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

‘Action plans...are designed to reduce the child and family’s exhaustion and stress as much as possible’

Peter Limbrick writes: I hope that one day soon there will be an early child and family support system in every part of every country for families whose baby or infant has significant challenges

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

Parents’ tiredness, low self-esteem and stress might result in them keeping themselves to themselves

In the first part of this editorial I suggested there are two separate worlds:

the smaller one with families whose baby or infant has significant challenges to development and learning and the peopl

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

'involves the knowledge, understanding and skills of all the people around the child at home or in the nursery'

Drinking from a cup is an early skill and is used here as just one example of what babies and infants might learn in their pre-school years. Drinking is necessary for survival and drinking

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

'Dragging child and family to hospital for regular visits might be the cheaper and most convenient option for hospital administrators but not for child and parents'

Peter Limbrick writes:

Working with babies and young children who have multifaceted conditions, I have been most effective as a teacher

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?

local task forces will get effective support, inclusion and connectivity built into the local early support system

I have argued so far in this short 3-part series that we cannot rely on government ministers or public service executives creating the conditions to lessen or end this oppression. Good

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.

It is such a massive struggle because the general public is not aware or concerned

The words I am using:

'Significant challenges to development and learning'.

This avoids the word ‘disability’ which I feel is unjustifiably negative about the new child’s present and future. Another common phrase, pr

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

paediatric therapists have essential skills that parents, nursery staff and teachers do not have

In Part 1 I argued that in my view paediatric therapists typically do two sorts of work: one is essential health treatment; the other is helping a baby or infant acquire new understanding and skills. The

Editorial: NHS - '35% of pupils in England are expected to have access to a mental health support team by 2023'. Are we all going mad?

We were giving children a crappy childhood even before Covid came along

From the NHS website:

‘Experts in the teams will offer children one-to-one and group therapy sessions while helping to improve the whole school’s communities awareness of mental health through training sessions for parents and w

More Articles ...