Sensitive and responsive parenting in the first 1,000 days: Nurturing Empowerment, Support and Training

This project aims to strengthen health and social professionals’ awareness, knowledge and skills to empower sensitive and responsive parenting (SRP) in vulnerable families during the first 1,000 d...

This project aims to strengthen health and social professionals’ awareness, knowledge and skills to empower sensitive and responsive parenting (SRP) in vulnerable families during the first 1,000 days. By combining evidence-based insights with lived experiences from professionals and parents, NEST develops tailored methods to effectively support professionals in order to improve early childhood development and parental wellbeing, and to yield long-term returns in human capital across generations.

NEST builds on local communities with professionals in family care and parents (1) to develop/pilot a hands-on toolbox with exercises to support and empower SRP in care encounters (2) and a training trajectory to upskill health and social professionals in integrating parent-infant mental health and SRP into daily practice with vulnerable families (3). A social impact framework is developed to accelerate and sustain the dissemination of the output during and after the project (4).

‒ For professionals: sustainable professional communities; hands-on tools to support vulnerable parents; tailormade training modules to strengthen SRP awareness/knowledge/skills; increased confidence; improved professional strategies to empower vulnerable families ‒ For families: sustainable parent communities; increased SRP awareness and application; improved parent-child bond ‒ For policymakers: increased sense of urgency about the social impact of early childhood development in short/long run