Annual RSC Learning Collaborative
The 2026 – 2027 Collaborative
The North Carolina Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Association (NCIMHA) recognizes that professionals supporting infants, young children, families, and caregivers thrive when they have dedicated opportunities to reflect on their work and relationships. Reflective supervision/consultation (RSC) provides a vital relational space for professionals to process experiences, deepen reflective skills, navigate complex emotions, and reduce the stress and fatigue that can contribute to burnout over time.
Across a wide variety of programs serving young children and families — including early education, home visiting, mental health, healthcare, early intervention, child welfare, and family support services — RSC strengthens the capacity of professionals to provide thoughtful, relationship-based, and culturally responsive care that young children and families need to thrive. Growing evidence suggests that RSC enhances professional self-awareness, strengthens workforce wellbeing, and supports the delivery of high-quality infant and early childhood mental health services grounded in relationships and the principles and practices supporting early relational health.
To further explore this important work, we invite you to explore our infographic to learn more about the practice and benefits of RSC.
Join Us for the 2026–2027 Reflective Supervision Learning Collaborative
Over the last four years, NCIMHA has become a leader in providing RSC training that supports supervisors, leaders, and mentors serving infants, young children, and families across North Carolina — with meaningful and measurable results. We invite you to explore our Data Memo to learn more about the impact of this work. And we are excited to do it again this year!
NCIMHA is proud to host the 2026–2027 Reflective Supervision Learning Collaborative, a year-long initiative designed to support professionals in building the knowledge, reflective capacity, and practical skills needed to provide reflective supervision or consultation within their organizations, programs, and communities.
Through training, reflective consultation experiences, and peer learning, participants will deepen their understanding of RSC while strengthening their ability to support the infant and early childhood workforce in meaningful, relationship-based, and sustainable ways.
Application Deadline: August 19, 2026
Notification of Selection: August 31, 2026
What does the Collaborative include?
Learning to provide RSC involves more than simply understanding the practice conceptually. While training offers important frameworks, language, and skills, meaningful growth in reflective practice also comes through experiencing RSC firsthand. Receiving reflective supervision from an experienced facilitator allows participants to experience the relational safety, curiosity, collaboration, and reflective stance that are foundational to the practice itself.
Throughout the Collaborative, participants will engage in both training on RSC and ongoing participation in RSC, creating opportunities to not only learn about reflective practice, but to experience how reflective relationships can support growth, insight, self-awareness, and professional sustainability over time.
Participants will attend six training sessions (24 hours total), focusing on key topics such as RSC’s connection to infant and early childhood mental health, critical self awareness, building new relationships, two RSC frameworks, understanding power dynamics, navigating rupture and repair, transitions, and goodbyes.
Training Schedule
- October 22-23, 2026 | Two full in-person training days at the Museum of Life and Science, Durham, NC
- April 22-23, 2027 | Two half-day virtual trainings
- September 9-10, 2027 | Two half-day virtual trainings
Group Reflective Supervision / Consultation
In addition to training, participants will receive 24 hours of virtual group reflective supervision/consultation over 12 months (2 hours per month from November 2026 through October 2027). Groups will be facilitated by experienced reflective consultants who model reflective practice and relationship-based facilitation throughout the experience.
Meeting times will be coordinated collaboratively between reflective consultants and participants to support consistent attendance and relationship-building over time.
Program Cost and Scholarships
The total cost for participation—including 48 hours of training and reflective consultation—is $375.
A limited number of scholarships are available for those whose employers are unable to cover the cost. You can indicate your request for scholarship support within the application.
Pathway to Endorsement®
This learning collaborative is designed to meet the reflective supervision requirements for the Infant or Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement (I/ECMH-E®), positioning participants for success in 2027 and beyond!
Meet Our Learning Collaborative Trainers
Susanne Walker Wilson, LCSW, ITFS, IMH-E®
Susanne partners with parents, caregivers, early educators, administrators and policy makers to center infant and young child mental health, to invite all adults toward reflective practice, and to invest in public health prevention by supporting the adults that care for young children. In addition to being a therapist, and a trainer, fidelity coach, and consultant for Circle of Security International, Susanne continues to facilitate Circle of Security Parenting (COSP) groups in Buncombe County where she lives. She is a senior trainer in the Reconnect for Resilience model and works through Circle Together to anchor and elevate attachment-informed parenting and early educator practices across North Carolina. Susanne was in the first Leadership Cohort to be Endorsed by NCIMHA. She offers reflective consultation to groups and individuals and RSC training through NCIMHA. Partnering with families and other early childhood professionals is Susanne’s joy; addressing unjust systemic inequities that too often burden families is her North Star.
Gabriel Guyton, MA, MS Ed., IMH-E®
Gabriel is an infant and early childhood mental health professional who believes deeply in the power of safe, steady relationships. She approaches her work with warmth, steadiness, and respect for each family’s experience as a Child First Family Resource Partner at RHA Health Services, where she walks alongside families to strengthen connection, co-regulate through hard moments, and honor each child’s story and sense of self.
Gabriel is the Co-founder of ConnectEd Circles, an early childhood consulting practice that supports educators, mental health professionals, and communities in building emotionally responsive environments where children and adults feel seen, heard, and valued. Through training, coaching, infant mental health consultation, and reflective supervision, she helps grown-ups slow down, listen beneath behavior, and make room for growth, repair, and joy.
Her background includes teaching in inclusive mixed-age classrooms, serving as faculty in infant mental health and early intervention graduate programs, and leading Early Head Start and mixed-funding systems. Gabriel holds master’s degrees from Bank Street College of Education and Cal Poly Humboldt and is Endorsed through the North Carolina Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Association as both an Infant Family Specialist and Reflective Supervisor.
Across all of her roles, Gabriel nurtures spaces where people can bring their whole selves,where it is safe to wonder, feel, and connect. Her work is grounded in reflective practice and the belief that healing and hope happen in relationships.
What Our Participants Are Saying
About the training
“I love the material, it’s got a nice flow and builds on itself to support my learning.”
“Exploring and practicing the content through a variety of engaging activities supported different learning styles and kept the experience dynamic and meaningful. It helped me develop a deeper understanding of how to provide RSC in a practical, approachable way.”
About group reflective consultation sessions
“They give us space to slow down, share and learn from one another, then reflect on our actions, which has been a major source for professional growth for me personally.”
“Participating in the RSC group through the year has been the most helpful because I am getting a real world example and application of the principles laid alongside the training on these principles.”
“The opportunity to be engaged in the RSC group has been the most helpful part of this experience, because experiencing RSC enables me to understand it in myself. This is foundational to being able to provide RSC to others I support.”
Still have questions?
Join one of our live Q&A sessions via Zoom:
- July 1, 2026 | 1:30pm-2pm via Zoom (register here)
- August 5, 2026 | 11:00-11:30am via Zoom (register here)
Or reach out directly to our Reflective Supervision Program Director at Jessica.TaylorPickford@NCIMHA.org — we’re happy to connect with you!