The Nurturing Programme

The Nurturing Programme

Background

Impact

Benefits

The Nurturing Programme is a well-established programme offering 10-week courses for parents and for children in Early Years settings and Schools. It provides numerous effective approaches to develop emotional literacy - a key ingredient for healthy relationships - in adults and children. Family Links provides training courses in the Nurturing Programme for multi-agency professionals across the UK who want to introduce the Programme in their area. Click to read Personal Accounts from people who Family Links have worked with.

The Nurturing Programme promotes emotional health in adults and in children. Everyone is born with emotional intelligence - it's a capacity wired into the brain. How this capacity develops is a person's emotional literacy, and this depends on the kind of relationships they have, initially with the adults caring for them. Emotional literacy leads to emotional health; emotional health helps us fulfil our potential in every aspect of life.

Background to the Nurturing Programme

The Nurturing Programme was developed as a result of research undertaken in the United States in the late 1970s by Dr Stephen J. Bavolek, working at the Kempe Institute for Child Abuse and Neglect in Denver, Colorado. He identified four unhelpful, destructive attitudes that were common to troubled families. Turning these on their heads led him to establish the Four Constructs as the building blocks of the Nurturing Programme. Dr Bavolek has granted an exclusive licence to Family Links to develop the Nurturing Programme in the UK. To find out more about Dr Bavolek's research and the Nurturing Programme in the United States, go to www.nurturingparenting.com.

Impact of the Nurturing Programme

The Nurturing Programme supports positive behaviour in children, and goes much further than that by exploring the emotional needs behind their behaviour. Research, particularly in the neurosciences, increasingly reflects the importance of Dr Bavolek's visionary approach. Adults help to shape children's brains: empathic relationships in childhood have a radical effect on the developing brain, most crucially on the way we learn to manage our emotions and to become sensitive in the way we relate to others - both key factors in the way we behave, and an important contributor to lifelong health and well-being.

Another essential element in the success of the Programme is the quality of relationship offered to adults who attend Family Links courses. The emotional health of anyone caring for children or supporting those who care for them is also of paramount importance. The training demonstrates the Four Constructs in action in the way trainers facilitate, as well as exploring Programme topics and approaches. Staff in Early Years settings and Schools enhance their skills by adopting these same principles in their work with children, and parents are encouraged to do the same. The Programme benefits both adults and children in many ways.

The Nurturing Programme activities for both adults and children address what we think (cognition) and what we do (behaviour); these approaches are underpinned by an awareness of the important part played by emotion (affect).

Nurturing Programme sessions are carefully designed to reflect different learning styles. They are structured so that each session is both self-contained and links to other sessions to produce a coherent whole. Detailed handbooks and other resources support the work of trainers, staff and other facilitators.

Benefits of the Nurturing Programme

The Programme benefits both adults and children by:

• promoting emotional literacy and emotional health
• raising self-esteem
• developing communication and social skills
• teaching positive ways to resolve conflict
• providing effective strategies to encourage co-operative,
  responsible behaviour and managing challenging behaviour in children
• offering insights into the influence of feelings on behaviour
• encouraging adults to take time to look after themselves