Peer-reviewed article
Geliştiren Bakım: Erken Çocukluk Çağına Bütüncül Yaklaşım
Serap Deniz ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper reviews the Nurturing Care framework, a policy approach promoted by WHO and UNICEF for early childhood development. The framework addresses threats to child development including poverty, malnutrition, violence, and caregiver mental health problems. Nurturing Care provides five core components: health, nutrition, responsive care, early learning, and safety, delivered through family-centered, holistic services from pregnancy through the first three years of life. The review aims to raise awareness of this approach in Turkey and share international evidence.
Key points
- Nurturing Care is a WHO/UNICEF policy framework with five components: health, adequate nutrition, responsive care, early learning opportunities, and safety
- Early childhood is identified as the critical period for cognitive, physical, and mental health development
- Multiple threats to child development are identified: poverty, malnutrition, violence, gender inequality, environmental pollution, and caregiver mental health problems
- The framework emphasizes family-centered, holistic service delivery beginning from pregnancy
- Implementation focuses especially on the first three years of life
Limitations
This document is a review article that describes a policy framework rather than presenting original research or evaluation data. It does not provide evidence of the effectiveness of Nurturing Care interventions or compare outcomes across different implementation settings.
Abstract
Early childhood (ECC) is the main period of cognitive development, physical and mental health in children. The well-being of future generations depends on early childhood development and care. Poverty, malnutrition, violence, gender inequality, environmental pollution and caregiver mental health problems threaten the development of young children and prevent them from being physically and mentally healthy, being happy, having positive relationships and being productive adults. Nurturing Care (NC) is a policy framework proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and other stakeholders, aimed at achieving national and global goals to help children survive and thrive, in order to transform health and human potential. Its components are health, adequate nutrition, responsive care, early learning opportunities and safety. NC aims to provide family-centered, holistic services to each child, especially in the first three years of life, starting from pregnancy. The aim of this review is to increase the awareness of NC in Turkey and to share studies from other countries.