Reflective Wellbeing Session Guidance

Background

Working with children, young people and their families is highly rewarding. There are times where the nature of this work may be stressful and have an emotional impact on practitioners. Where the wellbeing of practitioners is prioritised, and they are supported through organisational cultures and systems they are more likely to flourish. Peer support and collective reflection is one element of a wide ranging offer to the workforce in North Lincolnshire.

In keeping with the Children’s MARS Board’s commitment to supporting practitioners and promoting a culture of learning, the concept of a reflective wellbeing session has been developed as an opportunity to provide a reflective space for the workforce and partnership to come together following a significant event to reflect on the impact that this has had, share thoughts, feelings and experiences to build resilience.

Function

These sessions are also an opportunity to learn and take forward suggestions for helping others who may experience similar sad and tragic circumstances in the future and how we ensure the workforce are emotionally supported.

These sessions will be fluid and flexible in response to need and may include any of the team around the child. The timing of these sessions will be considered uniquely for each individual circumstance.

The sessions will provide a safe space to explore some of the emotions that the incident may evoke and how collectively this can be supported in order to build workforce resilience.
The sessions focus on the experience of the practitioner and not decision making for the child. This will be a tool that can be used to add value to live debriefs and supervision. These sessions will aim to be therapeutic in nature but will not replace any welfare or therapy.

Any practitioner can consider with their manager whether a reflective wellbeing session may be of benefit. These meetings will usually be informal in nature without a standardised agenda but may benefit from an independent chair (who can be anyone not directly involved in the case/incident).

Practitioners work with complex situations which can evoke a range of emotions on a regular basis. Serious incidents may include the following where the impact is more significant and impacts on a range of practitioners. This list is not exhaustive and a reflective wellbeing session can be convened wherever there would be a benefit:
• Murder of a child or adult
• Systematic sexual or physical abuse
• Serious violence resulting in significant injury
• Serious threats to workers safety
• Any serious incident that has a significant emotional impact on a range of practitioners

Responsibility of members

The extent of the information shared within the meeting will be at the discretion of each participant. The views and experiences of each participant will be treated respectfully.

Formal minutes of the meeting will not be required but any areas of wider learning will be collated and will be shared within the appropriate forum which may be at the Safeguarding Practice Learning and Improvement Group or through a single agency’s meeting.

The meeting will close with a safe and uplifting topic.