Childhood, well-being, and a therapeutic ethos

"All is clearly not well with children's well-being in the Anglo-Saxon West, as witnessed by a steady stream of research reports that place children's well-being in the UK and the USA very near, if not at, the bottom of international tables. This mounting cultural and political concern for children's well-being has been buttressed by high-profile media interest in the "toxic childhood" theme popularized by author Sue Palmer, and highlighted in the Open Letter published by the Daily Telegraph; and the chapters in this important new book arose directly from the addresses given by prominent Open Letter signatories to an expert seminar organized by Roehampton University's Research Centre for Therapeutic Education in December 2006." "A key theme of this book is that we urgently need a therapeutic ethos in order to bring both educational and therapeutic sensibilities to bear on the issue of children's wellbeing, if truly effective and appropriate policy responses to the current malaise are to be fashioned. Not least, we must pay particular attention to childhood experience, showing that scientific and technical developments are always secondary to the resources of the human soul, if we a