Active Supervision

Overview

As a child care provider, it is important you understand what active supervision means and how essential it is to your day-to-day work. It is more than watching children during child care hours. It is an active process demanding focused attention and ongoing observation.

Much like the superhero, Spiderman, active supervision involves sensing and responding to danger before it occurs. As a superhero to children and families, your senses are active all day, every day, every minute. Active supervision means you see, hear and respond to all the children in your care at all times. There are a variety of active supervision strategies that can be used to supervise children effectively. This section provides information on six specific strategies from the Administration for Children and Families Office of Head Start.