A Nurture Challenge for the New Year

"Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow." -- David Mallett

We can build nurturing communities by taking a series of large and small steps. As you begin the New Year, you may be thinking about what you can do in your community to make it more safe, positive, and nurturing. The Nurture Effect outlines the top six ways citizens can foster nurturing communities:

1. Show courtesy and respect for those who disagree with you.
2. Identify, advocate for, and enact policies that reduce family poverty (see http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/12/aei-brookings-poverty-and-opportunity).
3. Implement a policy requiring every proposed law or regulation to include an analysis of its impact on the wellbeing of children and adolescents.
4. Support implementation of evidence-based interventions to replace punitive juvenile justice policies.
5. Vote for laws and regulations that make it harder for disaffected young people to have guns.
6. Vote for policies that require increasingly effective monitoring of the wellbeing of children and adolescents.

You can join others in building nurturing environments by embarking on the #nurtureeffect100. There you can post a nurturing act each day for the next 100 days to share the good, celebrate your community, and help other citizens -- people just like you.