Touchpoints

Touchpoints is an interdisciplinary relational model of healthcare primarily used with parents and young children. The underlying premise of this approach is to support the parent-child relationship during the health encounter by enhancing parents' efforts to optimize their child's physical and psychological development and by building strong family-child relationships from before birth through the earliest years, laying the foundation for children's healthy development.

To strengthen families of young children and the systems of care that surround them so that all children will be successful early learners and have the opportunity to thrive, regardless of their cultural, socioeconomic, physical, psychological, emotional health, or environmental challenges.

Touchpoints is a nationally recognized approach to working with families. In a study of nurse practitioners, those who used this approach in practice found they are able to connect quickly to the parents' most urgent concerns for their child. A pediatric nurse practitioner program that used this program as an underlying framework allowed students a holistic view of families by focusing the curriculum more directly on development and relationships. Students were able to build a relationship with parents and join them in the care of their child. This produces an atmosphere in the health encounter of mutual respect and trust. Parents leave the encounter feeling satisfied their concern for their child has been heard and questions have been seriously discussed; students leave feeling competent and valued by their patients. Touchpoints provides a model for teaching and demonstrating the development of interpersonal relationships by using the language of the child's behavior.