Video interaction guidance

Video interaction guidance (VIG) is a video feedback intervention through which a “guider” helps a client to enhance communication within relationships. The client is guided to analyse and reflect on video clips of their own interactions. Applications include a caregiver and infant (often used in attachment-based therapy), and other education and care home interactions. VIG is used in more than 15 countries and by at least 4000 practitioners. Video Interaction Guidance has been used where concerns have been expressed over possible parental neglect in cases where the focus child is aged 2–12, and where the child is not the subject of a child protection plan.

Colwyn Trevarthen, a Professor at Edinburgh University, studied successful interactions between infants and their primary care givers, and found that the mother's responsiveness to her baby's initiatives supported and developed intersubjectivity (shared understanding), which he regarded as the basis of all effective communication, interaction and learning. In the 1980s Harry Biemans, in the Netherlands, applied this research using video clips, creating VIG.

Research results include that VIG enhances positive parenting skills, decreases/alleviates parental stress, increases parenting enjoyment, improves parental attitudes to parenting, and is related to more positive development of the children, although the effect at child-level is reduced in high-risk families. One study found an increase in sensitivity of mothers but no impact on infant attachment. VIG has also been found to increase the child sensitivity of teachers. The limitations of the experimental studies undertaken so far, such as their small number of subjects, are acknowledged, and more research is needed.

Research linking VIG use to better subsequent long-term mental health of the child has not been published, but parenting is a causal risk factor for mental illness, and some mental health NGO's are pursuing programmes on expectation of a positive link.

Video Interaction Guidance has been used where concerns have been expressed over possible parental neglect in cases where the focus child is aged 2–12, and where the child is not the subject of a child protection plan. Am evaluation of the project demonstrated that VIG produced a significant change in the emotional and behavioural difficulties of the population of children who received the service, and improvement in reported level of parenting and reported parental relationship with their children in the population of parents whose children received the service. The data excludes to parents who failed to complete the programme, parents who completed the programme but decided not to complete evaluation measures, and on some measures parents who completed measures but whose feedback was adjudged to have been positively biased. Parents also reported developing a better understanding of the following aspects of good parenting:

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