Sign the Open Letter

We are proud to support Nurture Connection and to add our voice and commitment to advancing the health and well-being of children, families, and communities.

Nurture Connection promotes the life-enhancing impacts of positive emotional connection between babies and toddlers and their parents and caregivers by supporting Early Relational Health (ERH). By promoting strong, positive, and nurturing relationships, we can provide a road map to healthier, more connected communities.

Nurture Connection is also a response to the difficulties that our nation’s families are currently facing. We know that all relationships (including those of caregiver and young child) and their associated health and well-being can be negatively affected by inequities in our society and systems. These challenges are compounded by the demands and stresses of our times. The need for building emotional connection and the call for promoting Early Relational Health has never been more urgent.

So how do we answer this call?

• We must all join with Nurture Connection to partner deeply and authentically with families. Every family must receive the respect and support they need to experience strong, positive, and nurturing relationships with their babies and toddlers so they can grow and thrive; and parents and caregivers must be able to show up as their children’s most capable guardians in ways that uphold their cultures and histories.
• We also must commit to building a future where relational health is prioritized as being essential for health and well-being by our systems and leaders. We must remove silos, which lead to inequitable, inefficient, and disjointed practices that directly hold back many families from achieving relational health.
• Most critically, to make our vision a reality, all of us who are deeply invested in supporting the health and well-being of children, families, and communities must come together as a networked and engaged movement to transform our systems, policies, and practices.

Parents and caregivers, doctors and doulas, community health workers and leaders, policymakers and researchers, neighborhoods, cities, and states – every voice and every community has a role to play in building our networked and engaged movement across geographies, systems, and sectors.

Let’s all join together in pledging our support for Nurture Connection in its mission to promote emotional connection as the foundation for health and well-being.

With gratitude,

Nurture Connection and ERH Champions