How we support a child’s social and emotional development: The Explainer Series
6 August 2025
The Centre for Early Childhood’s Explainers are designed to help adults recognise how simple, everyday interactions can support babies and young children’s social and emotional development.
We hope these films will be a useful tool in encouraging more nurturing adult-child interactions.
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The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood has today, 6 August, released a series of animated films unpacking the brain science and explaining key concepts behind the way nurturing interactions support the social and emotional development of babies and young children.
Building on the Centre’s Shaping Us Framework, the films explain the science behind the everyday moments of connection that can have a long-term positive impact on a child’s life.
They are designed to be used by people who work with babies, children and families so that they are better equipped to have meaningful and consistent conversations with parents and carers about social and emotional development.
The Centre is working with universities, charities and professional bodies to build these films into training and practice around the country.
The series combines the creative talents of a group of inspiring illustrators and animators from around the world, with the scientific rigour of two of the country’s leading figures in child development, Professor Peter Fonagy and Professor Sam Wass, as well as the vast experience of an advisory group of early childhood professionals working with families from across the UK.
Although 94% of the UK population believe that social and emotional skills are important for happiness in adult life, 42% have little or no idea about how these skills develop during early childhood.
The purpose of these animated films is to help increase that understanding, and in doing so, improve outcomes for the development of babies and young children.
Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales has been closely involved in the development of the films.
She spent time with two of the illustrators and met early years practitioners who have been involved in the development of the films during a creative workshop in June.
More than 25 organisations are already working with The Centre for Early Childhood to support practitioners to use the films in their work, ensuring they deliver real change in the quality of services for families, from sharing them with their networks to embedding the films in their training programmes.
The series, which has also been translated into Welsh and British Sign Language, uses different styles of illustration, from curated line illustrations to papercraft, to help bring core concepts related to child development to life in an accessible and engaging way.
The introductory film is illustrated by Maggie Stephenson, the artist who worked with the Centre to develop the Shaping Us Framework, animated by &Orange and produced by Making Pictures.
