Dr Christine Puckering is on a Winston Churchill Fellowship Tour, looking at how babies at social risk are identified early, even in pregnancy, and what services are put in place to promote a secure attachment between mother and child and father and child.
Christine is going to provide regular blogs on her tour of Netherlands, Iceland, Norway & Finland.
My last day in Oslo was interesting. I went to a private preschool where children can have a place from age 1, when paid parental leave ends. Some preschools are “outdoor” all the time, but all have a programme where the children spend a lot of time outdoors and have their naps outside even when the temperature goes down to -10oC. They are what we would regard as a challenging environment, with steps, rough ground and places to play physically. The staff have to have a degree in early years teaching or be pursuing training in a child care field, and it is noticeable that a high proportion are male .
Now, I am just setting off on the second leg of my Fellowship in Leiden. The University here is the Mecca of attachment research at least in Europe, so I am looking forward to seeing how the research is translated into practice.
