VIPP-PUF stands for Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting – Psychological Development and Function (in Danish: Psykisk Udvikling og Funktion). It is an initiative used in the research project Infant Health and which is compared to the community health nurse’s usual intervention.
VIPP-PUF has been developed in a collaboration between researchers from ISPA University in Portugal 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 their 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 service. The initiative directs developmental support to vulnerability in the child regarding 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 community health nurses. Through brief video recordings of the child playing and eating with one of the parents, the nurses guide the parent in recognising the child’s signals and meeting the child’s specific developmental needs in everyday life.
The initiative includes six home visits spread over approximately 14 weeks. When the programme is completed, the parents receive a complete account, including 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 community health nurses and parents, and the effect is measured on the basis of participating parents’ answers to questionnaires.