SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG)
About This Program
Target Population: At-risk children and families, families in conflict, foster parents/children, and adoptive families
For children/adolescents ages: 0 – 17
For parents/caregivers of children ages: 0 – 17
Program Overview
SPIN VIG is a home visiting program that targets the relational skills of abusive/neglectful/at-risk parents. It can operate as a stand-alone program, or be integrated into existing parent education/support programs. The model is informed by attachment theory, theories of primary intersubjectivity, learning theory, and adult learning principles.
SPIN VIG was developed in the Netherlands in the early 1980s and disseminated across that country with ten years of government funding. SPIN Institutes, located in approximately ten countries in Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North America, including the US, oversee the model's fidelity and development.
SPIN VIG practitioners videotape parent-child interactions and offer strengths-based self-modeling feedback using carefully edited video samples of parents' successful interactions with their children. Interactions are analyzed, and feedback plans are designed, using a process that focuses on creating sustained patterns of successful interactions to improve relational skills and meet goals jointly developed by parent and practitioner within the context of broader program goals.
Guided by the SPIN VIG practitioner, parents are taught to:
- See their capacity to be "good" parents
- Identify and better use their strengths
- Build on those strengths to add new skills and accomplish parenting goals
- Adopt these patterns of behavior leading to healthy relationships, healthy attachment and good developmental outcomes for their children
Program Goals
The program representative did not provide information about the program’s goals.
Logic Model
The program representative did not provide information about a Logic Model for SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG).
Essential Components
The essential components of SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG) include:
- Addressing the relational difficulties and knowledge deficits that underlie a wide range of problems and symptoms that are seen in child welfare settings
- Having plan interventions based on program specific goals as well as "helping questions" developed or articulated by the parents: concerns, child behaviors, or problems that the parent identifies as important
- Identifying deficits and skills that address the helping question and respond to clinically significant concerns
- Focusing on building successful patterns of contact, interaction, communication, and conflict management in families that support healthy attachment and strong developmental outcomes for their children
- Creating positive self-modeling videotapes that highlight positive moments in family interactions and that respond to helping question and practitioner concerns; children are present during taping sessions
- Presenting positive self-modeling videotapes to parents; parents view carefully edited video self-models that exemplify (or approximate) themselves making successful resolutions of problems and children may be present during feedback
- Addressing problems and risks using SPIN's operationalization of strengths-based intervention; older children and adolescents may receive separate coaching sessions
- Integrating content of parent education program with strengths-based interaction coaching; targeted problems and symptoms are replaced as relational skills improve; parent confidence and motivation toward success increase; and children's ongoing growth and developmental needs are understood and supported
- Being delivered by staff who receives regular video feedback coaching during an 18-month apprenticeship
Program Delivery
Child/Adolescent Services
SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG) directly provides services to children/adolescents and addresses the following:
- Relational and attachment problems
Parent/Caregiver Services
SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG) directly provides services to parents/caregivers and addresses the following:
- Relational and attachment problems and to support healthy development of their children in every domain
Recommended Intensity:
Minimum is one hour per week. Can be more often if program into which model is integrated requires more frequent contact.
Recommended Duration:
Average, 20-30 weeks (approximately 6 months); which is partially determined by program into which the model is implemented
Delivery Settings
This program is typically conducted in a(n):
- Adoptive Home
- Birth Family Home
- Foster / Kinship Care
- Outpatient Clinic
- Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
- Group or Residential Care
Homework
SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG) includes a homework component:
Parents are guided to reflect on the specific video-taped examples of their use of selected behaviors (self-modeling) to create positive interactions with their families and support their child's(ren's) healthy development and to continue evoking these moments by continuing to use those behaviors throughout the intervening week before the next visit.
Languages
SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG) has materials available in a language other than English:
Spanish
For information on which materials are available in this language, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).
Resources Needed to Run Program
The typical resources for implementing the program are:
- Camera set (video camera, tripod, wide angle lens, carrying case)
- Laptop computer
Manuals and Training
Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications
- Paraprofessionals accepted, Bachelor's and/or Master's level preferred
- Nomination from employer
- Support of immediate supervisor
Manual Information
There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.
Training Information
There is training available for this program.
Training Contact:
- Sarah Guidi, Program Coordinator
sguidi@spinusa.org
phone: (781) 652-0710
Training Type/Location:
Provided on-site by a program National Trainer
Number of days/hours:
98 hours over 18 months (3-day training Intro course followed by monthly individualized and group coaching)
Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research
The following studies were not included in rating SPIN VIG on the Scientific Rating Scale...
Weiner, A., Kuppermintz, H., & Guttman, D. (1994). Video home training (the Orion Project): A short-term preventive and treatment intervention for families with young children. Family Process, 33(4), 441–453. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.1994.00441.x
The purpose of the study was to determine whether the Orion Video Home-Training Project [now called SPIN Video Interaction Guidance (SPIN VIG)] could be provided through local welfare departments as a routine treatment alternative. Participants were either a part of the Orion Video Home Training Project, or a control group. Measures utilized include a study developed questionnaire that assessed eight positive interactions. Results indicate that only the Orion Video Home Training Project families showed significant gains in all the eight areas of positive parent-child communication that are the focus of the program, which is based on reinforcing potential family strengths. These gains were generally sustained 6 months after program completion. There were several background variables, such as family status, income, health, education and employment, that influenced the extent of family gains. Limitations include the lack of randomization and a lack of standardized measures. Note: This article was not used in the rating process due to criteria on the Scientific Rating Scale which requires that outcome measures be reliable and valid, and administered consistently and accurately across all subjects.
Additional References
Brooks, J. (2008). Video interaction guidance: A practitioner's perspective, Community Practitioner, 81(9), 21-24.
Fukkink, R. (2008) Video Feedback in widescreen: A meta-analysis of family programs. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 904-916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2008.01.003.
Pease, T., Colpa, A., Proulx, G., & Boss, J. (2004). Using technology in consultation: Enhancing relationships. Zero To Three, 24(6), 20-24.
Contact Information
- Sarah Guidi
- Title: Program Coordinator
- Agency/Affiliation: SPIN USA, Inc. National Training Institute
- Website: www.spinusa.org
- Email: sguidi@spinusa.org
- Phone: (781) 652-0710
- Fax: (781) 652-0711
Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: July 2025
Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: May 2013
Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: December 2009
