The photograph on the book's cover speaks for itself: it captures a dialogue, an exchange, a shared understanding between child and adult. That is the spirit of this book, and the author makes it plain: "The young child, disabled or not, presents himself from the very beginning as an active partner in discovering the world and building his own personality." But he needs our help. This conviction led the author, a physiotherapist with decades of experience, to establish Educational Assistance Centers for infants and toddlers (C.A.E.).
These Centers are first and foremost places of welcome for parents—parents struck by sorrow at the arrival of the "unexpected" child, disoriented, often, by the weight of that suffering itself. "Let us help them move forward, with our hands, with our knowledge, with our hearts." This concrete approach, this knowledge and conviction, animate the staff of the C.A.E.s. Every care is taken at the first meeting with parents: respect and welcome are shown even in small details.
From that first moment, parents are involved in everything done for the child. They are also guided, when necessary, in placing the child in daycare and preschool in the way that serves him best.
What strikes you in this small book is how often the word "respect" appears when speaking of the child himself, and alongside it, the notion of a "life project"—a vision that guides the educators' work from the very beginning and shapes their collaboration with parents.
The author never speaks of mere physical therapy or therapeutic programs, but rather of "awakening to life" for each of these children, whether blind, deaf-mute, physically disabled, or intellectually disabled.
Janine Levy writes of "emotion in encounters," of the pleasure of being together, a pleasure equally shared by child and educator. Yet the games and tender moments of these meetings are not ends in themselves: every activity is grounded in solid knowledge of child development and child psychology.
We hope this book will soon be translated into Italian, so that its subtitle can become reality everywhere: "From Welcome to Belonging." We hope that every doctor will choose to act as one of the author's collaborators did: "...when the baby is born, the doctor takes him in his large hands, shows him to the mother, and asks what name she has chosen for the child. Then he speaks to the baby: 'Ah! You have a fine name, Bruno! (or Catherine)—' and at that moment, the mother cannot help but reach out her arms toward her child."
- Nicole Schulthes, 1996