THE SPIN^® APPROACH

ITS ORIGINS
In the mid 80’s, psychologist Harrie Biemans, and a team of colleagues from the Netherlands were searching for more effective approaches to child welfare practice. They became inspired by the work of ethologist Colwyn Trevarthen at Edinburgh University, who was studying successful interactions between infants and their mothers. He found that the mother’s responsiveness to her baby’s initiatives developed intersubjectivity, or their shared understanding, which is the basis of all effective communication, interaction and learning.

Biemans further developed these communication principles through video recordings of interactions and video feedback to achieve success with a group of youth in a residential facility in the Netherlands. The methodology has evolved from an application specifically geared to direct service to families, Video Home Training (VHT), to a second application for all other settings, Video Interaction Guidance (VIG).

THE BASIC CONTACT PRINCIPLES
Biemans recognized that the communication principles described by Trevarthen were reflected in the patterns of communication of well-functioning parents and child-care workers. Based on these observations, Biemans and his colleagues developed a schematic ladder of communication skills that they call “the Basic Contact Principles”. These principles are based on structures found in natural mother-infant communication and fall into four hierarchical clusters of skills that underlie any effective communication.

SPIN VIDEO HOME TRAINING^®
Video Home Training (VHT) is an innovative method we teach to social workers working directly with families. Direct care staff learns to use direct videotaped observation, detailed analysis of interaction and strengths-based feedback and coaching to strengthen families.

Video Home Training focuses on supporting parents in developing the qualities of responsive nurturing of their children that will support optimal learning and healthy social, emotional and cognitive development.

SPIN VIDEO INTERACTION GUIDANCE™
Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) provides similar strengths-based support for staff, practitioners, managers and supervisors in a variety of non-family settings, including classrooms, child, youth and family services, social service and child welfare agencies, foster care, and group homes.

Both methods are based on the understanding that warm, responsive, nurturing interactions are the key to healthy family life, and that the same experience underlies good practice in education and human service professions as well.