This guidebook for early-childhood professionals emphasizes the importance of building strong teacher and caregiver relationships with young children to promote a secure, healthy, and productive learning environment.

The relationship-based phase model was developed at the Virginia Frank Child Development Center in Chicago by early-childhood professionals with backgrounds in education, social work, child development, psychology, and counseling. It's centered on the knowledge that having secure attachments with a caregivers is the basis of optimal cognitive growth and development for young children, and that their social and emotional needs change.

The curriculum is based on three phases of relationships: the separation and attachment phase, the autonomy development phase, and the development of initiative and consolidation of skills phase. The book identifies behavior patterns and offers techniques for responding to each phase in the classroom, with strategies for managing emotions and skills for assisting children to cope, which include concrete suggestions for activities, songs, and books.

Chapters on incorporating group discussions about children's feeling and experiences, the importance of teacher self-awareness, communication with parents, and help with children who have special needs and behavioral difficulties further emphasize the importance of focusing on young children's emotional health as an effective means of building strong foundations for lifelong learning.