Each trainee requires individual attention, too, and receives it through weekly supervision and biweekly developmental and clinical seminars. Each trainee works with a supervisor throughout the year for individual guidance and support. Trainees are encouraged to watch and listen carefully, to form hypotheses based on what they see and hear, and to consider the nature of each child and parent's development, with a particular focus on the dynamics of interaction and relationship. For many trainees, this is the first opportunity they have had in their graduate programs or professional work to meet consistently and speak regularly about infants and families and relationships, their emerging capacities and clinical risks. Supervision offers a trusting relationship for learning, clinical questioning, and individual growth.
Trainees use the supervisory relationship in a variety of ways.
They may consider the developmental and relationship needs of infants and families. They may discuss strategies that will help them carry out their intervention in the next week. They may explore more personal responses to the challenges of infant and family work, for example, reflecting on their own experiences of caregiving, anticipating the birth of a baby, or struggling with issues of unresolved loss. Early meetings focus on observational, developmental and clinical strategies so important to infant mental health work. Later meetings focus on topics important to the group, such as, dynamics of interaction, the use of videotape to guide parents, relationship development, feeding and eating disturbances, or fatherhood.