My name is Majbritt Vonsild, and I have worked with ill children in the hospital system. I graduated as a community health nurse in 2004 and have always been interested in applying initiatives that promote health and prevent disease in my work with families with children.
I have contributed to the development of the PUF programme, and since 2021 I have been associated with Infant Health as a project community health nurse. My tasks include teaching and supervision, and I am part of the development group behind the VIPP-PUF intervention for the most vulnerable children.
As a community health nurse, a very important core task for me is to prevent mental health problems and mental illness in children. I see the PUF programme as a unique systematic tool in practice to prevent mental health problems and mental illness in children from an early stage in life.
As a community health nurse, I have always been curious about methods and have learned about tools that can support children’s development and help parents relate to their infants who show signs of developmental vulnerabilities. In the work with the development of the VIPP-PUF intervention, it has been important to me that in the healthcare service we can offer support to the most vulnerable children in direct connection with a study that identifies developmental vulnerability.
I find that VIPP-PUF really is an eye-opener for parents to be able to see and understand the world from the child’s perspective and intentions; the child’s signals become clearer than the parents were able to perceive in daily life, and the VIPP-PUF method helps parents to realise how important they are and how they can strengthen their child’s development, emotions and experiences of intimacy, which increases attachment.
One of the most important things for me is that the VIPP-PUF method is based on the parents knowing their child best, while at the same time helping them to understand the child and being guided via the VIPP-PUF manual, with a focus on what strengthens the child’s development and health. Specifically, I have experienced how much more mutual attention, understanding and joy can arise between parent and child as a result of the VIPP-PUF approach: parents discover what a great explorer their child is, they gain awareness of what excites the child and what empowers the child’s further development.
In my experience, the VIPP-PUF intervention promotes parental awareness to see, understand and act on the child’s signals and needs. The knowledge the parents gain about how to best embrace and support the child via presence, learning and exploration greatly supports the child’s development both now and in the long term.
In my view, the VIPP-PUF method is a crucial innovation for the healthcare service, whereby parents are equipped to develop several strategies for sensitive development support and the upbringing of their child.