Moving beyond the medical model in the primary interventionist way of working

'It is easy to see how children become fragmented and how parents experience disorganisation and even chaos'

Extract from the new book ‘Primary Interventionists in the Team Around the Child approach:

What causes problematic overload?

For children who have a multifaceted condition, there is a persistent and inappropriate additive approach. Each of the child’s separate diagnostic labels, for instance cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, vision impairment, hearing impairment, autism, brings its own early interventionist and they pile up on top of one another.

In traditional services, each of them will need to see the child regularly in their centre or clinic or at the family home, each has assessment and review procedures, each delivers their own programme and might ask parents to help them with it. Each might or might not know who else is already involved with the child and they might or might not have established practice for integrating their work with them. 

It is easy to see how children become fragmented and how parents experience disorganisation and even chaos. Perplexed service managers, trapped in this outdated additive approach, might hear appeals from parents to have fewer interventionists and, at the same time, complaints from their team members that they have too many children on their case list. It seems to me that the trap comes from a medical mode persisting long after it would be better supplemented with an educational one.

 

Published in October 2018, the book is available now by e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (£10 + £2.50 p&p) and on Amazon.