Workshop guidance
Everything you need to prepare your role in an ISSA Conference 2026 parallel workshop — the format, your role, the shared contribution process, and guidance for your specific strand and topic.
At a glance
A warm welcome
Thank you for accepting a role in one of the ISSA Conference 2026 parallel workshops. Your expertise, experience, and perspective will help participants think more deeply and make the conference meaningful.
This guidance explains the conference context, the workshop format, each role, the shared contribution process, and how hybrid workshops will work where they apply.
What is different this year
Rather than a series of independent presentations, we are creating a collective process of inquiry and knowledge generation. Every workshop brings complementary perspectives — research, policy, practice, communities, lived experience — to one shared question.
Insights do not stay in the session: they are consolidated across workshops, carried into plenary, and shape the conference conclusions. Your contribution is much more than a presentation.
Before the conference
ISSA organises preparatory calls and shares contacts for your workshop. Arrange a short call with your Speaker, Presenters, Discussants and Facilitator to align on framing, questions, time signals and handovers.
Hybrid note
All plenaries are livestreamed. Some workshops are in-person only; others include a parallel online cohort — in that case the Speaker framing and Presenter contributions are livestreamed too. ISSA confirms which applies to yours.
The conference we are building together
Despite decades of evidence on early investment, early childhood services in many countries still operate in silos. Health, education, social protection and family support run in parallel, leaving children and families without coordinated support.
The conference explores how funding, governance, professional capacity and service delivery can be aligned around what children and families need: a whole-ecosystem approach. Every workshop should move beyond reporting what is happening — the aim is insight, reflection, and practical ideas participants can take home.
Governance models, cross-sector coordination, alignment across national / local / municipal levels, overlapping mandates, siloed budgets.
Financing architecture, cross-ministry budgeting, prevention investment, accountability mandates, data infrastructure.
Co-creation, community voice, participatory governance, trust, shared language, and how local innovations travel into wider systems.
The workshop process at a glance
Shared principles for every workshop
- Stay anchored to the theme. Connect contributions to integrated early childhood systems: what they look like, how they are built, what gets in the way.
- Prioritise dialogue. Treat presentations as starting points for conversation, not complete answers.
- Draw out actionable insights. Move from description to analysis: what can others learn and adapt?
- Welcome diversity. Draw connections across countries, contexts, roles, time zones and perspectives.
- Respect time. Keeping to time protects discussion — the most valuable part of the workshop.
- Be concrete about integration. Name the sectors, mechanisms, actors, conditions and tensions. Avoid generalities.
- Use slides only if useful. Slides are optional and gently discouraged. If used, keep them simple.
- Create space for every voice. Encourage balanced participation so different perspectives are heard.
Roles and responsibilities
Each workshop has four roles working in sequence: the Facilitator shapes the arc, the Speaker sets the frame, Presenters bring evidence, Discussants deepen the conversation. Some contributors hold more than one role and should say so when introducing themselves.
The Facilitator is the natural person to initiate the short pre-conference call, but anyone can. Use it to align on framing, discussion questions, time signals, and hybrid handovers.
Facilitator
Purpose. Shapes the session and holds the process together.
Before. Read abstracts; contact contributors; prepare the session arc; agree time signals; coordinate with ISSA hybrid support if relevant.
During. Open warmly; introduce roles; manage time; guide small groups and consolidation; keep discussion concrete.
Main output. 2–3 headline insights for plenary.
Speaker
Purpose. Sets the topic frame.
Before. Prepare 8–10 min framing; name key tensions; prepare 1–2 orienting questions; coordinate with the Facilitator.
During. Open the topic; stay engaged as an analytical resource during discussion.
Main output. A clear frame that helps the room make sense of evidence and discussion.
Presenter
Purpose. Brings concrete evidence to life.
Before. Prepare a 10–12 min contribution on a case, model, research finding or practice insight; identify lessons and questions.
During. Share focused evidence; support small group discussion and template completion.
Main output. Concrete learning participants can interrogate, connect and adapt.
Discussant
Purpose. Enriches the conversation.
Before. Read materials; prepare 2–3 reflection points based on your experience, and/or probing questions.
During. Let participants speak first; connect, challenge, surface missing perspectives; help synthesis.
Main output. Sharper discussion and stronger consolidation.
Role checklists
Read the one that applies to you — or read them all to know what to expect from the others.
Facilitator
You shape the session. Your role is not to add substantive content, but to create the conditions for others to contribute best.
Facilitator for the in-person workshop
Before
- Read all contributions to the workshop.
- Contact contributors at least two weeks before the conference.
- Prepare a session arc: opening, transitions, discussion methods, engagement, closing.
- Agree time signals.
- Open warmly in 2 minutes maximum, for both in-person and online participants.
- Introduce contributors by name, organisation and role only.
- Manage time actively.
Small groups
- Divide participants into relatively equal groups.
- Place contributors in different groups where possible.
- Ensure each group identifies a note-taker to fill the template.
- Circulate if groups already have facilitators; support a group if needed.
Block 2
- Welcome everyone back; identify a volunteer to adjust the workshop’s final contribution for plenary.
- First 30 min: review the ISSA summary and hear reactions, including online participants.
- Second 30 min: agree final changes.
- Coordinate with the facilitator for the online community and include their comments and remarks.
- Finalise at least one headline insight per template category.
Facilitator for online participants, where the workshop is hybrid
- Coordinate with the designated facilitator for online participation and the assigned ISSA team member.
- Coordinate with the facilitator of the online community and take a small number of online written questions or comments before groups separate.
- The facilitator for the online community ensures participants are split into breakout rooms; ISSA team members assist.
- Ensure each group fills the template with at least one highlight per category.
- Monitor comments and questions from online participants and share them with the large in-person group.
Reminder. Do not run over time. Consolidation (Block 2) should not repeat Block 1 — synthesis means distillation and forward movement.
Speaker
You set the topic’s frame. Your role is framing — going beyond a concrete case.
What to prepare
- A maximum 8–10 minute contribution.
- Introduce central challenges, tensions and open questions from a comparative, systemic or conceptual perspective.
- Draw on evidence, comparative analysis, research or cross-country experience.
- Close with 1–2 orienting questions.
- Coordinate with the Facilitator so your opening sets up the Presenters.
Small group discussion role
After the opening, stay engaged. Contribute to the discussions, help facilitate, and ensure the template has at least one shared idea in each part.
Remember. You are setting the scene: insights and challenges rooted in your experience that open discussion. Do not exceed time. Slides are optional.
Presenter
You bring concrete evidence to life. Your role is to make the abstract tangible.
What to prepare
- A focused 10–12 minute presentation.
- Centre it on a specific case, model, research finding or practice-based experience.
- Make the integration angle explicit: which sectors, mechanisms, changes and conditions?
- Focus on lessons, tensions and transferability.
- Prepare 1–2 discussion prompts and consider sharing them with the Facilitator.
In small groups
Contribute to the discussions and ensure the template has at least one shared idea in each part.
Remember. Do not re-introduce the topic after the Speaker. Keep it lean and analytically relevant. Use simple slides only if they help.
Discussant
You enrich the conversation. You are a catalyst, not a presenter.
What to prepare
- Read the abstracts of colleagues presenting in your session.
- Prepare 2–3 substantive reflection points based on your experience, and probing questions.
- Plan to respond to what emerges rather than deliver prepared remarks.
In small groups
Let participants speak first unless there is silence. Contribute to the dialogue and ensure the template has at least one shared idea in each part.
Remember. Do not prepare a presentation. Challenge, probe, add perspectives, and draw others into the dialogue.
Guidance for hybrid workshops
ISSA confirms in advance which workshops this applies to — if yours is in-person only, you can skip this section. The aim is simple: online participants should feel included, heard, and part of the workshop outcome.
Online participants watch the Speaker and Presenters alongside the room.
Before groups separate, the Facilitator takes a few online questions or comments relayed by the Facilitator of the online group.
The online group moves to its virtual space, breaks out, and works the same topic and template.
ISSA consolidates online and in-person inputs; the online group rejoins the 60-minute consolidation block via livestream.
The full workshop reviews the summary, agrees changes, and sends insights to the plenary process.
Online group facilitator
- Participate in the preparation with the in-person workshop facilitator and contributors set up by the ISSA team.
- Monitor the online chat and flag relevant questions to the Facilitator.
- Connect the in-person discussion to online exploration.
- Support the group with questions and ensure the flow of conversation as a larger group.
- Check in with all breakout rooms.
- Ensure the group template is filled in and everyone contributes.
- Keep the group on time.
ISSA team member
- Set up and host the online discussion space; provide basic technical support.
- Organise breakout rooms for small group discussions.
- Help the online group mirror the in-person structure and complete the template.
- Act as, or arrange, the note-taker.
- Coordinate timing with the Facilitator.
Online facilitation tips
- Open clearly. Name the topic, guiding questions, and that the online group has its own substantive conversation.
- Keep the same structure. Same topic, questions and four categories as the in-person group.
- Manage turn-taking. Invite people by name; use raised hands or chat queues.
- Use chat as a real channel. Read or summarise typed contributions so they are acknowledged.
- Watch energy and access. Allow for time-zone fatigue and connectivity issues.
- Move toward the template. Start the four categories early enough to complete it thoughtfully.
Find your strand, topic and room
All contributors, in person and online, should read the section that applies to their strand. It is worth glancing at the other strands too — the conference is designed so that insights flow across all three.
How integration is governed. Sessions run on Day 1, 22 October.
Strand 1 focuses on the governance of integration: the formal and informal structures, arrangements and mechanisms that either connect or fragment early childhood systems. Across all Strand 1 workshops, go beyond what services are offered and focus on how governance shapes whether and how they work together.
Keep returning to these questions
- How are roles and responsibilities shared across actors and levels of governance?
- What structures or mechanisms enable sustained collaboration rather than fragile cooperation?
- How are tensions around overlapping mandates, siloed budgets and political cycles navigated in practice?
- What conditions allow integrated governance to outlast individual champions or political moments?
Topic 1.1 · Horizontal governance integration across sectors
How do services and sectors operating at the same level coordinate around children and families, and what governance arrangements make this possible or difficult?
Horizontal integration in ECEC systems
Focus: how ECEC systems connect with other early childhood services, with comparative evidence on governance and examples from Belgium and Poland. Keep the focus on governance mechanisms as the driver of horizontal integration.
- What do comparative evidence and local examples reveal about the governance arrangements that enable stakeholders to work together?
- How are shared priorities agreed across sectors?
- What is genuinely transferable across national and local contexts?
Horizontal integration across ECD sectors and services
Focus: a broader whole-of-early-childhood lens, with examples from Ireland, the UK, Pakistan, Czech Republic and Mexico.
- What does horizontal integration mean in practice across very different sectors, income and governance contexts?
- What enablers go beyond political will — what structures, shared frameworks and accountabilities matter?
- How does inequity intersect with integration: does better governance actually reach the most marginalised children?
- The Pakistan contribution brings lower-resource perspectives — draw these in actively.
Topic 1.2 · Vertical governance coherence: aligning policy and practice
The gap between policy intention and lived experience at the level of services and families: how integration breaks down in translation, and what helps it hold.
Aligning policy frameworks, governance and implementation
Focus: governance and cross-sector cooperation for alignment, with examples from Australia, Czech Republic and Poland.
- Why do well-designed policies fail to reach children consistently, and what closes this gap?
- How do place-based approaches bridge national investment priorities and local realities?
- What role can civil society play in translating policy across sectors, including its limits?
- What makes structures work beyond the org chart: relational, cultural and organisational conditions?
Sustaining coherence through practice, quality and local implementation
Focus: quality frameworks, implementation processes and how coherence is sustained across levels, with examples from Germany, USA, Belgium and Sri Lanka.
- What does it take for quality frameworks to become rooted in practice rather than adopted only on paper?
- How are quality standards developed at one level interpreted and used at others, and where does coherence break down?
- What does sustaining coherence require — what conditions must be continuously maintained?
Topic 1.3 · Sustaining integration: leadership and system infrastructure
The leadership and system infrastructure that allows integrated early childhood systems to persist over time.
Governance infrastructure and system architecture
Focus: municipal governance infrastructure as the connective tissue of integration, with examples from Slovenia and Brazil.
- What is the difference between ad hoc cooperation and structural integration, architecturally?
- How do local coordination bodies, hubs and shared protocols lead in connecting services and levels?
- What moves cross-sector goodwill into durable arrangements that survive leadership change?
Leadership for sustaining integrated systems
Focus: the workforce and organisational dimension of sustainable integration, with contributions from Belgium and Chile.
- What kinds of leadership does integrated early childhood require, and how are those leaders developed?
- How do integrated systems attract, support and retain diverse workforces?
- How do professional learning ecosystems contribute to system-level integration, not just individual capacity?
How integration is financed and measured. Sessions run on Day 1, 22 October.
Strand 2 focuses on the resource architecture of integration: the money, data, mandates and accountability mechanisms that either support or undermine integrated systems. Numbers, budgets and data are not ends in themselves — they shape what gets built, what gets measured, and therefore what gets valued.
Keep returning to these questions
- How do financing and accountability architectures incentivise or obstruct collaboration across sectors?
- Who has visibility over early childhood spending, and what does a lack of visibility mean for equity?
- How can data build shared accountability rather than fuel competition between services?
- What does investing in prevention require structurally, and why is it so difficult to sustain?
Topic 2.1 · The financing architecture for integration
How are early childhood services financed across ministries, sectors and levels, and what architectural choices enable more integrated and equitable systems?
Public financing coordination and budget architecture
Focus: investment visibility and cross-sectoral budget alignment, with examples from Mexico and the Philippines.
- How does making early childhood investment visible across ministries create leverage for integration?
- What do alternative budgeting and investment mapping tools reveal about where coordination is missing?
- How does budget architecture shape whether families actually receive integrated support?
Philanthropy, scaling and financing architecture
Focus: philanthropy and cross-country financing perspectives, with examples from the USA, Italy and Mongolia.
- How does philanthropic and international funding interact with government financing — when does it reinforce integration, and when does it create parallel structures?
- What does alignment between policy priorities, funding flows and family needs look like in practice?
Topic 2.2 · Mandates, accountability and measurement for integration
How do mandates, standards, accountability frameworks and data systems support or undermine integration, and what measurement infrastructure enables system-level learning?
Mandates, standards and accountability frameworks
Focus: how standards and accountability relate to equity, funding and integration, with contributions from the USA, South Africa and Canada.
- How can standards function as integration tools, creating shared language and accountability across sectors?
- What conditions enable data systems to support cross-sector accountability rather than siloed reporting?
- How can resourcing policy act as a lever for equity and inclusion of marginalised communities?
Measurement infrastructure and system learning
Focus: structural barriers to investment measurement and national quality measurement systems, with examples from the UK and Colombia.
- Why is investing early but funding late a structural problem, and what would change the incentive structure?
- How does national measurement infrastructure support or hinder vertical integration and multi-level decision-making?
- What does system learning through measurement require: who sees the data, who acts on it?
Topic 2.3 · Investing in prevention and holistic support
How can prevention be positioned as a systemic investment strategy, and what financing, governance and implementation conditions make holistic community-based support sustainable?
Prevention as an integrated system strategy and public investment
Focus: place-based prevention, measurement challenges and trauma-proactive approaches, with examples from Ireland, the UK and Moldova.
- What does a system that genuinely invests in prevention look like structurally, beyond individual programmes?
- How can community-based integrated approaches be sustained through public investment rather than fragile project funding?
- Why is preventive impact difficult to prove, and what measurement alternatives exist?
Room 2 · Holistic and community-based integrated support systems
Focus: evidence-based parenting support, integrated welfare systems for vulnerable families and long-term prevention investment, with contributions from Portugal, Italy and the UK.
- How can evidence-based programmes serve as entry points for broader cross-sector integration?
- What governance conditions allow integrated welfare systems to reach the most vulnerable families?
- How does community and family involvement in programme design strengthen holistic integration?
How integration is co-constructed relationally. Sessions run on Day 2, 23 October.
Strand 3 focuses on the relational foundations of integration: co-creation, participation, trust, shared language, and the pathways through which local innovations influence wider systems. Integration is also a question of who is included, who is heard, and how shared ownership is built and sustained.
Keep returning to these questions
- What does meaningful participation leading to integrated solutions look like in practice, and how is it different from consultation?
- How is trust built across different actors, cultures and professional boundaries?
- What enables locally developed integrated approaches to spread without losing what made them work?
- How do relationships between practitioners, families, communities and institutions shape the quality and sustainability of integration?
Topic 3.1 · Co-creation of integrated solutions with families and communities
How do families, communities and practitioners move from being consulted to becoming genuine co-constructors of the integrated systems that affect them?
Embedding participation and shared power in systems
Focus: participatory governance and co-ownership, with contributions from Australia, Philippines, Serbia, Brazil, Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland.
- What shifts are needed to move from participation to shared power, in governance terms?
- How do participatory mechanisms connect across sectors to create integrated responses?
- What conditions allow co-creation to influence policy and financing, not just service design?
Community-based and relational co-creation
Focus: co-creation in community and crisis contexts, with contributions from Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal/Mozambique and Ukraine.
- How does co-creation strengthen integration in fragile or resource-constrained settings?
- What does community ownership require structurally — as a governance arrangement, not a rhetorical commitment?
- How can faith-based and informal actors be meaningfully integrated into formal systems?
Topic 3.2 · Trust, shared language and frontline voice
How are trust and shared understanding built across professional, institutional and community boundaries, and why do narrative change, common language and frontline voice matter for integration?
Building trust and shared language across the ECD system
Focus: narrative change and shared frameworks, with contributions from the UK, Slovenia and Portugal.
- How do we build narrative change that contributes to a shared language across policymakers, practitioners, advocates and families?
- How do coalition-building and collective action create shared understanding and momentum?
- What do interprofessional approaches like Primokiz teach us about building trust across sectors?
Building trust and shared language across systems
Focus: quality improvement, pedagogical collaboration and frontline wellbeing as sites for trust-building, with contributions from Bulgaria, Belgium and the USA.
- How do shared pedagogical frameworks and observation tools build trust across practitioners, families and settings?
- How can systems listen to and act on frontline voice, and why is workforce wellbeing an integration issue?
- How does ethical communication about children and families shape shared understanding across sectors?
Topic 3.3 · From integrated local innovation to system change
How do locally developed integrated approaches travel: how are they adapted, scaled, institutionalised — and sometimes lost?
Adaptive scaling
Focus: how innovations evolve and spread across contexts, with contributions from Belgium, Ireland, Bulgaria and international contributors.
- What enables local integrated solutions to influence policy and governance beyond their original context?
- What is the difference between scaling, meaning expanding reach, and deepening, meaning influencing systems, and why do both matter?
- What causes promising local innovations to be diluted or discontinued as they grow?
Institutionalising innovation to strengthen integration
Focus: embedding innovations structurally through governance uptake and government partnership, with contributions from Italy, Czech Republic, UK, Israel, Brazil, Netherlands and Ukraine.
- What does institutionalisation actually require: structural embedding, cultural change, cross-sector governance — or all three?
- What is the difference between scaling a new innovation and improving what already exists?
- What makes integration work resilient to political cycles, leadership changes and resource constraints?
Workshop shared contribution template
This online template is provided to each workshop and, where relevant, to each online group. It is completed collectively by the end of Block 1 and feeds into consolidation, the plenary session, and the conference conclusions.
- During Block 1 the note-taker captures key ideas across the four categories.
- During Block 2 the synthesis is shared as a first-draft scaffold.
- Together the group validates, corrects and enriches the draft.
- The Facilitator selects at least one insight per category to carry to plenary.
- All templates are gathered centrally and synthesised into the conference conclusions.
Workshop shared contribution — what the template asks
Complete this together during the workshop. Record the strand and topic, the room, whether your group is in person or online, and the Facilitator.
For each category, capture the most important insights from your discussion. Aim for 3–5 concrete, specific points per category — the more grounded in real experience, the more useful.
- What works
- What should be avoided
- What needs to be nurtured
- What we can take forward, including innovative ideas
What the form records
- Strand and topic
- Room
- Group, in person or online
- Facilitator
- Date
The online template will be distributed closer to the date of the conference.
Looking for the Call for Contributions?
The original call — roles sought, what to submit, selection criteria and the Contributor Corner milestones — remains available in full.
Questions or concerns? Contact info@issa.nl.
Thank you for your contribution to ISSA Conference 2026.
ISSA · Lisbon, Portugal · 22–23 October 2026 · issa.nl