"This is a book to make you think, to challenge your ways of working, to force you to revisit what you believe about children and how best to help them. It grows out of Jim Roses deep understanding of the potential for nurture groups to transform the lives of many children, and it extends some of these ideas more widely."

Sir Paul Ennals

"Foster carers work with relationships daily and strive to build a positive attachment experience for children and young people whilst at the same time managing the sometimes conflicting needs of the regulatory system that governs the looked after system.
This book offers an insight into these issues and dilemmas and as such is an extremely useful contribution to understanding the complex nature of the essential work we do."

Jim Bond

Foster Carer and President, The Fostering Network






How Nurture Protects Children written by Jim Rose

Nurture and narrative in work with children, young people and families

How Nurture Protects Children is partly a critique of a culture where control prevails over welfare, regulation over professional judgement and protocol over process. It is also, however, an attempt to describe alternative ways of thinking about the nature of work with vulnerable children, young people and their families. In these models recognition of the importance of positive relationships is at the forefront of policy and practice whilst the education and training of professional workers is shaped by an emphasis on child development and the profound significance of attachment and nurture.

In a review for Children and Young People Now magazine (May 2010), Nick Dunster the central England Director of BAAF, wrote, How Nurture Protects Children is an impassioned plea for a return to the core values of social work with children. Rose makes a persuasive case for the central importance of practitioner discretion, the need for sustained and trusting relationships with children and the value of having a clear sense of the childs narrative. He also raises fundamental questions about the value of regulation and quality assurance.

Based on the authors work with the impressive Nurture Group Network, the book advocates a better understanding of the principles of attachment theory to inform our planning for children. Its certainly refreshing to read an analysis that places the nurture of each individual child above performance indicators.

This is an important and timely contribution to a debate that the profession needs to have.



About the Author

Jim Rose has worked in various social care settings with children, young people and their families since 1975 holding senior appointments in the local authority, voluntary and independent sectors.

From 1998 - 2001 Jim was Professional Adviser to HM Prison Service on the placement and management of young people sentenced to long-term custody for serious offences and also advised on the development of facilities for juveniles in the prison estate.

From January 2004 - December 2008 Jim was employed as Executive Director by The Nurture Group Network, leading the organisation through a period of considerable change and growth, pursuing its aims of promoting and supporting nurture groups in schools across the UK and overseas. He currently chairs three Fostering Panels for an independent fostering agency and has an interest in the training and support of foster carers.

Jim is renowned as a lively presenter at conferences and is the author of the well-reviewed book, Working with Young People in Secure Accommodation - From Chaos to Culture, published in 2002 by Brunner-Routledge.