This article is being published as part of a series by contributing authors to the revised Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) Child Safeguarding and Protection Handbook. The handbook is being updated in collaboration with the International Taskforce on Child Protection (ITFCP), the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), and the Council of International Schools (CIS). The updated handbook will be released in May-June 2026, and will include policy guidance and examples for a wide variety of safeguarding topics, including those highlighted in these TIE articles.
Safeguarding supervision is a structured, ongoing process of regular meetings designed to provide professional support, guidance, and reflective practice for staff with responsibility for the protection and wellbeing of children. Supervision is embedded within some professions and contexts, such as social work and nursing in the United Kingdom (UK), but it remains relatively new to the international school landscape. International school leaders, counselors, and safeguarding leads must navigate complex child protection cases across diverse legal and cultural settings in a context of rapid technological change and increasing polarization. Supervision is emerging as a pathway for improving safeguarding outcomes and processes in international schools through increasing accountability and supporting practitioner wellbeing.
Supervision helps practitioners to manage child protection cases effectively and ensures they can, as one practitioner noted in my research, "go to bed at night." Regular meetings dedicated to reflective practice help practitioners to reflect on and scrutinize their work, improving their decision-making and building their professional confidence. Being held to account in a supervisory relationship has been shown in other settings to lead to better quality outcomes for both the practitioners and the children they serve. Further, supervision can reduce the stress associated with child protection work, providing emotional containment for difficult feelings and emotional responses. Supervision can also be a powerful tool for interrupting individual biases, supporting a practitioner's journey toward anti-discriminatory and inclusive practice.
Investing in supervision benefits schools, too. It provides a quality assurance mechanism to ensure that safeguarding training and recommended practices are effectively embedded into daily practice. Supervision can help staff to consistently and effectively assess risk, especially during critical incidents when time pressure and high stakes can lead to missed opportunities. For international schools, a supervisor can also be a valuable resource for contextually applying global or national recommendations to a particular community, while ensuring that context is not used as a scapegoat for inaction. This kind of “check and challenge” is critical for promoting student safety and this, in turn, reduces risk for the school. Ultimately, when schools prioritize supervision, they are making a strategic investment in risk management, proactively mitigating financial, reputational, and legal risks associated with the mishandling of child protection cases.
So what can supervision look like in international school settings? Supervision typically involves meetings every 2-6 weeks held individually or in groups, in person or online. Many international schools are adopting an internal team-based structure for safeguarding, and this lends itself to a model in which a whole-school’s safeguarding lead provides supervision to members of the divisional/sectional safeguarding teams. In my research, this approach was described favorably by participants, for example:
“I think the biggest success is having [safeguarding lead] in her [supervisory] role. I think that really needs to be acknowledged how vital that role is…having somebody that you can always go to [and] kind of talk through cases…learn about what works and what doesn't. That is a really powerful model.”
The safeguarding lead from the same school talked about how she was able to differentiate her supervisory role depending on the needs of her team:
“[Some divisional safeguarding leads] are confident and experienced in wellbeing and pastoral care…but with newbies I have much more to do with them because they want to check [a decision]. We’ll make a decision together…”
As the above quotes illustrate, a supervision structure can distribute responsibility for safeguarding and promote a team approach. School groups are increasingly appointing group leads for safeguarding oversight, providing opportunities for an internal supervisory relationship within the school group structure, supporting consistency and accountability across schools.
While internal supervision supports a contextual approach and is often more budget-friendly, many research practitioners advocate for external supervision to ensure objectivity and expert guidance. Safeguarding consultants are increasingly offering a supervision service to international schools and this has the advantage of bringing external knowledge from a qualified specialist into the school. However, it is important that schools carefully consider the suitability of consultants to provide advice and guidance within their context, particularly on the topic of safeguarding; refer to the International Taskforce on Child Protection safeguarding guidance on screening consultants for more information about assessing the suitability of consultants.
Whichever path a school chooses to take, supervision should be led by a qualified and trained supervisor. The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) offers supervision skills training, which schools can use to train internal practitioners as supervisors. A great place to start when looking for external supervision is the Council of International Schools list of CIS Affiliated Consultants, or schools can reach out to Debbie Downes, Director of Global School Initiatives at the International Centre of Missing and Exploited Children, for a recommendation. Regardless of the approach, the supervisor/supervisee relationship should be supported by a formal supervision agreement with clear expectations and boundaries, use of structured frameworks, and appropriate record keeping.
Safeguarding supervision represents a necessary step in the growing maturity of international school safeguarding and child protection. As schools continue to navigate the complex challenges of this work, supervision provides a pathway from isolation to reflective partnership. The true value of supervision is best expressed by one of the participants in my study:
“There needs to be proper supervision for [safeguarding leads]...[a] regular monthly meeting with someone who's qualified so that they can have the chance to talk about the case that they're working with, and somebody can like helicopter view into it, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? But what makes you think that that isn't safeguarding?...And tease out all of those questions… Supervision [is] so important. Because within that relationship you can explore the impact it's having on you…”By providing this vital "helicopter view," schools do more than just improve case management; they provide the professional self-care necessary for practitioners to effectively carry out their role. In doing so, the school ensures that those tasked with the heaviest responsibilities have the support they need to sustain their vital work.
Dr. Leila Holmyard is a volunteer member of the International Taskforce on Child Protection.
