Nurturing childcare centres provide a safe and supportive environment for infants, toddlers, parents, grandparents and caregivers. These environments are potent contexts for children’s learning. In promoting child growth and development, health and social care, policies must address the underlying drivers of structural disadvantages, such as dismantling racism and adopting a holistic, family-centred approach.
To unlock their full potential, young children need the five interrelated and indivisible components of nurturing care: good health, optimal nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving and learning opportunities. For professional nurturing childcare centre services, click here.
Nurturing Environment
Nurturing environments provide the foundations that children need to reach their developmental potential. It includes stable environments that are sensitive to children’s health and nutrition needs, protect them from threats, and provide opportunities for learning through emotionally supportive and responsive relationships.
These settings also help children feel safe and secure, allowing them to develop trust and open up. It can be done by ensuring the environment is clean and organised and limiting exposure to harmful stimuli. It is also essential to encourage children to talk about their feelings by asking open-ended questions.
The key to building a public health movement that increases the prevalence of nurturing environments is a shared vision of their value. Just as society mobilised to combat cigarette smoking by creatively marshalling growing evidence of its harm, we can do the same for the benefit of nurturing environments. It will involve educating the public and critical institutions about the positive impact that they can have.
Nurturing Care
Children need nurturing care to promote healthy development in the first years of life. It includes safe and healthy environments, good nutrition, adequate health care, responsive caregiving, opportunities for learning and emotionally supportive relationships.
Efforts to improve the quality of nurturing care must be broad-based and coordinated. It will require a holistic approach integrating services for families with children and outreach to the most vulnerable. In addition, policies and programmes must focus on the needs of the whole child, including those with disabilities and those living in conflict situations and displaced communities. The Nurturing Care Framework, developed by WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank Group, sets out a road map for action, drawing on best practices in high-, middle- and low-income countries.
Nurturing Relationships
Children need nurturing care, a set of practices that shapes the quality of their development and early learning. Boosting care can be applied in many settings – family, childcare, pre-school, education and the wider community. It must include outreach and sensitivity to vulnerable children, especially as conflict situations intensify and families are separated.
The best way to nurture a child is to establish regular eating, study and play routines. It gives the child security by knowing what to expect and allows them some control over their environment. Having a range of adults in a child’s life is essential, providing varying experiences and relationships. For professional nurturing childcare centre services, click here.
Nurturing Opportunities
We need to make a holistic shift in how we think about the care of young children. It is time to embrace the principles of nurturing care, a framework for guiding early childhood development and enabling children’s full human potential.
This framework is based on the bioecological theory of human development and principles of relational developmental systems. It focuses on the interrelated components of healthy eating and active living, safety and security, responsive, caring relationships and quality early learning. It requires a whole-of-society approach, including governments, families, communities and service providers, and a coordinated, multisectoral life course approach with practical implementation and monitoring.
The framework is particularly relevant in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where family income, household assets and access to social protection are often limited. These constraints disproportionately impact the ability of families to provide nurturing care. In promoting child growth and development, health and social care, policies must address the underlying drivers of structural disadvantages, such as dismantling racism and adopting a holistic, family-centred approach.