Dear Colleagues and Fellow Parents:

It is with great pleasure that the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring features the various Nurturing Parenting and Family Life Education Programs of Dr. Stephen J. Bavolak.

The initial Nurturing Program that Dr. Bavolek created and researched under a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health in the 1980s was the first parenting skill-building program designed expressly to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect.

Since that time, Dr. Bavolek has created a series of Nurturing Parenting Programs for use with specific populations of parents such as for parents of young children and parents of teenagers as well as program versions for Spanish Speaking parents and for teenagers who are parents.

All these carefully organized, multi-session programs provide training for both the parents and their children, which means that they are best thought of as family life and family system education programs.

The programs are based on a positive, nurturing philosophy for raising children, they teach a wide range of parenting skills and routines, and they have built in tools for measuring their success and impact.

Each program comes with an extensive array of manuals, games, videos and evaluation measures. Descriptions and access to instructional materials of the many Nurturing Programs are available below.

Most recently Dr. Bavolek has made it possible for you to create your own version of the Nurturing Program where its content and length can be adjusted to meet local, practical needs. This version is called Nurturing Skills for Parents and it can be supplemented with the videos that are part of the other nurturing programs and can be evaluated using the Nurturing Evaluation Tools. This option is also highlighted below.

The Nurturing Programs have won numerous awards and have been selected as evidenced-based model programs by such groups as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

Several state social service agencies have adopted the programs, as have many community groups, and military service family support centers throughout the world.

CICC encourages you to become familiar with and utilize one or more of these creative approaches. The specific Nurturing Programs and the Nurturing Skills for Parents are particularly well suited for use as, or as part of:

• Home Visiting Programs
• Healthy Family Programs
• Family Preservation Programs
• Early Start, Head Start and Even Start Programs
• Parent Education Programs
• High School and College Child Development Classes
• Continuing Education Training

Do take advantage of what Dr. Bavolek has put forth in this world to make it a safer, better and more nurturing place for children.

With warmest regards,


Kerby T. Alvy, Ph.D.
CICC Founder and Executive Director

You can create your own version of this internationally recognized and validated program by using any of the 50 lessons from the program that are now available in a Lesson Guide for Professionals and a corresponding Parent Handbook. The Lesson Guide serves as a manual for the leader and it contains step-by-step instructions for conducting each session. The Parent Handbook supports each lesson and has the homework assignments.

You can supplement the program you create by using various videos that amplify the lessons taught, all of which are described below. You can also use the various parenting inventories to evaluate your program, and these are also mentioned below.

The 50 lessons you can choose from are described and presented within the following chapters of the Lesson Guide:

Getting Started and Assessment Goals
Lessons: Welcome, Hopes and Fears, Orientation, Assessing Parenting Strengths

Nurturing Parenting Philosophy
Lessons: Nurturing Parenting, Nurturing as a Lifestyle

Growth and Development of Children
Lessons: Children’s Brain Development, Expectations and Development of Children, Ages and Stages: Infant, Toddler, Preschooler Development, Skill Strips and Review, Nutrition and Mealtime, Toilet Training

Developing Empathy
Lessons: Developing Empathy, Parents’ and Children’s Needs, Spoiling Your Children, Infant and Child Massage

Managing and Expressing Feelings
Lessons: Recognizing and Understanding Feelings, Helping Children Learn to Handle Their Feelings, Understanding and Handling Stress, Understanding and Expressing Anger

Understanding Discipline
Lessons: Understanding Discipline, Developing Family Morals and Values, Developing Family Rules, Child Proofing Your Home

Rewarding Appropriate Behavior
Lessons: Rewarding Children and Their Behavior, Praising Children and Their Behavior

Punishing Inappropriate Behavior
Lessons: Punishing Children’s Behavior, Time-Out

Alternatives to Spanking
Lessons: Why Parents Spank Their Children, Helping Children Manage Their Behavior, Verbal and Physical Direction, Ignoring Inappropriate Behaviors, and Alternatives to Spanking.

Developing Nurturing Routines
Lessons: Establishing Nurturing Parenting Routines - Diapering and Dressing, Feeding Time, Bath Time, and Bed Time

Building Self Worth & Personal Power in Children
Lessons: Improving Children’s Self-Worth, Building Personal Power, People, Possessions and Positive Self-Talk

Making Good Choices: Drugs, Sex and Alcohol
Lessons: Our Bodies, Sex, AIDS, Touch and Personal Space, Families and Alcohol

Communications Skills
Lessons: Criticism and Confrontation, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Negotiation and Compromise

Increasing Parents’ Self Awareness
Lessons: Body Map: Examining Touch History, Self-Expression

To obtain the $25.00 Lesson Guide for Professionals, click here.

The corresponding Parent Handbook is composed of the following lessons that the instructor teaches:

Each of the following Nurturing Programs is described on CICC’s website in the section on Parenting Skill-Building Programs.

Click here to find the descriptions of the programs and to obtain the program materials.

• The Prenatal Program



• Parents and The Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers (Birth to 5 Years)



• ABC’s for Parents and Children Entering Kindergarten



• Crianza con Carino ® para Padres y Ninos (Birth to 5 Years)



• Parents and School-Age Children (5 to 11 years)



• Crianza con Carino ® para Padres y Hyos (Children 4 to 12 years of Age)



• Parents and Adolescents



• Teenage Parents and Their Families

• Nurturing Touch: An Introduction to Infant Massage



• Red, White and Bruises: Why Parents Spank Their Children



• I'm Only Doing This For Your Own Good - Parents of Babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers



• It Hurts Me More Than It Hurts You - Parents of School-Age Children



• My Way or The Highway - The Parents of Teenagers



• Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child - Interpretation of “Rod” As Guidance, Not Violence



• Shaking, Hitting and Spanking: What To Do Instead



• Golpes y Gritos . . . Cómo Evitarlos (Spanish Version of Shaking, Hitting and Spanking: What to Do Instead)

The Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory ® (AAPI- 2) is an inventory designed to assess the parenting and child rearing attitudes of adult and adolescent parent and pre-parent populations. Based on the known parenting and child-rearing behaviors of abusive parents, responses to the inventory provide an index for practicing behaviors known to be attributable to child abuse and neglect, The AAPI-2 is the revised and re-normed version of the original AAPI first developed in 1979. It is normed for English and Spanish-Speaking Families.

This inventory is often used to evaluate the impact of the Nurturing Programs, as well as to evaluate other parenting programs, by administering it on a pre and post test basis.

Different versions are now available including a new CD ROM version.

To obtain the AAPI, click here

Stephen J. Bavolek, Ph.D., is a recognized leader in the fields of child abuse and neglect treatment and prevention, and parenting education.

Born and raised in Chicago, Dr. Bavolek's professional background includes working with emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in schools and residential settings, and abused children and abusive parents in treatment programs.

Dr. Bavolek has conducted extensive research in the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect. He received his doctorate at Utah State University in 1978 and completed a post-doctoral internship at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect in Denver, Colorado. He has held university faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, and the University of Utah.

Dr. Bavolek has received numerous international, national, state and local awards for his work, including induction in 1989 into the Royal Guild of the International Social Work Round Table in Vienna, Austria, and selection in 1983 by Phi Delta Kappa as one of 75 young educators in the country who represent the best in educational leadership, research and services. In addition, he has been selected by Oxford's Who's Who in 1993 as a member of the elite registry of extraordinary professionals and in 1998 as a member of the elite registry of extraordinary CEO's. Dr. Bavolek was also Mental Health Professional of the Year of Northern Wisconsin in 1985 and Child Advocate of the Year in Utah in 1991. In 1980, he was recognized by the Military Order of the Purple Heart for outstanding research and services to the handicapped.

He has conducted over 1,000 workshops, has appeared on more than 50 radio and television talk show programs, and has published numerous books, articles, programs and newsletters. He is the principal author of the Nurturing Parenting Programs®, programs designed to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect, and the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI), an inventory designed to assess high risk parenting attitudes. Dr. Bavolek is President of Family Development Resources, Inc. and Executive Director of Family Nurturing Centers International.

The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring (CICC) was founded in 1974 by Dr. Kerby T. Alvy and has grown to be one of the nation's largest and most productive nonprofit parenting and parenting education organizations. For more infomration about CICC's many programs, activities, products and services, go to www.ciccparenting.org, or call toll-free (800) 325-2422.

To sign up to receive CICC's free Effective Parenting Newsletter, click here.