Touchpoints Touches Baby TALK

(from Baby TALK Dialogue, Spring 1996)

Baby TALK and all the people associated with it are being touched by a project originating from Boston-the Touchpoints Model. The Touchpoints Model is a project designed by renowned pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and the staff at Boston Children's Hospital.

"Touchpoints is about making relationships with families which enable practitioners to support them in the nurture of their young children by providing anticipatory guidance about the predictable challenges of the early years of life," says Claudia Quigg, executive director of Baby TALK.

This year, Decatur will serve as a field test site for the Touchpoints Project. The Boston staff will work closely with Baby TALK to gain early feedback from parents. The association seems only natural since the Touchpoints approach is so similar to the approach Baby TALK has taken all along.

Claudia and Dr. Jan Mandernach, Baby TALK researcher, spent a week in Boston training in the Touchpoints approach. "It was wonderful to be able to exchange ideas and learn from people who are experts in the field about facilitating good relationships between parent and child," says Jan. "Not only did it affirm what Baby TALK is already doing, but it was exciting to toss around new ideas with this group of creative people about ways to enhance relationships. In many programs we share the same problems, such as very limited amounts of time to establish relationships whether in the pediatrician's office or in a Baby TALK hospital visit."
"It was exhausting and exhilarating," Claudia reports, "and a high point of my professional life. It reaffirms to me that I am in the most exciting field of work that anyone could be in."

"We hope that Touchpoints will make Baby TALK even more effective in working with parents," adds Claudia. "We are eager to share what we have learned and have already incorporated some information into our professional training workshop. Down the road we may try to hold refresher workshops for people who have come to earlier workshops. We are open to suggestions on ways we can share this information."

Two things excite Claudia most about the Touchpoints Model. "Outside of Decatur, it is exciting to see that the finest minds working in children's pediatric medicine have come to the conclusion that making relationships with families is the most important thing to think about," she says. "This truth is more important than other agendas. Locally, it is exciting that some of the ideas we have learned will help deepen relationships that we have with our families here."

During this year, while serving as a field test site for the Touchpoints Project, Decatur will provide Boston with early feedback to help in the continuing creation of this model. Two other communities-Greenville, South Carolina and Napa Valley, California-also are serving as field test sites. Specifically how Touchpoints will affect Baby TALK programs is not totally clear, but it definitely will have an influence on all aspects of Baby TALK. "Our challenge this year is to find ways to incorporate this new knowledge about developing relationships with parents into our current programs," says Jan.

"Touchpoints will affect everything that we do because it is so related to the core of Baby TALK. Imagine Baby TALK as a very rich painting done in pastels. With Touchpoints, some of those colors will brighten. It doesn't change Baby TALK, but rather gives it more depth and a wider perspective."