Questions
Common questions about supervision, my experience, and practical arrangements. If yours isn’t here, ask it in a free 30-minute conversation.
About supervision
How is supervision different from coaching or mentoring?
Coaching usually focuses on your goals and performance, and mentoring on passing on experience. Safeguarding supervision is anchored in your casework: the decisions you are making about children, the thresholds you are applying, and the effect the work has on you. It keeps the child at the centre, and it includes professional challenge as well as support.
I’m experienced and things are going well. Do I really need supervision?
Supervision isn’t a sign that something is wrong, and experience is exactly what makes it useful. The more senior you are, the fewer people there often are to test your thinking with, and the more likely it is that everyone around you defers to your judgement. Supervision gives you someone who won’t. It is also a regular place to notice patterns before they become problems, and to look after yourself in work that can be quietly heavy. Good practice is easier to sustain than to rebuild.
I’ve only just taken on the safeguarding role. Is supervision for me?
Yes, and it can be especially useful now. Many people come to the role from another post they still hold, often counselling, pastoral or teaching, and are expected to make high-stakes judgements almost straight away. Supervision gives you a regular place to check your thresholds, notice what you are learning and ask the questions you might not want to ask in a staff meeting. If you hold two roles, such as counsellor and DSL, we can also look at where they pull in different directions, for example over confidentiality.
Our policies follow Keeping Children Safe in Education, but we aren’t in England. Can you help with that?
Many international schools use KCSIE as their benchmark, and it is a sound one, but it was written for England. Some of its roles and terms have no equivalent where you are, and some of its guidance would sit awkwardly with local law if followed word for word. In supervision we can look at how a particular decision fits your own policies and context. I won’t advise on host-country law, but I can help you notice where English assumptions may be shaping your thinking.
We already have someone to talk cases through with. Isn’t that enough?
That kind of support is valuable, and supervision doesn’t replace it. Case discussion usually focuses on what to do next in a particular case, often with someone who also has a role in overseeing your practice. Supervision is regular and confidential: time to look across your cases, at patterns, at the decisions you’re unsure about and at the effect of the work on you, with someone who has no part in judging your performance.
We already belong to a safeguarding network. Is supervision different?
Networks and communities of practice are a valuable way to share learning and stay connected with colleagues in similar roles, and supervision doesn’t replace them. Supervision is one-to-one and confidential. It focuses on your own cases and decisions, and on how the work is affecting you, in a way a group setting can’t.
Is solution-focused a different kind of supervision?
No. Supervision is the what; solution-focused is the how. The supervision I offer covers the same ground as the established models: the quality of your decisions, your development, your wellbeing, and keeping the child at the centre. Solution-focused describes how I ask the questions within that. Read more about the solution-focused approach →
What if I see a safeguarding decision differently from my head or other senior leaders?
Differences of professional judgement are a normal part of safeguarding work, and handling them well is part of doing the role well. I won’t take sides in a disagreement between colleagues, and I don’t report on you to your school, though I’m never neutral about a child’s safety. We’ll look at the decision, the evidence and the options open to you, so that you can raise it constructively, or accept it, on solid ground. What we discuss stays confidential, subject to the exceptions set out under Confidentiality.
What if you think I’m wrong?
I’ll say so, explain what concerns me, and ask what your thinking rests on. The decision stays with you and your school. Separately, the confidentiality exceptions explained under Confidentiality may require me to act on a serious concern.
About my experience
You haven’t worked in an international school. Does that matter?
You know your school, your country and your local systems far better than I could. What I bring is 15 years of carrying the DSL role alongside senior leadership, and an outside view. I keep my training current with an international focus: in 2026 I completed a DSL course alongside safeguarding leads working in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and the dilemmas they described, from families wary of the authorities to parents working abroad, are exactly what supervision is for. Supervision works by helping you apply your own knowledge more clearly, not by me supplying knowledge of your context. For legal questions, including on host-country law, you need local advice.
Practical arrangements
Can the school pay?
Yes. The school receives an invoice and confirmation that sessions took place. It does not receive session content or notes unless you ask me to share something or one of the confidentiality exceptions applies.
Can my head attend?
Sessions are one-to-one. I’m happy to have a separate conversation with your head about arrangements, but not about what we discuss.
Can colleagues at my school also have supervision?
Yes. Each person has their own sessions and their own agreement, and what one person discusses is not shared with another, including colleagues at the same school, except in the circumstances set out under Confidentiality.
What if something urgent comes up between sessions?
I’m not a crisis service, so follow your school’s child protection procedures. If something significant happens between sessions, we can usually bring the next session forward.
Can we stop at any time?
Either of us can end supervision with one month’s notice. Sessions already paid for and not yet held are refunded. The full terms are in the fee schedule and the agreement we sign before we begin.