: One Plus One 'Baby Clues' Game

[Guest guest]



Dear All

I had an email from Penny Mansfield about this yesterday also. I will paste the infomratin below Penny sent. It certainly sounds like an excellent resource, please circulate to interested colleauges. See orginal email from Liz Mcintyre below

Baby Clues, which can be played by expectant/new mums and dads together or separately, aims to help parents understand the gestures, movements and expressions that babies make from birth to indicate their needs. It also aims to empower parents by giving them support and insights on their relationship with each other.

It’s been developed by charity One Plus One, the UK’s leading relationship research organisation and can be found on Thecoupleconnection.net – the highly popular website from One Plus One which offers parents and couples ‘do-it-yourself’ relationship support.

The essence of Baby Clues is early intervention, giving every child the best start in life.

The foundations of almost every aspect of human development – physical, intellectual and emotional – are laid in pregnancy and the early years of a child’s life.* In the last decade, findings from neuroscience show that the earliest relationships shape the baby’s nervous system and the development of the brain.

Babies can’t talk but they can communicate. Being able to ‘read’ the clues babies are giving is part of building a strong relationship with them.

Baby Clues is the outcome of a pilot project where One Plus One and the Brazelton Centre combined their knowledge on parental relationships and infant development in training health practitioners; health practitioners stressed the value of putting that knowledge into the hands of mothers and fathers directly. Being able to listen, notice, acknowledge and respond in a nurturing way, is essential to building and maintaining good relationships.

At the heart of the game is sound know-how about nurturing babies which is presented in a fun and novel way. Evie, the cartoon baby, invites parents to take a few minutes –side by side – to get to know her. Together with Evie’s feedback and video content showing a real baby, parents can work out their own baby’s unique way of communicating with them.

The game also challenges couples in a light-hearted and engaging way to answer questions about each other, to underline the importance of communication between couples before and after a baby’s birth.

Penny Mansfield, director at One Plus One, explained more about the thinking behind the launch, “We know from our extensive research that becoming parents can have a major impact on a couple’s relationship. This is where there’s a paradox. While a strong relationship between their mum and dad is good for babies, it seems that their arrival can disrupt or even weaken the relationship that should cradle their early lifeâ€.

“The demands of caring for a new baby, while working and suffering from sleep deprivation result in exhaustion and stress. In spite of this, parents are highly motivated to do the best for their baby. Good communication is more important than ever and that’s where we step in, by providing support for new parents and helping them stay together.â€

During the development of the game, it was tested by health professionals and parents-to-be and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was particularly interesting to see how many men tried out Baby Clues. Men feature strongly too on One Plus One’s relationship support website Thecoupleconnection.net where approximately 30% of users are men.

Baby Clues meets many of the coalition government’s priorities for big society, providing low-cost, effective services for the public. It also helps meet the objective set by the Children and Families Ministerial Task Force to provide relationship support and help avoid family breakdown. In the words of Nick Clegg, “As a society we need to say it’s ok to ask for help soonerâ€.

This work is supported by the Department for Education as part of its investment in Families and Relationships.

* Marmot Review, Fair Society, Healthy Lives: A Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England Post-2010, published February 2010

Kind regards

Best wishesMaggie

For information, forwarded on behalf of Liz:I work on the Practice Development team at One Plus One and wanted to let you know about our new online ‘Baby Clues’ game, which helps new parents to read their baby’s clues (given in gestures, movements etc) to enhance communication between both mums and dads and their babies. It also has an aspect of encouraging parents to look after their couple relationship during this time - taking care of baby can ‘take over’ and the couple relationship decline. The web access to the game is www.babyclues.org.uk. It is FREE to access, and has just been launched after successful trials with groups of parents.Best regardsLizLiz McIntyrePractice Development and Training Acting ManagerOne Plus One1 StreetLondonEC1M 5QGTel: 0207 553 9530 Fax: 0207 553 9555www.oneplusone.org.ukDear All

I had an email from Penny Mansfield about this yesterday also. I will paste the infomratin below Penny sent. It certainly sounds like an excellent resource, please circulate to interested colleauges.

Baby Clues, which can be played by expectant/new mums and dads together or separately, aims to help parents understand the gestures, movements and expressions that babies make from birth to indicate their needs. It also aims to empower parents by giving them support and insights on their relationship with each other.

It’s been developed by charity One Plus One, the UK’s leading relationship research organisation and can be found on Thecoupleconnection.net – the highly popular website from One Plus One which offers parents and couples ‘do-it-yourself’ relationship support.

The essence of Baby Clues is early intervention, giving every child the best start in life.

The foundations of almost every aspect of human development – physical, intellectual and emotional – are laid in pregnancy and the early years of a child’s life.* In the last decade, findings from neuroscience show that the earliest relationships shape the baby’s nervous system and the development of the brain.

Babies can’t talk but they can communicate. Being able to ‘read’ the clues babies are giving is part of building a strong relationship with them.

Baby Clues is the outcome of a pilot project where One Plus One and the Brazelton Centre combined their knowledge on parental relationships and infant development in training health practitioners; health practitioners stressed the value of putting that knowledge into the hands of mothers and fathers directly. Being able to listen, notice, acknowledge and respond in a nurturing way, is essential to building and maintaining good relationships.

At the heart of the game is sound know-how about nurturing babies which is presented in a fun and novel way. Evie, the cartoon baby, invites parents to take a few minutes –side by side – to get to know her. Together with Evie’s feedback and video content showing a real baby, parents can work out their own baby’s unique way of communicating with them.

The game also challenges couples in a light-hearted and engaging way to answer questions about each other, to underline the importance of communication between couples before and after a baby’s birth.

Penny Mansfield, director at One Plus One, explained more about the thinking behind the launch, “We know from our extensive research that becoming parents can have a major impact on a couple’s relationship. This is where there’s a paradox. While a strong relationship between their mum and dad is good for babies, it seems that their arrival can disrupt or even weaken the relationship that should cradle their early lifeâ€.

“The demands of caring for a new baby, while working and suffering from sleep deprivation result in exhaustion and stress. In spite of this, parents are highly motivated to do the best for their baby. Good communication is more important than ever and that’s where we step in, by providing support for new parents and helping them stay together.â€

During the development of the game, it was tested by health professionals and parents-to-be and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was particularly interesting to see how many men tried out Baby Clues. Men feature strongly too on One Plus One’s relationship support website Thecoupleconnection.net where approximately 30% of users are men.

Baby Clues meets many of the coalition government’s priorities for big society, providing low-cost, effective services for the public. It also helps meet the objective set by the Children and Families Ministerial Task Force to provide relationship support and help avoid family breakdown. In the words of Nick Clegg, “As a society we need to say it’s ok to ask for help soonerâ€.

This work is supported by the Department for Education as part of its investment in Families and Relationships.

* Marmot Review, Fair Society, Healthy Lives: A Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England Post-2010, published February 2010

Kind regards

Best wishesMaggie

[pafsinterestgroup] One Plus One 'Baby Clues' Game

For information, forwarded on behalf of Liz:I work on the Practice Development team at One Plus One (which Nina will remember working with I hope) and wanted to let you know about our new online ‘Baby Clues’ game, which helps new parents to read their baby’s clues (given in gestures, movements etc) to enhance communication between both mums and dads and their babies. It also has an aspect of encouraging parents to look after their couple relationship during this time - taking care of baby can ‘take over’ and the couple relationship decline. The web access to the game is www.babyclues.org.uk. It is FREE to access, and has just been launched after successful trials with groups of parents.Best regardsLizLiz McIntyrePractice Development and Training Acting ManagerOne Plus One1 StreetLondonEC1M 5QGTel: 0207 553 9530 Fax: 0207 553 9555www.oneplusone.org.uk