Chief Officer name and Job Title Date Of Review

Outcome of Chief Officer Review

Q1. What data/information is there on the target beneficiary groups/communities?

Are any of these groups under- or over-represented?  Yes  No

Do they have access to the same resources?  Yes  No

What are your sources of data and are there any gaps?

Q2. Is there a potential for this initiative to have a positive impact, such as tackling discrimination, promoting equality of opportunity and good community relations?  Yes  No

If yes, how? Which are the main groups it will have an impact on?

Q3. Will the initiative have an adverse impact on any particular group or community/community relations?  Yes

If yes, in what way? Will the impact be different for different groups – e.g. men and women?

Q4. Has there been consultation/is consultation planned with stakeholders/ beneficiaries/ staff who will be affected by the initiative?  Yes

Summarise (bullet points) any important issues arising from the consultation

Q5. Given your answers to the previous questions, how will your plans be revised to reduce/eliminate negative impact or enhance positive impact?

Are there specific factors which need to be taken into account?  Yes  No

Q6. How will the initiative continue to be monitored and evaluated, including its impact on particular groups/ improving community relations? Where appropriate, identify any additional data that will be required

Guidelines: Things to consider

An initiative may have a positive impact on some sectors of the community but leave others excluded or feeling they are excluded. Consideration should be given to how this can be tackled or minimised.

It is important to ensure that relevant groups/communities are identified who should be consulted. This may require taking positive action to engage with those groups who are traditionally less likely to respond to consultations and could form a specific part of the initiative.

The consultation process should form a meaningful part of the initiative as it develops and help inform any future action.

If the EIA shows an adverse impact, is this because it contravenes any equality legislation? If so, the initiative must be modified or abandoned. There may be another way to meet the objective(s) of the initiative.