How Social Justice Can Be Promoted and Incorporated into Reflective Supervision/Consultation with Infant Mental Health Practitioners

The multidisciplinary field of infant mental health supports young children’s ability to experience the world around them, foster learning, regulate and express their emotions, and form close relationships with caregivers. In line with infant mental health, the social work profession has offered the Grand Challenge to close the health gap for all.

Within a safe and secure relationship between young children and their caregivers, adversities can be mitigated and healed to ensure that the socio-emotional health gap for young children is closed and that they are able to meet their developmental trajectories.

Integral to infant mental health is for practitioners to engage in reflective supervision/consultation (RS/C) to address strengths and challenges while simultaneously working with young children and their caregivers. Supervision is not immune to experiences of social injustice, prejudice, power, and privilege, which impact supervisees, the children, and the caregivers they serve. RS/C is a platform to address these issues with a trusted reflective supervisor/consultant.

The literature review for this capstone project explores current scholarly literature that addresses RS/C from a social justice perspective. The conceptual paper provides theories for integrating a social justice lens into RS/C. Finally, the practice application paper applies these theories to practice by focusing on social justice barriers for young children and their caregivers, which can be a point of focus in RS/C. The aim is to support practitioners in RS/C, to promote infant mental health principles, and to address social justice barriers that can alleviate the social-emotional health gap for all young children.