VIPP-PUF stands for Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting – Psychological Development and Function (Danish: “Psykisk Udvikling og Funktion”). It is an initiative to be used in the participating municipalities after a start time that will be determined by drawing lots, and which will be compared to the health nurse’s usual care.
VIPP-PUF has been developed in a collaboration between researchers from Amsterdam and the Leiden University in the Netherlands, who are behind the VIPP initiative, and the Danish researchers behind the PUF method and the PUF programme.
The VIPP initiative is based on strengthening parents’ insight and understanding of the infant’s development and reactions, which is especially important when it comes to vulnerable infants. The VIPP initiative is relatively short-term compared to other initiatives, but at the same time the effectiveness of the initiative has been documented in more than 30 controlled scientific studies.
The VIPP-PUF initiative serves as a supplement to the PUF programme and is part of the existing municipal healthcare. The initiative addresses developmental vulnerability with regard to contact, communication, language development, motor development, regulation of concentration/attention and emotional expression as well as regulation of appetite, eating, and sleep.
The VIPP-PUF initiative is carried out by specially trained health nurses, who through small video recordings of the child playing and eating with one of the parents guide the parent in picking up the child’s signals and meeting his or her specific developmental needs in everyday life.
The initiative includes six home visits spread over approximately 14 weeks. When the programme is completed, the parents will get a complete story with pictures describing the experiences and the development the child and parents have been through together.
In the research project, the VIPP-PUF initiative is evaluated through interviews with health nurses and parents, and the effect is measured on the basis of parents’ answers to questionnaires.