Seeking Out Reflective Feedback

Ideally, we would get real-time direct and honest feedback from our clients about their experiences with us. Due to the power dynamics inherent in early intervention, that’s unlikely. You may be able to get direct feedback from clients through anonymous surveys or conversations with them after they have been discharged from EI. Generally, when families are still enrolled in the program, feedback is more indirect. Families may communicate about their levels of satisfaction through increased cancellations or no-shows, asking their service coordinators to change EI providers, or withdrawing from their sessions. It’s also possible that the families will have an overall level of satisfaction with services and a fondness for you as the clients I interviewed for this book did and at the same time experience some challenges working with you or with your recommendations that they don’t share.  Adrienne didn’t share these challenges because she was acutely aware of power dynamics.

In contrast, Ibraheem, Crenisha, and Letia didn’t share them because of a combination of awareness of the power dynamics and feelings of fondness and overall satisfaction with my service provision. While I wish they had told me about the challenges they experienced with me when my service provision wasn’t culturally responsive to them, I understand why they didn’t. It reminds me of how hard it was to tell my old hairstylist, who I adored as a person, that I hated my new haircut and color. Rather than tell her I was unhappy, risk hurting her feelings, and ask her to redo it, I just waited until the terrible cut grew out. Then, when I went back for my next appointment, I told her that I wanted to go in another direction with my color, and I’d decided bangs weren’t for me. I was so worried about hurting her feelings and challenging her expertise, and this was just about my hair. I had the freedom to change hair stylists at any time. Imagine what it would feel like to push back against the expert that government program sent into your home to work with you and your baby!

Since it’s often not possible to get direct feedback from your EI clients, you have to be wise about what is happening during your home visits. Sometimes, we have sessions during which it’s immediately clear that something isn’t working, but more often, there are subtle cues from the parents. Sometimes this comes in the form of an inability to connect or a gut feeling. Sometimes we get lucky, and a strategy we try just fails, so it’s easy to identify what happened. These are the times when the reflective practice models are especially helpful.

While the reflective models give an effective structure for you to engage in reflective practice on your own, I’ve found that we often have shortcomings that we don’t know we have or that we need a little extra help identifying. At the same time, some of us tend to be harder on ourselves than others would be, and it can be helpful to get critical feedback from someone who has more grace for us than we may have for ourselves. For these reasons, I highly recommend that you seek out reflective feedback from a trusted supervisor, colleague, or critical friend.

I’ve worked both for an early intervention agency that had a structure for reflective supervision and as an independent contractor who worked alone without direct supervision or colleagues. At the agency where I worked, I had a very supportive supervisor who excelled at reflective supervision. I hope this is the situation you find yourself in, but I know from personal experience that even if you are at an agency that offers reflective supervision, that agency may not have a climate of trust. It’s also possible that your reflective supervisor may not share your commitment to culturally responsive practices or have the skills to support your growth in this area.

Regardless of why you don’t have access to reflective supervision, you can curate reflective relationships with your EI peers. It will take extra effort and time outside of work, but if you are truly committed to culturally responsive practices, it will be worth it. When I worked for myself, I created an informal reflective practice group of my EI peers. I considered my peers from the IFSP  (Individualized Family Service Plan) teams I worked with to identify several who shared my values, were working to be more Family-Centered and culturally responsive, and whose practices I respected. I invited four of them to meet with me once a month for dinner or coffee to talk through challenges and celebrate our successes. As we had worked with several of the same families, each member of the group was able to give direct feedback to the others about their observations of our practice. I found that because we weren’t social friends, but rather respected colleagues who shared the same level of status and power, I was much more likely to give and get direct, constructive, critical feedback that I could act on than if I recounted a story to a social friend and asked for their opinion.

My experience forming my group of “critical friends” is an example of how to set up the appropriate conditions for interpersonal reflective practice. If you are looking to establish your own reflective practice group or critical friendship, it may be helpful to use the same criteria that I did when deciding who to invite. First, I chose people that I respected who had knowledge and skills in the areas that I wanted to focus on. I also asked peers that I trusted and had a positive rapport with so that I would feel comfortable sharing vulnerable moments with them. At the beginning of our meetings, we made a pact to be honest, direct, and gentle with each other so that we could create a climate of constructive criticism. Lastly, I intentionally didn’t ask any service coordinators to be part of our group because, in Illinois, the service coordinators decided which EI providers they gave referrals to for weekly services. I feared that if I shared my shortcomings with service providers, they may be reluctant to give me referrals in the future which would have a negative impact on my income. That fear would have inhibited my ability to be honest with myself and my peers in the group. The presence of a person with power over us would have changed the dynamics of the group to one in which we couldn’t be vulnerable.

Finally, while we need to not only be open to but seek out critical feedback, we also have to be discerning about from whom we take feedback. Only some people you work with will share your values, have the necessary understanding of the sociocultural context of EI, actually have enough information to provide feedback or have your best interests at heart. When you consider whose feedback to take, keep this in mind. When you strive to be a reflective practitioner, it can take time to set boundaries around whose feedback to take. The less confident I am about something, the less selective I am about whose feedback I take in. Whenever someone I’m unsure about offers their opinion of my work, I’m reminded of advice my horse trainer gave to me when I was worried about my horse’s former owners judging how I cared for him. She looked right at me and said, “Why would you take criticism about your horse from someone you wouldn’t let ride your horse?” Her intention was only to offer me some perspective at that moment, but this has become a bit of a motto for me. It gives me a good filter through which to determine which feedback to concentrate on and which to let go. So, if you wouldn’t want an EI provider or supervisor to see your child, grandchild, or best friend’s child, I wouldn’t recommend internalizing their opinions about your practice.