A collection of essays, comments and opinions by Peter Limbrick

These essays are all free to access. They were first published in TAC Bulletin. Please acknowledge source if you quote from them:

Author: Limbrick, Peter.

Date: (Each essay has its year of publication at the head of the section.)

Publisher: Interconnections, UK.

Please give link to the article online.

2024

‘Integration Made Possible’ in serial form. Celebrating 30 years of Interconnections

The long hard struggle for effective integrated child and family support for all who want it. Are we winning or losing?

Early Child and Family Support: Principles and Prospects. Part 3

Early Child and Family Support: Principles and Prospects. Part 2

Early Child and Family Support: Principles and Prospects. Part 1

What is transdisciplinary teamwork around babies and infants who have significant challenges to their development and learning?

Open letter to UK’s Children’s Commissioners about the potential health dangers to children from smartphone and wi-fi radiation

Leaping Forward # 14: When we properly adopt systems thinking, complicated babies and infants magically become more straightforward. Then we know what to do

Her god was looking down into the garden and smiling

Mother Found Guilty

Leaping Forward # 13: PART 2 - A proper look at systems theory helps get the therapist to the child, not the child to the therapist.

Leaping Forward # 13: A proper look at systems theory helps get the therapist to the child, not the child to the therapist - PART1

Being put away when society doesn’t want you

Leaping Forward # 12: A proper look at systems theory helps us see the wholeness of children and their situations

Leaping Forward # 11: A proper look at systems theory helps prevent parent and professional burnout

Leaping Forward # 10: A proper look at systems theory shows the madness of thinking about ‘multiple disability’ in the education of babies and infants

Leaping Forward # 9: A proper look at systems in early child and family support. There is a sort of magic here

Leaping Forward in early child and family support # 8: Developing political maturity in the professional body

Leaping Forward in early child and family support from the Portugal 25 conference. Number 7: Us and Them

Leaping Forward in early child and family support # 6: A fresh look at families

Early child and family support ‘wishes’: The urgent need for a leap forward (with reference to Portugal 25)

Discussion topics to promote early child and family support. What do you think the most important issues are?

Early child and family support conference in Portugal by ISEI and Eurlyaid. 5: Learning valuable lessons from the pandemic about working at a distance

Early child and family support conference in Portugal by ISEI and Eurlyaid. 4

Early child and family support conference in Portugal by ISEI and Eurlyaid. 3

Early child and family support conference in Portugal by ISEI and Eurlyaid. 2

2023

Early child and family support conference in Portugal (September 2025) by ISEI and Eurlyaid. An opportunity for an evolutionary leap forward. 1

Thoughts following Michael Guralnick’s 2023 paper on design of early child and family support

The Foundations of the Team Around the Child model (TAC)

Education, Health and Development: Towards shared language and practice around babies and infants who have a multifaceted condition. A teacher’s view

Contraste de un enfoque terapéutico con un enfoque educativo de la habilidad temprana de moverse en el suelo – Peter Limbrick

Contrasting a therapy approach with an educational approach to the early skill of moving on the floor

In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 41 to 50)

In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 31 to 40)

In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 21 to 30)

In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 11 to 20)

In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 1 to 10)

One-to-One: An experiment in community participation in long-stay hospitals

Open letter to Kate Middleton – Part Five

Transdisciplinary teamwork gets 'up close and personal'. Is that why we are afraid of it?

Open letter to Kate Middleton – Part Four

Disabled Children’s Partnership report ‘Failed and Forgotten’ (UK) will fail and be forgotten. Part 2

Disabled Children’s Partnership report ‘Failed and Forgotten’ (UK) will fail and be forgotten. Comment, part 1

A Transdisciplinary Teamwork Basic Code in support of EURLYAID’S Prague conference

The Transdisciplinary Primary Worker in the Team Around the Child Approach

Systems theory promoting early child development programmes. Perhaps it is all about pastry!

Open letter to Kate Middleton – Part Three

Open letter to Kate Middleton – Part Two

Open letter to Kate Middleton – Part One

Disabled Children’s Partnership report ‘Failed and Forgotten’ (UK) will fail and be forgotten. Comment, part 1

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode Six: Helping parents learn how to bring up their child

2022

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode Five: Changing gear as parents emerge from the turmoil

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode Four: Exploring and agreeing ways forward after the first introductory meetings

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode Three: Being available to parents as well as to the child

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode Two: Acknowledging the child’s present skills and level of understanding during the first meetings

A detailed approach to supporting a child and family. Episode One

For parents and practitioners: Can we ditch learning targets and aim for quality of life instead?

Interconnections argues children’s visits to hospital for therapy should be reduced as much as possible. Why is that?

A new child’s significant impairments are only half the story for a family. Here is a letter to parents (and hoping practitioners will read it too)

Principles of international early child and family support – do they fit your situation? How would you modify them?

2021

Editorial: Families whose baby or infant has significant challenges to development and learning are a severely oppressed minority group. Part 3: Can local task forces be a way forward?

Editorial: Families whose baby or infant has significant challenges to development and learning are a severely oppressed minority group. Part 2: Some reasons why

Editorial: Families whose baby or infant has significant challenges to development and learning are a severely oppressed minority group – this is why there are no effective support systems. Part 1.

Editorial: Cutting pediatric therapy in two to promote inclusion. Part 3: Teaching a child to drink from a cup and other functional skills

Editorial: Cutting pediatric therapy in two to promote inclusion. Part 2: Implications

Editorial: Cutting pediatric therapy in two to promote inclusion – and then losing the word ‘therapy’. Part 1. What do you think?

The best way to establish early child and family support in a city, region or country - a 3-part essay

Adjusting the balance between health supports and education supports in early child and family support. A long read (10,500 words)

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. TENTH PRINCIPLE: Parents are not treated as passive recipients. They can work at the grassroots to create a local TAC system

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. NINTH PRINCIPLE: ‘Support for a new child’s development and learning is much more an education issue than a health issue.’ Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. EIGHTH PRINCIPLE: ‘For the child’s development and learning, TAC practitioners do not use the term multiple disabilities and think instead of a single unique multifaceted condition.’ Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. SEVENTH PRINCIPLE: ‘Activities to support the child’s learning and development are integrated into the child and family’s natural activities.’ Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. SIXTH PRINCIPLE: ‘It is the responsibility of parents to bring up their child. It is the responsibility of TAC practitioners to support them when they ask for help.’ Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. FIFTH PRINCIPLE: ‘TAC Action Plans are designed to reduce the child and family’s exhaustion and stress as much as possible.’ Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. FOURTH PRINCIPLE: ‘Each child’s TAC is a mutually supportive team with a flat power structure’. Translate this article if you wish

What is the best way to promote early child and family support in a city, region or country? Part 1: Problems with the top-down approach

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. THIRD PRINCIPLE: There is a single, unified, holistic TAC Plan for each child'. Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. SECOND PRINCIPLE: ‘Parents are fully involved in their child’s TAC. Work begins with an agreement between practitioners and parents'. Translate this article if you wish

Team Around the Child (TAC) Principles. FIRST PRINCIPLE: 'People around the child should talk to each other'. Translate this article if you wish

Five propositions for de-medicalizing early child and family support in a radical redesign

Will you, in your country, be institutionalised in 2021? If so, will we need more coffins for babies?

2020

Negative hospital environments: Is it appropriate to de-medicalise early child and family support? A summary so far

A very brief history of Team Around the Child (TAC), keyworking and the UK government

Editorial: Wiping bums in the UK

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 1: Hospitals are often neurotic environments and are therefore to be avoided

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 2: Favourable environments for education and learning

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 3: Implications for early child and family support that is hospital-based

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 4: A personal perspective on collaboration between health and education workers

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 5: Early child and family support is often wrongly treated as a health issue

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 6: contrasting a therapy approach with an educational approach to the early skill of moving on the floor

Positive environments for early child and family support. Part 7: An ideal approach to early child and family support and including the role of paediatricians

Integration Made Possible: A practical manual for joint working. Can you help? (2020)

Seeing early child and family support as a mosaic of triangles

Effective early child and family support has three essential pillars

Collective competence with children who have a multifaceted condition (2020)

New book - Integration Made Possible: A practical manual for joint working. Multiagency - multidisciplinary - transdisciplinary (2020)

'Seeing the whole child' and 'Seeing the child in the family'. What can these phrases mean to practitioners in ECI? (2020)

‘Therapy’ – do we really need this word in early child and family support? A question for discussion (2020)

2019

Bringing up babies and young children who have very special needs. A new book for students and parents – 8 sample pages (2019)

Caring Activism to protect vulnerable children and adults. Could you be in a caring activist team in your neighbourhood? (2019)

Children’s action on climate change (2019)

Dismal early child and family support (ECI) in the UK – a massive failure of imagination, not competence (2019)

Early childhood intervention still struggling to enter the 21st century (2019)

Enhancing the education component of early child and family support for children who have multiple diagnoses of disabilities (2019)

Horizontal Teamwork in a Vertical World: Exploring interagency collaboration and people empowerment. Here are chapter summaries (2019)

Interconnections Classic: An Integrated pathway for assessment and support - 8 sample pages (2019)

It takes leaders to break down silos: Integrating services for disabled children (CDC paper). Further observations focusing on local agreements about good practice (2019)

It takes leaders to break down silos: Integrating services for disabled children (CDC paper). Further observations focusing this time on what families can do to help integrate local services (2019)

It takes leaders to break down silos: Integrating services for disabled children (CDC paper). Further observations focusing this time on workforce attitudes, and a bit about cake (2019)

It takes leaders to break down silos – report by Council for Disabled Children offers more of the same. Disappointing (2019)

Negative mental states shared by parents and practitioners of babies and young children who have very special needs (2019)

New book: Bringing up babies and young children who have very special needs - 8 sample pages (2019)

NICE (UK) answers my question about early child and family support. Make of it what you will (2019)

Unhelpful confusion in early child and family support about the roles of teachers and therapists. Is the distinction between them invalid? (2019)

Unnatural / institutional support for infants with very special needs & their families. What is it like in your locality (on a 13-point scale)? (2019)

Zen in care and support for new children who have disabilities (2019)

2018

A teen with autism is locked in solitary confinement and being fed through a hatch. Have we really moved on from Bedlam? (UK) (2018)

Adam and the primary interventionist way of working (2018)

Caring Activism – operating below, beyond or outside government (2018)

Caring Activism: A 21st century concept of care by Peter Limbrick (2018

Charity bosses in my country – roaring lions or bulls being led by the nose?

Flags and barbed wire (2018)

How we get in the way between parents and infants with disabilities. Can you help? (2018)

If crowing white man is top of the heap, who is at the bottom? Disabled babies perhaps (2018)

Infant-parent attachment when a child comes with very special needs (2018)

International Guide ‘Are you worried about your child?’ in many languages. PDFs free to download for parents and professionals (2018)

Limbrick’s Primary Interventionist Model for supporting families of babies and infants who have disabilities and special needs – a natural approach sensitive to children and families (2018)

Moving beyond the medical model in the primary interventionist way of working (2018)

Out with the old (medical) and in with the new (educational) for babies and infants who have a multifaceted condition (2018)

Peter Limbrick can come to your team or group, UK and elsewhere (2018)

Primary Interventionist: The concept isn’t popular but it is good for some families and makes the best use of busy practitioners’ time (2018)

Primary Interventionists in the Team Around the Child approach – new book by Peter Limbrick for practitioners, managers and parents (2018)

TAC primary interventionist making hospital discharge possible for Tuyen (2018)

Vulnerable people might depend on someone ‘blowing the whistle’ to protect them. Could you do it? (2018)

What do you know about infant-parent attachment when the child comes with very special needs? Can you help me? (2018)

Your early childhood intervention and ‘early support’ - Modern or out of date? Here is a ten-point scale for practitioners and parents (2018)

2017

Cerebral Palsy? Down’s Syndrome? Autism? – and living in poverty or on the streets? (2017)

Children with disabilities and special needs really belong to their parents. Do service providers know this? (2017)

Early Childhood Intervention without Tears: Improved support for infants with disabilities and their families. New publication (2017)

Goals, commitments and promises for families who have a baby or young child with a multifaceted condition. Are mine the same as yours? (2017)

How a genuinely whole-child approach can save early-childhood practitioners’ time and make better use of budgets – with a note about practitioners’ spectacles. Part 1

How a genuinely whole-child approach can save early-childhood practitioners’ time and make better use of budgets. Part 2. Using the ‘consultant model’ of teamwork

How a genuinely whole-child approach can save ECI practitioners’ time & make better use of budgets. Part 3: Go where the child is. Do what the child does

How a genuinely whole-child approach can save ECI practitioners’ time and make better use of budgets. Part 4: ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962

How to apply systems thinking in support of an infant with ‘multiple disabilities’ – moving on from the old ways. Part 1 (2017)

How to apply systems thinking in support of an infant with ‘multiple disabilities’ – moving on from the old ways. Part 2 (2017)

Is the children’s therapy you offer bogus? Almost certainly not, if you are a TAC Bulletin reader. But ‘Extravagant Promises Therapy’ is out there! How can parents be helped to avoid the dangers?

Power in Kensington, London, UK (2017)

Team Around the Child (TAC) empowers parents and gives disabled children a better deal - in any country (2017)

The brain is not like a computer. No computer will ever be like a brain (2017)

These are our children – yet another review asking another government for another set of reforms. Caring Activism offers another way (2017)

These UK charity chiefs will roar like lions – when the government says they can (2017)

Trampoline saves children’s lives (2017)

Wanting to protect foetuses from alcohol is sexist. Absolute tosh! (2017)

Why do we let parents of babies and young children with disabilities get so stressed and exhausted? (2017)

2016

A Caring Activist Team to support a vulnerable teenager, adult or elderly person costs absolutely nothing. Here is how you do it on your patch…(2016)

Are you passionate about the mental health of disabled babies and family members? (2016)

Could you start a caring activist forum for disabled teenagers stuck at home after leaving school? (2016)

Curriculum content for children and adults with intellectual and other disabilities. Independence? No, thank you. Autonomy? Yes please! (2016)

Some concerns about the mental health of disabled babies and their mothers. Are we helping or hindering? By Peter Limbrick (2016)

TAC Outline: Team Around the Child in early childhood intervention – what it is and how it grew out of the One Hundred Hours project (2016)

The mental health of disabled infants and their mothers. Does this interest you? (2016)

The spewing of hate – dangers to vulnerable people – hope for the horrified – does Caring Activism appeal to you as a way forward? (2016)

The Team Around the Child approach – an outline (2016)

The Tony Blair government, Iraq and Early Support for Disabled Children (ECI) (2016)

2015

Paying for the banks' mistakes by declaring vulnerable disabled and ill people fit for work – but how many then die or kill themselves? (UK) (2015)

Planning interagency teamwork around disabled babies and children: Tasks for managers. An essay by Peter Limbrick (2015)

Collateral damage – a sorry little phrase. Editorial comment (2015)

One million old people in England with care needs get no help. We can lay half of this at the government's door – only half (2015)

Rough sleepers in the UK with disabilities. Do the big charities like NAS, Mencap, YoungMinds and Scope follow them onto the streets to offer support? (2015)

The movement of peoples. Something bigger to come? (2015)

Thoughts on being vulnerable after UK Election 2015 (2015)

Transdisciplinary teamwork in early childhood intervention. What is it? (2015)

Where is attendance compulsory? Just prisons and schools. But aren’t schools supposed to make children happy? (2015)

Who is in need and desperate on your patch? Be a Caring Activist, find out, join with others and do something about it. My country or yours (2015)

Why is TAC horizontal? (TAC empowering vulnerable adults & children) (2015)

2014

A question for disabled people, parents, carers: Do you need the TAC approach? (2014)

Ask Tony Blair how many tens of thousands of children were killed, maimed or orphaned during our invasion of Iraq. And then tell the big knobs at Save the Children (2014)

Dismantling UK's Welfare State: the job is only half done. Will your charity, your support system survive? (2014)

Eyeless in Gaza, cerebral palsied in Syria, autistic in Iraq - Editorial comment (2014)

Keyworker & keyworking. Have these words been done to death in England? Are you doing this essential work under another name? Do you hold the key? Does NCB? (2014)

TAC for the 21st Century: A unifying theory about children who have a multifaceted condition. An essay by Peter Limbrick (2014)

The multifaceted condition and collective competence. An essay by Peter Limbrick (2014)

The TAC approach for babies, children, teenagers, adults and elderly people – an introduction (2014)

When a mother kills her disabled children... (2014)

2013

CCNUK: The history and mystery of Care Co-ordination Network UK in England. Do you know more than I do? (2013)

How to write a 'not-good-enough' report when local treatment, care, or education services are below standard (2013)

On the Good Ship Disability: Are you sundeck or steerage? (2013)

TAC, keyworkers and empowerment. A briefing paper by Peter Limbrick (2013)

The Foundation for Public Utility of Enterprise Health Care. 12 steps in Hell (2013)

What is the status of multiagency keyworking in England? Are there any keyworkers now? What happened to the generously funded CCNUK? Can you provide information? (2013)

When unemployed people are 'shirkers' and disabled people are 'scroungers' (2013)

2012

Hey stop Part 1: Hey, stop killing those children! Kill these children instead! Part I (2012)

Hey stop Part 2: Our most callous crime against children to date – but don't worry, we are working on a bigger one (2012)

Horizontal Teamwork in a Vertical World: Exploring interagency collaboration and people empowerment (2012)

Useless and harmful therapy in the horizontal landscape (2012)

2011 and earlier

A question for parents: Do you need the Team Around the Child approach? (2011)

A unifying theory about children who have a multifaceted condition' (2011)

Blue boxes. Orange flames. (2011)

Building bridges between the worlds of infant disability and infant mental health (2011)

Early childhood intervention is stubbornly stuck in the age of black and white television (2011)

Impossible choices for new parents of disabled children? (2011)

Independence is never a valid or achievable goal (2011)

Keyworking and multi-agency service co-ordination: Training and resources are essential (2011)

Lost in the disabled infant therapy circus? (2011)

Primary Interventionists in the Team Around the Child approach (2011)

The Big Society. Have the monkeys taken over the zoo? We had better all watch out (2011)

The post-code lottery persists and will now be celebrated as the triumphs of ‘localism’ (2011)

When children are made seriously ill, disabled or killed in military conflict - can you help? (2011)

Keyworkers are an essential part of a quality service for families.So why do most families not have one? Is Team Around the Child part of the solution? (2004)