to educational ecology in the University ofMassachusetts. He also mentioned severaltimes the study method of this book in hiscorrespondence to me. In the materials I readfrom then on, I found many times peopleregard this approach as the testimony ofqualitative research. In the revised versionthis time, the researchers developed theirmethod plus historical clues, which furtherenriched the qualitative study method.

I expect that this book will bring new inspi-rations to both domestic and foreign scholarsof preschool education, and it will help themview the revolution and development of pre-school education from a more holistic andrational perspective.

Jiaxiong ZhuInstitute of Early Childhood Education, East ChinaNormal University

How Nurture Protects Children: Nurture andNarrative in Work with Children, Young Peopleand FamiliesBy Jim RoseLondon: Responsive Solutions, 2010ISBN 9780956486301, 150 pp, £14.99 (pb)

This book is packed with insight gained froma career working with vulnerable children,young people and their families. Jim Rose’sobservations and analyses of his own experi-ences, as well those of others, combine to pro-duce a rewarding book. It is a relatively shortvolume, yet its scope is wide enough to makeit important reading for foster carers, teachers,social workers, residential childcare workers,managers and policy-makers at all levels inlocal and national government.

Professionalisation and specialisation

The title How Nurture Protects Children maybe wrapped in a truism, but truisms are oftenread superficially. A consequence of this isthat a rich concept like ‘nurture’, which repre-

sents a dynamic complex of human biological,psychological, individual and social needs, isfrequently usurped by those who convert it toan expedient term to justify narrow politicaland managerial targets. Rose challenges thisprocess. For instance, he observes that whatensues from our understandably determined‘quest for certainty’ in protecting childrenfrom harm is a growing trend towards the‘professionalisation’ of workers charged withidentifying, educating, and caring for troubledchildren and their families. Rose believes thishas led to an ‘over reliance on procedures,protocols and data oriented systems forrecording’, which has resulted in ‘the emer-gence of a separate and discrete area of prac-tice designed to satisfy the need for controland certainty and perceived to have comefrom expert knowledge’ (p. 19).

Later Rose argues that this brings, ‘increasedpressure on managers and social workers toprocess referrals and undertake and recordinitial assessments within prescribed timescales’ (p. 31). Meeting these targets leaveslittle or no time for direct therapeuticengagement with children and families orfor reflection and analysis of what they areexperiencing. Rose leaves readers to con-clude that it is in constricted conditions likethese, where naturally evolving relationshipsare eschewed, that important developmentsin a child’s life are overlooked and thequality of protection deteriorates.

For Rose this rush towards specialisation andprofessional status in childcare has tended toseparate workers from the people they wishto serve. By so precisely separating out theirdiffering roles, workers lose touch with thewider issues of a child’s and a family’s pre-dicament. Good enough relationships do notdevelop between workers and those theyserve. There is never enough time just ‘tobe’, only time to be seen to be ‘doing’. Rosealso remarks on the irony ‘that at a timewhen there is such a concentrated focuson ‘‘joint working’’, ‘‘integrated services’’and ‘‘multi-agency’’ approaches, the desire

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for a more holistic organisation of servicesis counter-balanced by opposing forces forincreased specialism and by an inflatedvaluation of expert knowledge’ (p. 34).

Attachment and narrative theory

It would be wrong to perceive Rose merelyas a buster of professional shibboleths. Hisarguments persuade because they provideevidence of creative ideas and initiatives inthe nurture and education of troubled chil-dren particularly ideas born out of attach-ment and narrative theory. Attachmenttheory orthodoxy now suggests that health-ily attached children enjoy life narrativesthat have sufficient continuity to help themmake sense of their lives and provide themwith a secure internal and external base towhich they can return at times of difficulty.In relation to this, Rose briefly mentions lifestory work as a method by which foster ca-rers and residential childcare workers havetried to help a child who has experiencedbroken or interrupted attachment relation-ships make sense of their life narrative. Inmy view, life story work has seldom beenpursued with sufficient tenacity, intensityand consistency to achieve the potential itpromises and so Rose’s emphasis on usingthe telling – and listening to – a life story asbeing important elements of therapeutic careis one which should be more widely pursued.

Nurture and nurture groups

The ideas in this book are so rich that it isimpossible in this space to give them dueattention but a review could not be completewithout considering the ‘nurture group’,which is the hub around which much of thisbook revolves. The original nurture groupwas one of about 10 children drawn fromwithin a primary school who are identified asexperiencing emotional and social difficul-ties. The group has its own room usuallycentrally situated to emphasise that it as anintegral part of the school. The children spendmost of their school days in the nurture group

room but join the whole school at lunch andplaytime breaks. The usual pattern is for chil-dren to spend up to four terms in the groupbefore returning to their mainstream class.The principles underpinning the nurturegroup and which Rose suggests may be gen-eralised as guiding principles of nurture arethat children’s learning should be understooddevelopmentally, that the place where theydevelop and learn should provide them with asafe base, that nurture is essential for thedevelopment of self-esteem, that language isa vital vehicle for the expression of feelingsand emotions, that behaviour is a communi-cation, and that transitions are important inchildren’s lives. Rose demonstrates how prac-tice fed by these principles can be and hasbeen effectively applied in other settings suchas foster care and group care.

The significance of relationships

Rose concludes that the sum and substanceof all effective therapeutic work with vulner-able children and their families is founded onhealthy nurturing relationships between childand carer, family and supportive worker. Hismessage – that the practice and the trainingof childcare workers should be predicated onmaking the quality of this relationship para-mount – should be heard and acted upon.Equally fundamental is his assertion towardsthe end of this enlightening book that work-ers whose role is to help people whose strug-gles have a propensity to create wide anxietydeserve to ‘practise their work in a manage-ment culture that understands, trusts andsupports them, and that allows time for theirwork to progress and is not quick to blame ifthings go wrong’ (pp. 133–134).

Not only does this book affirm that nurtureprotects children, but it also confirms that theneed for nurture does not end in childhood.

Charles SharpePsychotherapist and presiding editor ofgoodenoughcaring

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� 2011 The Author(s) CHILDREN & SOCIETY Vol. 25, 172–174 (2011)

Children & Society � 2011 National Children’s Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited