The Nurtured Village

Before having my own child, I worked with children and youth with “challenging behaviours”. I would go into their family homes, work with their teachers and support the family as a whole.

Many of the children I worked with had been through significant trauma, abuse, and life changing circumstances. Many of their parents had been through the same as a child.

 Instead of just looking at the child’s “challenging behaviour” we looked at “what does this child need us to know”. We discussed that a behaviour is not just behaviour and we worked to uncover the need that was being met by said behaviour.

Overtime I noticed that giving these parents or caregivers several tips and strategies still wasn’t resulting in lasting change. These parents were already burnt out, exhausted, and frustrated with their children. The long lasting change I was trying to create, wasn’t going to occur unless the parents felt supported first.

Back in the day, community living was a given. People lived in communities for safety, socialisation, and shared resources. From the earliest days of humanity our brains have been programmed to live in close proximity to others, to share food and tools, to protect each other and to exchange ideas.

But the past century has drastically changed our concept of community, no matter if you live rurally or in a suburban neighbourhood. Families no longer co-habitat as they once did and we often get caught up in the reality of “constant busy-ness” that we don’t take time to even get to know our neighbours.

The impact of this is apparent on parents and children. The adage “it takes a village to raise a child is absolutely still true. But somewhere along the way, we have lost the “village” we need to raise children in nurturing, creative and safe ways. And as a result, parents and caregivers are missing out on crucial learning experiences, much needed support systems and are feeling isolated and alone in their struggles. 

Thus, The Nurtured Village was born. Whilst working directly with children and adolescents, The Nurtured Village also supports parents and caregivers. Healthy parents and caregivers leads to a healthy family. I’m not talking about just physical health, but emotional health is incredibly important too. Often parents and caregivers feel stressed, overworked, judged and inadequate. Burnout and exhaustion are real, but without a community around to validate those feelings, many feel that pain is unique to them.

Our aim is to ensure that not only the child is thriving in their “village” but that their parents and caregivers are feeling seen and supported also! 

Danielle x