Season’s Greetings from Pikler UK

As the year ends, at Pikler UK we are reflecting on a successful year despite the ongoing challenges that we all face today. Our team has worked hard to bring education and development to our members and the community. We're making great progress in creating a new organisational outlook for Pikler UK and feeling full of enthusiasm for all that will bring. As we say goodbye to 2023, we’re anticipating a new year of developing our team and membership while continuing to provide training, events and education for all.

Annual Conference

October was a very busy month. We began with our Annual Conference, with guest speakers Eszter Mózes, Kriszti Rózsa and our own Julia Manning-Morton. The focus was on the importance of observation in the day-to-day work of caregivers working with children outside the home. Our speakers inspired us with their own professional experiences and research, sharing video and images to highlight their own observations and case studies. We followed this with afternoon workshops and, from the feedback, we know that the day was enjoyed by all who attended.

Huge apologies go to those who attempted to join us online. Despite working hard to make this work, we were faced with technical difficulties and we’re very sorry for the disruption this may have caused.

Pikler Training in London

Following on from the Conference, we hosted a week of Basic Level Pikler Training at the Linden Children’s Centre in London. It was a wonderful week of exploration into the subject of The Autonomous Play Activity. Eszter and Kriszti remained with us for the week, ably assisted by Alex Kajtar, fondly known as ‘the voice of Pikler’ to those who have appreciated his interpretation skills over the years.

Next Training Registrations Live

The next training week will be in February 2024 and details of the course and how to book are now on our website. We’ll be looking at the topic of Respectful Care and the Relationship with the Adult with two more esteemed teachers from Budapest - Szilvia Papp and Judit Kelemen.

Places are limited and it’s coming soon after the upcoming seasonal break, so please do express your interest in this course as soon as possible.

Presentations at Nursery World Conference

Julia Manning-Morton was a keynote speaker at this year’s event held in London. It was an interesting line-up of presenters, all focusing on physical development. Julia spoke about the complexity of physical development in the first three years and introduced the Piklerian idea of naturally unfolding motor development, considering physical development as a central component of the web of development. It was a very well received presentation and the topics were further explored in a workshop given by Karolina Joiner and Rachel Tapping from Pikler UK.

Read a review of the conference HERE.

Charitable Status

We’ve spent a lot of time and energy on this this year, bringing the committee face-to-face on several occasions to go through the minutiae of what is quite a complicated process. The work has been very good for us as an organisation, making us really focus on what it is that we want to achieve in the short and longer term. We’re not quite there yet, but we hope that we will be able to submit our documents for CIO status by the spring of 2024.

The process has been led by Gillian Reece-Jones, a member of our management committee, and she has put in many long hours of work to make sure that we cross every t and dot every i. We’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the immense work that she has done already and to thank her for her commitment and dedication.

Thank you Gilly!

Once the process has been completed, we will be contacting existing members with a new membership offer and hope that many more of you will join us to further the work of Pikler UK and to support the many practitioners, parents and children who can benefit from the teachings of Dr Emmi Pikler.

And finally…

This year has been full of conflict across the world, with little in the way of resolutions. Ute Strub once said that peace begins on the changing table. In such discordant times, respectful, peaceful approaches to caring for children, honouring their individuality and encouraging their autonomy, can only help to bring about more harmony for future generations. This holiday season brings all of this into focus and we hope that, however you choose to mark it, you’ll be able to rest, recuperate and enjoy the company of good friends and family.

With warm wishes for a peaceful New Year,

Catherine, Christine, Gilly, Karolina, Julia, Rachel and Tom - The Pikler UK Management Committee