Touchpoints
Touchpoints are moments in a child’s development when it is an optimal time to provide support for parents. Understanding development deepens the relationship between parents and practitioners, fostering children’s full developmental potential.
Scroll DownWhat Is Touchpoints?
Touchpoints are critical periods in the baby’s and child’s development that can be identified and anticipated, providing optimal opportunities to support parents in understanding and responding to their child’s behaviour and strengths. They are centred on caregiving themes that matter to parents (e.g. sleep, feeding, toilet training), from pregnancy to six years old.
Practitioners working with parents and acknowledging these Touchpoints, think together about strategies for managing these moments, which can help to promote strong relationships between parents and practitioners, fostering children’s full developmental potential and the mental health of the family.
Evaluation of the Touchpoints model in the USA, shows that it improves infant developmental outcomes, normalises parent’s perceptions of their child’s behaviour, moderates parental stress and improves maternal mental health indicators.
Different professionals across a variety of settings from Early Care and Education Centres to Child Welfare Services, and the Public Health Sector, have found the Touchpoints training to be effective in their work with parents, babies and children.
Touchpoints-informed practice offers opportunities for providers to support parents in understanding and responding to their child’s behaviour and strengths. This enhances family-child relationships, which is critical to a child’s social-emotional development and the mental health of the family.
Training in the Touchpoints Model
The individual level training is a two-day course. It explains and illustrates the Touchpoints, identifying the moments of regression before a developmental spurt. It includes learning practical and relational techniques to support parents in their efforts to understand their baby and child. After the course, there are six follow-up mentoring sessions with the trainers by conference call.
See the Brazelton Touchpoints Website for more information. https://www.brazeltontouchpoints.org
