All about Five to Thrive - Lewisham Children & Family Centre

At Early Years Alliance Lewisham Children and Family Centres we have actively shaped our universal offer around the 1001 days Manifesto for many years, to ensure that those vital formative first years are embedded in all our work with families to give them that best start in life.

We use Five to Thrive as the framework to raise parental awareness of the science of brain development to support attachment and attunement between parent/carer and child.

What is Five to Thrive?

In the first three years of life the brain is growing and changing faster than it ever will again. At times during the first year of life a million connections are forming every single second in your baby’s brain.

We all know about the importance of ‘5 a day’ and that your child’s body grows better when you give the child good food. In the same way, your child’s brain grows better when you do five simple things that feed their growing brain:

Respond • Cuddle/Engage • Relax • Play • Talk

These are your child’s daily ‘five to thrive’ – the building blocks for a healthy brain and good positive mental health and wellbeing. A healthy brain will help your child be happy in themselves, make friends and enjoy their family, and help them build a good framework for life and its challenges from the youngest years.

Children who spend time with their parents/carers doing activities together truly feel that they are value and build a positive sense of self-worth and feel more positive about themselves. When you spend time with your children you are also building good communication as part of your everyday lives together, which is important for your children to feel comfortable with talking to you about anything. This will be very important as they grow.

None of this needs special knowledge, or any special equipment – it just needs YOU! Spend time with your baby, your toddler, your child – just focused on them, even on your busiest days– it is the best thing you can possibly do for their wellbeing.

To find out more about activities you can do with your child and how they link to the Five to Thrive building blocks please visit of ‘Activities for Babies’ web page.

https://www.lewishamcfc.org.uk/activity-ideas-for-babies/

“My child and I have really enjoyed coming to Little Explorers. It has helped my child to get used to see other babies and have interaction with them, which has been really important for him after the pandemic.”

“It's absolutely fab to be able to have access to all of the Domestic Abuse services in one place and to just click on a link to get to the website.”

“The Children Centre is our favourite place to come, we have been coming here since my child was 6 months old, he is now 4 years old and is still enjoying! Well done staff”

“I have just found the ‘taking care of ourselves’ section, which is massively important for us all, especially compassion fatigue.”

“The help and support that my family support worker gave me was above and beyond, she was always there to listen to me and make me feel like I was good enough and I was being heard.”

“The Outreach Team have such outgoing, friendly and fun personalities and made each Outdoor Learning session a great experience.”

“The Explorers session has helped my child a lot with his communication and his development. It’s really been impactful for him; we are really grateful to have this opportunity to attend the session and meet other parents as well.”

“The sessions help my daughter with speaking English, as well as helping her to listen and follow directions. I am very happy, my baby is very happy, and I feel relief when I come.”

“The Children Centre is very beneficial for my child, she has developed lots of skills e.g., sharing toys and naming colours. Also, the staff are very friendly and helpful.”

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