Knowledge Hub

Refugee Trauma Initiative and our partners deliver Baytna - a trauma- and identity-informed model of Early Childhood Education for refugee children and their families living in Greece. Baytna was being implemented across five centres up until early March 2020, when delivery was halted due to government regulations related to COVID-19.

While centres are closed, it is important to us that we continue to support the families who attended Baytna so that they feel cared for, emotionally and socially supported, and still have activities to do that are aligned with the Baytna model. Relationships are the core of Baytna, and we want to keep the relationships with children and families alive by providing simple activities that are modified for different age groups and which don’t require materials. We provide written, audio and visual materials to appeal to different preferences and literacy needs.

RTI’s response to COVID-19 included developing activity ideas, videos, and other resources, hosted on a resource library on our website, that are aimed at supporting psychosocial wellbeing. This includes supporting the relationship between mothers and children, assisting with relaxation through mindfulness activities, helping with the identification, regulation and release of emotions, and providing children with a crucial opportunities for fun and play. Resources include: story-telling, movement, interactive songs, ‘how to’ storytelling prop guides. Also relaxation and release audio and visual guides for parents such as grounding and breathing meditation techniques. They are being developed in a variety of languages to meet the needs of the diverse community we work with, and are being created in a collaborative way that draws on the different strengths of our partners. Crucially, the resources are focused on psychosocial support and identity- and trauma-informed.

This Toolkit has been developed in the context of the project ‘Making the first 1000 days count!’. The aim of this Toolkit is to provide Home Visitors with the latest scientific evidence about child development, learning and well-being as well as practical advice and materials, which they can share with parents and carers. The tool will also be used to prevent child abuse and improve child well-being by providing education and services in families’ homes through parent education and access to community resources.
The information and materials provided in this Toolkit focus on play, learning and development in the first 3 years of a child’s life. Attention is also given to their safety and protection.
Quality home visiting programmes help parents provide safe and supportive environments for their children. Specifically, they can alert the parents to the importance of establishing healthy connections with their babies and of building loving, trustful and supportive relationships with their children. They can learn how to do that during their routine and everyday family activities. Home visiting programmes are also intended to reduce the stress parents and carers may experience in their parenting role – by providing a listening ear, calm reassurance, support and information.

The Home Visiting Toolkit is composed by four parts:
• Part One: Being a Home Visitor.
• Part Two: Home visits in Practice.
• Part Three: Info Cards on child development, play, learning and parenting (for Home Visitors)
• Part Four: Activity Cards to promote responsive parenting, child development and playful learning

It is composed of original material produced by ICDI, as well existing materials from other organisations including the ISSA-UNICEF ECARO Resource Package for Home Visitors. Part One and Two in English and Amharic are publicly available, but if an organisation is interested in applying it, ICDI offers a training during which Part 3 and 4 are also explained and shared.

The Home Visiting Workforce Needs Assessment Tool aims to help Ministries and government agencies reflect on the ways in which they can support personnel delivering home visiting programs across sectors for pregnant mothers and caregivers with children under 3. Drawing inspiration from the UNICEF Pre-Primary Diagnostic and Planning Tool, this tool is intended for countries with home visiting programs at either the sub-national or national levels. The scope of this tool includes home visitors who work directly with young children and their families, as well as supervisors and trainers.

Worldwide Orphans (WWO) created a learning at home activity manual with 20 activities to do in 20 minutes, targeted for children from 6 months-8 years of age with focus on supporting parent capacity to play with and support their child’s ongoing learning. The activity manual has been rolled out in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Haiti and Vietnam and translated into the local language within each country.

Activities were selected based on:
• An understanding that most of our families have limited resources and few toys in the household.
• A desire to strengthen the relationship between parent and child through short (20minutes) quality activities.
• Selection of play-based learning activities that promote early childhood development, including language, listening, math and problem-solving skills.

Maintaining a routine in times of crisis is vital for children. This program consists of 20-minute play sessions that parents/caregivers can do with their children at home using very basic items: a pencil, some paper, a box of crayons or a deck of cards.

Training was done via phone call or Zoom with manuals and learning kits distributed to each family. Feedback suggests that parents have appreciated the activity ideas and have been more engaged in their child’s learning and play. The manual is available in the other languages upon request.

This book is one of the main outputs from the PACE (Providing Access to Childcare and Employment) project. This European project tested new models of making childcare and employment more accessible for families living in vulnerable conditions, at distance from childcare and employment, including single parent families, families with a non-European background, a low education level and low income. When parents want to start an education, training or a route towards employment, they often have barriers to address, including health, housing, mobility and language barriers. Another main barrier for parents with young children is childcare. We have found that current childcare systems are not well-equipped to meet the needs of families who start a trajectory to employment.

Most early years settings expect regularity and continuity. It is difficult to find childcare at short notice, during brief periods or at non-standard hours. This lack of flexibility is a barrier that adds to existing structural barriers that lower access to childcare for vulnerable families. In PACE, 13 project partners in four countries examined what is needed to make childcare more flexible and at the same time create comfort for children, families and staff. The book ‘Flexibility in childcare’ explains why more flexibility in childcare is needed. It also looks into how a more flexible, holistic form of childcare can be organised, describing 5 prototypes. Finally, the book looks into what actions organisations can take to make flexible childcare sustainable on the business side, to assure pedagogical quality and a warm environment for the whole family, to support staff members and to cooperate with other stakeholders.

The book is available in three languages, open source. We believe that it can be a valuable resource for any policy makers, academics and early years providers and teams interested in working in a more holistic and flexible manner. The book contains a lot of background, context and theory, many concrete examples from the PACE project and hands-on advice on how to make a setting work more flexibly and holistically, including advice on the business side, working with families, teams and in collaboration with other services.

A guidebook which aims to support and inform the work of kindergarten teachers engaged in kindergartens in refugee camps on the Aegean islands, but can also be of help in various kindergarten settings.The guidebook besides hints on how to support kindergarten teachers, addresses topics such as creating safe, well structured, child friendly, and stimulating environments in camps; providing psychosocial support to children and families and dealing with trauma; supporting children who do not speak language of instruction. In the guidebook for each of the topics a set of suggested hands-on activities is provided alongside with theoretical explanations of the rationale behind them. 

How to Business Model Canvas (BMC) provides guidance on how to deal with both external and internal organisational needs and the ways to best respond to them as an organisation. BMC is designed to increase accessibility and flexiblity to provide childcare inclusively for all by keeping high-quality standards.

The toolbox consists of a folder, four concrete examples of business models and a template of a business model canvas that you can complete yourself.

This publication has been produced within the INTERREG 2 Seas project PACE (Providing Access to Childcare and Employment) ran from 2016 to 2020 in four countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, France and England. The project’s aim was to make childcare and employment more accessible for families in vulnerable situations. 

For more resources from the PACE project: https://www.mechelen.be/documents-pace

For more information about the PACE project, visit https://www.interreg2seas.eu/en/pace 

During the lockdown, the Child Development Institute at Ilia State University continued its activities by providing services at the distance. All distance interventions included parents or other family members. In order to support their work at home, specialists were designing tailored activities for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Written visual materials alongside phone or online guidance were provided to any the family who was willing and able to participate in such an exchange.

Online connections have led to more close contact with family members identifying some areas which needed an urgent response. Therefore, the team of specialists designed distance parent education courses and invited all parents to engage. Talks were transferred on ISU’s page. The Institute Talks were held in Georgian on a weekly basis.

During the lockdown, the Child Development Institute at Ilia State University continued its activities by providing services at the distance. All distance interventions included parents or other family members. In order to support their work at home, specialists were designing tailored activities for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Written visual materials alongside phone or online guidance were provided to any the family who was willing and able to participate in such an exchange.

Online connections have led to more close contact with family members identifying some areas which needed an urgent response. Therefore, the team of specialists designed distance parent education courses and invited all parents to engage. Talks were transferred on ISU’s page. The Institute Talks were held in Georgian on a weekly basis.

During the lockdown, the Child Development Institute at Ilia State University continued its activities by providing services at the distance. All distance interventions included parents or other family members. In order to support their work at home, specialists were designing tailored activities for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Written visual materials alongside phone or online guidance were provided to any the family who was willing and able to participate in such an exchange.

Online connections have led to more close contact with family members identifying some areas which needed an urgent response. Therefore, the team of specialists designed distance parent education courses and invited all parents to engage. Talks were transferred on ISU’s page. The Institute Talks were held in Georgian on a weekly basis.

In this Belgian Pilot Report, conducted as part of the VALUE project, we examine how collaborative learning between ECEC core and assisting practitioners can be supported as part of sustainable CPD (Continuous Professional Development) path in the context of Flemish community of Belgium. 

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate development and implementation of a common path of professional development for professionals: ECEC core and assisting practitioners in two Slovenian kindergartens involved in the VALUE project.

The aim of the VALUE project was to create a ‘path of continuous professional development (CPD) for all kindergarten professionals, to improve collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners, and at the same time to recognize the diversity according to their background and experience. In this respect, the VALUE project aims to improve collaborative practices in order to address the needs of all children, families and communities.

This report examines the question "How can professional development in learning laboratories enhance professional identity, a holistic perspective approach to education and care (educare) and collaboration among and between core and assisting practitioners within Danish ECEC settings?"

Overall, VALUE aims to support diversity and democracy among children through coordination of pedagogical activities and exchange of experiences among and between those working with the children: both core and assisting practitioners. It is assumed that focusing on the conditions for ECEC professionals’ work, such as their expertise and the resources available, will lead to better opportunities for successful collaboration between these groups.

In this VALUE endline report, the following question is examined: How can continuous professional development (CPD) strengthen professional identity, holistic approaches to educational work (educare) and cooperation between core and assisting practitioners working within the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)? This question is explored through pilot projects conducted by research groups located in four different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Slovenia). The report highlights the findings from the pilot projects in the four countries.

The report first presents the different VALUE pilot projects as snapshots from the four countries. It is then followed by a description of the overall lessons learned from the projects and the insights that emerged regarding important conditions at both policy and practice levels, which can be used as a framework for the future development of CPD at all levels of ECEC. Finally, we present our conclusions and make a number of recommendations based on the descriptions and examples in this VALUE endline report.

In this report we present a description and reflection of the learning path carried out in Portugal, by the teams of Lisbon and Santarém. After a previous contextualization about the ECEC system in Portugal, we share information on the two institutions where the pilot studies took place (one located in Lisbon and the other in Santarém). 

The contents and methodologies of each learning path are presented through the description of the processes and learning carried out in each pilot. Both contents and methods were jointly defined by the teams of Lisbon and Santarém based on the objectives set out by the Value Project.

Finally, the report summarizes the findings and information resulting from the initial baseline, individual portfolio and focus group interviews carried out at the end of the learning path. This includes the main issues pointed out as well as an analysis of the aspects to be considered for the continuity of a consistent path of collaboration between ECEC core and assisting practitioners. 

During the pandemic, the NGO “KHAM" Delcevo had an important role to play in raising awareness among the Roma community about how to be protected from COVID-19.  In order to achieve our objectives we implemented online education for pregnant women about going to the Gynecologist and taking care of their children’s physical and mental health. Also, we supported Roma children living in poverty, and families with low income to attend the online education. Finally, we supported Roma families who were affected by the economic crisis to apply for social welfare benefits.

Together with Roma Health Network (Roma NGOs who are supported from OSF) who have monthly online meetings. In addition, all the difficulties that the community faces were presented to the Government via online meetings. With support from OSF, the Roma Network donated $130,000 to the Roma community. Finally, the community was benefitted from the brochures developed about how to be protected from COVID-19.