The Watch Me Play! approach: learning from practice, training and research

This article reviews learning from practice, training and research over the last six years in work with families using Watch Me Play! (WMP). WMP is an applied approach first developed to promote understanding of the needs of babies and young children in care, now more widely used to support parent-infant or parent-child relationships and child development. Key principles of the approach are child-led play, one-to-one attention and sharing reflections about a child’s play. Challenges that each stage of the approach may present for practitioners are explored. The contribution of reflective small group discussion to the work of practitioners is illustrated using composite vignettes taken from work in perinatal and children’s services in the UK.