Slovenia Grows with You

The baseline found that cross-sectoral strategic documents were largely absent — most municipalities had only limited references to early childhood inside broader municipal documents or single-sector plans. Willingness to cooperate was rarely the problem; the problem was that coordination happened case by case and was improvised, without a system-based framework, strategic planning or feedback mechanisms.

And the most neglected area of all was evidence-based policy making: “It seems that evidence-based policy-making is not yet part of the strategic municipal planning, and subsequently, needs-assessment-based provision of services.”

Ten findings recurred across the reports. They are worth listing in full, because together they describe a system that is good but not yet joined up.

1. The under-nourished area is the youngest age group — up to three, and especially from birth to kindergarten enrolment. Found in every analysis.
2. Specialised health services are short — dentists, paediatricians, speech therapists, child psychiatrists — tied to systemic shortages at national level.
3. The fewest programmes are those for specific groups of children and parents, such as families of children with autism or families who speak another language.
4. Most programmes come from the education sector, and far fewer from health and social care.
5. Housing for young families was raised in every single municipality.
6. Parents are not informed enough about what is available at municipal level.
7. Some providers never evaluate their services — so they have no information on how well those services match what users need, or on their own quality.
8. More cross-sectoral cooperation is needed.
9. Every municipality concluded there is significant untapped potential in the human, natural and other resources it already has.
10. Reaching the most vulnerable families was hard. COVID made it much harder — the most intensive data collection coincided with the pandemic, and live events were impossible.

Municipality by municipality, the texture varies. In Cerkno, parents, professionals and the local team all wanted a paediatrician in the municipality — and a child psychiatrist and clinical psychologist who could treat, not just diagnose. Parents also wanted afternoon care until 18:00, more sport (“most of these children have to be driven to another municipality”), and playgrounds in the surrounding villages, not only in the centre. Children asked for a pump track.

In Postojna, the awareness gap was measured: 47% of parents did not know about the information point for foreigners, 55% did not know about the home-carer service, 58% did not know about the addiction prevention programme, and 47% did not know about education for young families. Activities were accessible mainly to children in the town itself, much less so to children from the villages.

In Trbovlje, the national speech and language therapy shortage was being met only partially and inappropriately, through student work. Parents rated services “good” — not “very good” or “excellent”. Births had fallen from 138 in 2017 to 91 in 2020. And the local team observed something uncomfortable: vulnerable groups were in the worst position, their awareness of the importance of the early years was lowest, and their attendance at events was poorest despite information and encouragement.

In Bled, a tourism economy had produced a housing crisis that blocked young families from staying and blocked the municipality from recruiting qualified education and childcare staff.

In Razkrižje, a tiny border municipality, health services were completely separate from social services, as was everything else. The ask was modest and specific: story hours in the mornings, a free psychologist, pram access to the library and the shop, a nappy-changing room, benches, a ramp at the post office.

In Ljutomer, institutions cooperated reasonably well — “but each informs users only through its own internal channels” and mainly reaches children already in kindergarten. The analysis left an open question on the page: “why do so many parents answer that they do not know the activities of the Centre for Social Work?”

Bled built a strategy around housing, information and staffing: land inventory and site selection for non-profit housing for young families; a QR-code and website information hub for family events; and the hiring of a speech therapist shared across three municipalities, a librarian, a sports pedagogue and an information officer at the Intergenerational Centre. Plus a toddler programme at the library, monthly lectures for parents with childcare running alongside, playground refurbishment through community action days, and annual satisfaction surveys run by the local team itself.

Trbovlje set five goals to 2024: keep the local action team as a standing consultative body meeting at least four times a year; build an inclusive playground with equipment for younger children and children with disabilities; systemise at least one post in the kindergarten — a special pedagogue or speech therapist; establish kindergarten–school cooperation with every primary school for softer transitions; and modernise the “School for Parents” by adding health, pedagogical and social care content.

Cerkno set a 2022–2027 strategy across seven domains, including a new kindergarten building for at least ten groups within five years, a day centre for children open daily, a shared monthly activities calendar so associations stop clashing, briefings for municipal councillors and local community presidents on the needs of young families, pedestrianising the town centre, a pump track, and a redesigned municipal website with a dedicated family page.

Ljutomer proposed something no other municipality did: an advocate or ambassador for early childhood — “the municipality needs a person or institution for connecting, coordinating and monitoring the implementation of activities for younger children.” Alongside: two cross-sector meetings a year, drawing non-enrolled children into kindergarten activities, a mini-guide to programmes for young families, and a municipal events calendar.

On process:

• 8 situation analyses completed, presented to and approved by municipal councils.
• 7 local strategies developed and beginning implementation. Strategies were adopted unanimously by the councils in Trbovlje, Slovenska Bistrica, Bled, Postojna and Ljutomer.
• A formalised early childhood coordination body now exists in all 8 municipalities — where at baseline there was none in any of them.
• A municipal action plan now exists in 7.
• A needs-based approach is now used to design services in 7 of 8; an evidence-based approach to designing strategic documents in 6.

On services and staffing:

• A speech therapist and a sports pedagogue employed in kindergartens. A librarian and an Intergenerational Centre information officer planned.
• Playground renovation under way, including a pump track park.
• New activities running: a “Forest Day” family event, lectures for parents, exercise classes, baby exercise, children’s matinees, creative and cooking workshops.
• Municipal spatial plans changed in some municipalities to enable measures; in one, land purchased for a new kindergarten.
• Municipal websites redesigned so that family activities appear in one place.
• And, as the internal report notes: “For all of the above it was necessary to provide financial resources in the municipal budget, which they did.”

Municipality by municipality:

• Cerkno established a dispensary for the mental health of children and adolescents, which within two years will become a full Centre for Mental Health as part of the national network — described in the evaluation as “an immense step towards improved child well-being in Cerkno.” It also created a newsletter.
• Bled improved access to a speech therapist for children, clarified institutional roles, strengthened relations between schools and kindergartens, and fixed the information gap the analysis had identified. Its local team agreed to continue through informal “LAT coffees” every two to three months.
• Trbovlje employed new professionals in the kindergarten and added and rebuilt playgrounds. The work also supported the municipality’s renewed candidature for the national “family friendly community” title.
• Ljutomer secured an increased scope of speech therapist and orthodontist hours, funded a year-round exercise programme for grandparents with grandchildren, established a new “Strengthening Families” programme, and began marking the International Day of Families.
• Postojna began implementing concrete strategy actions, with improved coordination and a clear action plan.

Nationally: a closing conference in June 2023 drew 59 participants, including representatives from nine municipalities that had not taken part. Three of them expressed strong interest in joining. ERI–CQE also created www.primokiz.si — a Slovenian Primokiz website with information, testimonials and a contact form for new municipalities — which had not been planned in the project and sent a formal communiqué to four ministries requesting dialogue on the issues municipalities cannot solve alone: recruiting health personnel, staff shortages in education, the organisation of social work centres, and the availability of land for construction.

One strategy was not completed. In Škofja Loka, the local coordinator was absent for extended periods on parental and sick leave. The facilitator, who came from outside the municipality and had no existing relationships there, was dependent on the coordinator for every activity. ERI–CQE made six telephone attempts between February and June 2023 and proposed a meeting with the mayor that could not be arranged. A colleague was eventually delegated to the final event, connected well with the facilitator, and the two agreed to push the process forward after the official end of the initiative.

The lesson ISSA drew is worth stating publicly: the process runs on the local coordinator. If that person is unavailable and there is no deputy, an external facilitator cannot carry it alone.

Two further honest findings from the evaluation:

In Bled, health professionals were never brought fully on board — characterised in the evaluation as “a flaw of the implementation”, and visible in the strategy itself.

In Trbovlje, despite a unanimous council vote, “there was no single municipal council member who would support the topics of early childhood services and specifically promote it.” A vote is not the same as a champion.