What is Nurturing Care?

To reach their full potential, children need the five inter-related and indivisible components of nurturing care: good health, adequate nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving and opportunities for learning.

In the first years of life, parents, intimate family members and caregivers are the closest to the young child and thus the best providers of Nurturing Care. This is why secure family environments are important for young children. In order to provide caregivers with time and resources to provide nurturing care, policies, services and community supports need to be in place.

Use the materials that follow to help you understand and explain the five nurturing care components. The materials are available as documents, jpgs and ppts.

A closer look at the nurturing care components
This 2-page document provides definitions of each nurturing care component and offers examples of interventions for each.

• French version: Zoom sur les composantes des soins attentifs.
• Spanish version: Aproximación a los componentes del cuidado cariñoso y sensible.

The five nurturing care components
This excerpt from the forthcoming Nurturing care handbook provides additional descriptions of the five nurturing care components.