Jackie:

In fact In-the-Picture has really helped us to focus on listening to the children and the children’s voice in a way, which has actually fitted in really well with all sorts of other aspects of the work that we are developing in the service. But I think it’s something that we quite often struggle to do effectively because so often we go in with our own agenda as to what we want to do with the child, the parent has their agenda and always bringing it back to the child is what we aim to do. But when you really analyse it, quite often it’s not as easy as you think, it’s quite hard to do sometimes. But where it’s working well it’s incredibly effective I think in making sure that we are following the child’s interest so that they’ve got optimum chance to learn really, rather than going off on portage work or parents’ agenda.

 

I think we, if I’m honest we didn’t stick with the In-the-Picture structure for very long. But I think as a team it really helped us to focus more on, hmm, I can’t think of the words. Oh the first-person narrative, I’m trying to think of the words that you use. But because we were describing things from the child’s point of view, so that immediately changes the way you observe something. So you’re not observing it as you, you’re trying to observe it as the child. And that has had a knock-on effect in other respects of our work. So, for instance, you know, it’s a bit way off, but it’s education health and care plans. Getting a child’s voice, being much clearer about what we mean by the child’s voice through I think better quality observation and trying to put ourselves in as the child and reflect there. So it’s helped in that.

 

I mean we’ve completely developed the use of photographs in our service; which didn’t exist before In-the-Picture. It has an aside been helped by better technology so we’ve got decent camera phones. But that was really good timing with also when In-the-Picture was introduced to our team. What we do on almost every home visit now is take photographs. The use of the photographs has been so useful for analysing in much more detail either what the child’s doing or what they’re interested in. And then it’s really helped us in our work with supporting parents to understand their children’s development, because we then sit and have the discussion with the parents looking at the different photographs and what we’re seeing in each photograph, so they’re noticing details that, as we are, which we would never notice if we hadn’t taken photographs.

 

We’ve got two families who don’t want any pictures of their children taken in any circumstances, but they are happy to have pictures of the toys and the objects. So we, their portage work, [unclear 0:03:36] and neither of them are families I’m working with, have done that from that to time and then used those photos in different ways, either to show the child’s progression or. One of the children we’re working with is a lot older but is unable to go to nursery for health reasons, and he is at a stage where he is now using those photos to make choices as to what he wants to play with and that sort of thing, where it’s the easiest way for him to communicate because he can point and he can eye point.

 

So what we did find worked really well with parents was they loved obviously to see the child using a toy or piece of equipment. So the pictures helped us to look at all sorts of things to do with how the child was interacting with that toy, or the positioning we were putting a child in to enable them, and it just massively made a difference to how parents looked at their child’s, well helped with their observations of their child really. And then looking at the, the parent could take a whole series of pictures on our cameras, and then reflecting with the parent about what they could see in each picture, what we were looking for that showed the child’s really good attention or concentration.

 

But I think those tiny still moments give a lot away. I think in the busyness of a portage session, it is hard sometimes to sit back and just observe, and observe in silence and then talk and reflect. Quite often there’s chat going on, have you seen this, oh look he’s just done that and. And too much talk and conversation I think often, I think it’s not great for the child and not ideal for the parent either. And I think the pictures gave a separate reflection time. Because so often portage workers come away, well, in my experience, feeling like it’s been quite hard to have a discussion. Because it’s sort of happening while you’re playing, and then the play gets interrupted because the parent starts talking, and actually you just want quiet while the child’s concentrating.

 

So actually sort of saying I think we want to plan the sessions a bit differently, we’re going to play for quarter of an hour or something and then we’re going, for as long as he wants to play; we’re going to take some pictures, then we’re going to take a break; we’re going to sit and talk a bit, and then we’ll maybe go back to play. And giving that structure, I mean we’ve only got an hour anyway, that structure helps. I can’t say it’s easy to adhere to all the time, because it really isn’t, and the children anyway don’t just decide they’re going to quietly play while you chat. But parents are fine about that. And I think it improves probably the quality of the discussions that we have.

 

I think probably we didn’t do that much of the pure first-person narratives. I think we thought about it, we talked about it quite a bit in team meetings and stuff, and I think it made us more aware of a good way to be working. And I think that’s what changed it. But I wouldn’t say we ever really perfected it. We didn’t practise it enough, if I’m honest. It just migrated into something else.

 

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