History of the Nurturing Programme
The Nurturing Programme was developed by American child psychologist Dr Stephen J Bavolek in the 1970s. It was based on his PhD research into highly dysfunctional and abusive family interactions at the Kempe Institute for Child Abuse and Neglect in Denver, Colorado.
Bavolek identified four destructive parental behaviour patterns and developed the Nurturing Programme to counter these.
Self-awareness and self-esteem; if these are boosted in the parent, he or she will be much more open to making changes that improve family life for all
Empathy; understanding and imagining how someone else feels. Empathy is the cornerstone of stable, calm, kind relationships
Appropriate expectations of each child’s individual development
Positive discipline strategies to motivate children who are already behaving well and to modify undesirable behaviour with ideas such as praise, choices & consequences, rewarding a child for effort and fair, firm, kind, consistent boundaries
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These building blocks form the bedrock of the Nurturing Programme, which has helped thousands of families to raise emotionally healthy children and break intergenerational patterns of abuse, neglect and family dysfunction.
In 1997, Dr Bavolek granted an exclusive licence to Family Links to develop the Nurturing Programme in the UK. Since 2000, Family Links has disseminated the Nurturing Programme nationally, becoming a well-respected training organisation. Family Links has also developed a wide range of materials, some of it in other languages, for the UK market.
