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Together, UNICEF ECARO and ISSA have developed a set of Resource Modules for Home Visitors: Supporting Families for Nurturing Care, intended to better equip home visitors with the latest knowledge and tools to support and engage with the families of young children.

Drawing upon the most recent scientific evidence, the modules have been developed through a consultative process involving international and regional experts, national trainers, and home visiting professionals. They can be delivered through various training methods and adapted to train other service providers.
These modules empower home visitors to take a strengths-based approach that promotes nurturing relationships between the caregiver and child as well as contributing to risk reduction by supporting and referring families to other services when necessary.

The modules are accompanied by several supporting tools. They provide ample opportunity for the learner to be actively engaged in reflection and deliver guidance on the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices required for home visitors in their “new and enriched role”. These tools can support home visitors to work in partnership with families, to support parents and caregivers, and empower them to provide the best possible environment for their young children.
We trust that training courses based on these modules, whether in-person or online, will enable home visitors to develop positive, respectful, and sensitive relationships with parents, empowering them to make informed decisions and take positive action with regard to the development and all-around wellbeing of their young children.You can learn more about the Nurturing Care Framework here.

In partnership with:

With the aim to support ECEC settings, leaders and professionals to identify and overcome these challenges, the Diversity+ project has launched the Diversity+ Charter: a set of minimum requirements that ECEC services and institutions have to meet to accommodate different types of diversity and be classified as inclusive and diversity positive (Diversity+). 

Following the Council Recommendations on High Quality ECEC, the Diversity+ Charter is organised around five key areas: Access, Workforce, Curriculum, Monitoring and Evaluation and Governance for diversity inclusion. Each area contains a set of indicators defining what should be in place for Diversity+ ECEC. 

The Charter invites ECEC managers and professionals to engage in a continuous discussion and critical reflection on their existing policies with the aim to ensure that all children, their families, and ECEC staff feel welcomed, valued and respected.

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PARENT manual provides insights and guidelines to engage men in nurturing care and transformations. It tackles the issue by reaching out and involving frontline workers from sectors such as health and social service as well as new fathers or fathers to be. 

The manual addresses engaging men in nurturing care in terms of working with health personnel to engage fathers, involving fathers in educational groups, highlighting the role of social workers in preventing domestic violence, early childhood development and gender socialization during engaged fatherhood and lastly reflections based on monitoring and evaluation.

"Let's Play" Activity Cards - Play-based activities for healing and learning

The "Let’s Play" Activity Cards contain play-based activities developed to stimulate and support children whose play has been affected by the war in Ukraine. The content emphasizes the healing power of play as a vehicle for children to express themselves and their feelings, while at the same time continuing to learn and explore the world around them.

Parents, caregivers, professionals and volunteers working in formal and non-formal Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) programs can use them as a way of alleviating stress, supporting their involvement in children’s play, strengthening their connection with children, and as a means of providing children with a sense of safety and comfort.

Available in Armenian, Bulgarian, Czech, English, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, and Ukrainian.

The "European Qualification Framework of Diversity Ambassador in ECEC environments” has been developed with the aim to improve ECEC HR management, to profile critical knowledge, skills and attitudes required to respond to individual and group needs of children from different backgrounds and with special educational exigencies. Specific learning resources complement the EQF profile in order to smoothly develop the role of a Diversity Ambassador: a key feature of a diversity positive ECEC provision. Also, the tool eases the readability of the profile, thus ultimately the professionals' mobility, across Europe.

The EQF of Diversity Ambassador in ECEC environments has been developed and produced by the Diversity+ consortium under the leadership of CIAPE. 

Available in English, Bulgarian, Czech, Italian and Slovak.

The trainer guide is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

Introduction to Home Visitors Modules Supporting Families for the Nurturing Care. You can access all the modules here.

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Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services for children under six years of age play a fundamental role in laying strong foundations for lifelong learning and wellbeing, especially in the first three years of life. Quality ECEC services can make an extraordinary difference in children’s lives, especially for the most disadvantaged. Research indicates that children from vulnerable groups derive even greater benefit from high-quality ECEC than their peers from more advantaged families.

Our Recommendations:

• Promote the societal value of ECEC services and ECEC profession
• Establish a minimum standard of qualification accompanied by opportunities for career development for ECEC staff working with children under three years of age.
• Track data on ECEC staff qualifications and define targets for the levels of qualification of ECEC staff working in ECEC services, especially those working with children under three years of age.
• Define aligned competence profiles across different categories of ECEC staff to ensure high-quality service provision.
• Implement policies and mechanisms that bring more diversity in the ECEC workforce (gender, cultural background, etc.).
• Increase investments for improving the ECEC staff working conditions (child-adult ratio, child-free time, renumeration, working environment).

This paper was developed under the First Years, First Priority Campaign.

First Years, First Priority is a joint initiative of Eurochild and the International Step by Step Association (ISSA). We are the leading European networks representing the children’s rights and the early childhood sectors. Our partnership pools our respective strengths to campaign for the prioritisation of early childhood development in public policies across Europe. The European Public Health Alliance and Roma Education Fund are associate partners.

Module 8: COMMON PARENTING CONCERNS is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 7: PARENTAL WELLBEING is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 5: ENGAGING FATHERS is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 4: FALLING IN LOVE - Promoting Parent-Child Attachment is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 6: THE ART OF PARENTING - Love, Talk, Play, Read is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 18: GENDER SOCIALISATION AND GENDER DYNAMICS IN FAMILIES - the Role of the Home Visitor is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 2: THE NEW ROLE OF THE HOME VISITOR is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 17: SUPERVISION - Supporting Professionals and Enhancing Service Quality is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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Module 15: WORKING WITH OTHER SERVICES is a part of the Home Visiting Resource Modules Supporting Families for Nurturing Care. You can access the whole package here. 

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