Our Story
Dr Melanie Claxton is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, an Honorary Clinical Teaching Fellow at University College London (UCL) and the Director and founder of The Support System.
Mel has worked in mental health settings for over 18 years. She has worked with various charities and in the NHS (where she has worked for 14 years). She qualified as a Clinical Psychologist gaining her doctoral degree from UCL in 2015. She practices as a Senior Clinical Psychologist specialising in the area of children and families both in the NHS and independently at The Child Therapy Clinic. She is experienced in providing psychological therapy, supervision, consultation and training.
“All staff should have access to quality supervision in order to continue to love doing their job”.
— Dr Mel Claxton, founder of The Support System
A note from Mel…
“When I started working in the area of mental health I had never heard of the term clinical supervision. I started working in befriending and support worker positions. These roles required a lot of emotional energy and empathy but surprisingly little training and no supervision. As I went on to do further training and gained more experience in the field of psychology and mental health, clinical supervision become an integral part of my work. Now as a practicing clinical psychologist, I am required to have regular supervision and, honestly, I could not do my job without it.
I love my work and cannot imagine doing anything else. However, in order to do this well, it is vital that I have time and space to reflect and think about the people I work with, ways I could be working differently and also reflect on the impact the work is having on me. I would have certainly burnt out in this field if I did not receive regular supervision. My work with The Support System is partly motivated by my passion to give back what I have received.
I have been providing supervision, training and consultation to staff in schools and youth settings for several years now. I can see how vital supervision is for staff but also how hard it is for organisations to find highly qualified and clinically trained supervisors. I want to change that. I am committed to ensuring that staff in ‘caring professions’ have greater access to supervision, which will, in turn, help the people they are working with."
-Mel