February 20, 2025
The Supporting Early Minds team were joined for their February webinar by Dr Jenifer Wakelyn and Professor Vaso Totsika to discuss their Watch Me Play! approach.
The Watch Me Play! approach is a way of supporting parents or carers with their babies or young children. It is a simple intervention aimed at zero to eight year olds. It promotes child-led play, individual attention from care-givers and discussions with children about their play.
Jenifer Wakelyn and Vaso Totsika shared the timeline of the intervention from its first usage as a ‘multi-factorial early intervention’ to support babies and young children in care or in transition and their care-givers and professional networks. Around 600 professionals have since been trained in delivering the approach and it has been the subject of two separate professional doctorates in child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
In this approach, parents or carers watch their baby or child playing and talk with them about their play for between five and twenty minutes, twice a week, or more often if possible.
They key ideas shared in this session were
The approach has been used by a wide range of professionals including nursery nurses, occupational therapists and health visitors; early years support workers, family support workers, foster carers, social workers, contact supervisors, teachers, teaching assistants, clinical psychologists, educational psychologists, assistant psychologists, child and adolescent psychotherapists. It has also been adopted in various other countries.
Professor Vaso Totsika shared two feasibility studies on Watch Me Play! with families of young children at risk of developing mental health problems. Specifically, the Watch Me Play! approach was being used as an early intervention for children experiencing developmental delays. This is an umbrella term for conditions with onset in early development which affect the physical, learning, language or behavioural functioning of the child (approx 1 in 6 children). These delays may include global developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism, and others.
Children with developmental delays are at a higher risk of behaviour or mental health problems. Insecure or disorganised attachments are more likely as is a negative parent-child relationship. It is therefore a global priority to create interventions that support and improve parent-child relationships quality and which in turn may improve a range of child developmental outcomes.
The feasibility study set out to answer the following questions:
Participants were recruited through charities that support families of children with developmental delays. The children were all aged 0-6 and had confirmed or suspected development delay. These were including but not limited to global developmental delay, intellectual disability, Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, or autism spectrum disorder.
Of the 38 parents who expressed an interest, 15 consented to participate and 12 completed follow-up data. This was a 39.5% recruitment rate and 80% retention rate. The parents were usually female and the children were all male. In terms of completing the intervention, 4 participants dropped out, citing a lack of time, lack of childcare for their child’s siblings, or child illness. 53% of participants reach completion criterion within 5 weeks and 73% reached it within 7 weeks.
As far as engaging with the Watch Me Play! approach, participants cited barriers such as environmental distractions around the home, lack of childcare for their child’s siblings, and their own (the parents’) expectations of their children’s abilities. The factors which facilitated their participation were the online delivery which was more convenient and flexible, the regular practitioner feedback, and their own attitudes that the intervention was beneficial.
As they reflected upon how the Watch Me Play! approach worked specifically with children who had developmental disability, parents mentioned a greater understanding of their child through noticing more. They spoke of gaining ‘an insight into his thought processes’. They referred to ‘taking a step back and noticing ‘there is a lot more going on there’, despite [name] not being verbal’. Another said ‘we’ve learned a lot about [name] as well, we thought she can’t do this or she won’t be able to do this, but she can, she can’.
They also mentioned that the approach had helped them to gain a greater acceptance of the child’s additional needs. One parent said ‘I think just watching him and accepting certain things along the way helped me quite a bit to be honest’. Another parent said ‘That one to one time made me come to that realisation. He’s still a baby. He still needs love. He still needs the attention’.
The parents also reported that they were able to follow the checklist to carry out the Watch Me Play! approach remotely. Some parents also reported positive feedback around the remote set up as their children were more relaxed in the home setting. Others reported that the screen element was difficult and made it harder to connect with their child. The total cost of Watch Me Play! facilitated sessions per case was around £209 and £495.
It was found that recruitment and retention were both better when Watch Me Play! was offered as a universal targeted prevention. Adherence to Watch Me Play! was excellent although a slightly longer time frame was needed. Hybrid is the mode which seems to be most helpful although negotiation with families and being flexible to the children’s needs is crucial.
Links for further information:
Watch Me Play! – Manual for Parents
Paper discussed in the webinar:
Randell, L., Nollett, C, Henley, J., Smallman, K., Johnson, S., Meister, McNamara, R, Wilkins, D., Segrott, J., Casbard, A., Wakelyn, J., McKay, K., Bordea, E., L. Totsika, V., Kennedy, E., (2024) Pilot and Feasibility Studies Watch Me Play!, Protocol for a feasibility study of a remotely-delivered intervention to promote mental health resilience for children (age 0-8) across UK Early Years and Children’s Services. https://pilotfeasibilitystudies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40814-024-01491-7
Book:
Wakelyn, J. (2020) Therapeutic Approaches with Babies and Young Children in Care: Observation and Attention (Karnac/Routledge). ISBN 978-1-782-20438-1
You can watch the webinar in full on the Supporting Early Minds website.
Or, to find out more about infant mental health and book a place on an upcoming Supporting Early Minds webinar visit: Webinars – Supporting Early Minds (mhid.org.uk)