Backdrop

Backdrop is an interactive 'Draw & Tell' app designed to enable and enhance professional communication with children.

Most professionals who work with children have their preferred drawing tasks and activities, many of which depend on an image or Backdrop upon which children draw and write.  Now you can recreate those activities by making a Backdrop to suit your specific task.  Backdrops can be imported, or customised within the app.  We have provided a few to give you some ideas, but your needs and creativity will determine how you use this app.

You can reuse and adapt Backdrops you have created, and save the results of children’s drawing and writing.  

The iPad is a perfect tool for professionals working with children. It is unobtrusive, and easily introduced into sessions. It also engages children positively and greatly enhances rapport. This is particularly important for those who work with children therapeutically or for the purposes of assessment with respect to difficult or stressful issues.  However, although children are pleased to interact with a tablet, there is a risk that it might act as a distraction, moving the focus away from the intended work of the session.

Backdrop (and the other apps from C & FT) addresses this difficulty. Simply by interacting with a carefully designed backdrop and child friendly tools, children can work together with a professional to communicate  and support a verbal narrative on a specific topic.  They can make statements about their personal experiences, wishes or feelings.   The product of the work of a child can be saved as ‘snapshot’ at any time, to be printed for the child to keep, or for the professional to incorporate into a report.  Entirely new backdrops can be created, saved and reused.