Across France, early childhood services face growing needs, uneven access, and increasing pressure on families and professionals. ISSA Member Ensemble pour la Petite Enfance (EPE) is responding with a clear direction: put quality, evidence, and digital innovation at the heart of early childhood support. By focusing on what works and ensuring early, meaningful support for families, EPE is helping shape a more coherent and preventive system for the first years of life.
This commitment is reflected in two major achievements:
- Accompagne-moi…!®, now France’s first Level 2 evidence-based program for promoting young children’s psychosocial development
- and a new digital tool that enables standardized measurement of parent peer-support impact.
Together, they mark an important shift toward evidence-informed, relational, and scalable support for children and families.
Accompagne-moi…!®: Raising the Bar for Practice Quality
Accompagne-moi…!® is EPE’s flagship professional development program, designed to strengthen daily practice in nurseries, childminder networks, and preschools. Santé Publique France recently classified it as: Level of Proof 2 – “Well-Founded”
It is now the only program in France with this level of evidence for supporting young children’s psychosocial skills. This recognition confirms the program’s solid scientific basis and its proven effectiveness in improving emotional security, inclusion, and positive socialization across early childhood settings. Publication of the program in BMC Public Health further reinforces its credibility.
As France introduces its national early childhood quality framework, Accompagne-moi…!® provides a structured, practical pathway for settings seeking to align with national expectations. This is especially valuable in regions where services operate under high pressure and need clear, evidence-based guidance.
Impact so far:
- 1,000+ professionals trained
- 4,000+ children supported
- 99% of professionals report adopting new, more supportive practices
With demonstrated impact and adaptability, EPE is preparing to expand the program across national nursery schools and for potential international transfer.
Seeing the Real Impact of Parent Peer Support
EPE is also breaking new ground in measuring the impact of parent peer-support groups — including those offered during pregnancy and the transition into parenting, a period often overlooked in traditional family support systems.
Their new digital tool enables practitioners to track changes in parental confidence, stress, and wellbeing, and to understand outcomes across diverse family circumstances. It is the first tool in France to provide a standardized way to evaluate peer-support impact in the earliest months of family life.
In a landscape where maternal and early-parenthood mental health is a growing concern, and where France faces an alarming situation — marked by falling birth rates, rising inequalities, and high rates of child poverty, this intervention fills an urgent gap. As one trained facilitator shared:
“This tool is clear, accessible, and helps us concretely observe the impact on the families we support.”
National Recognition for EPE’s Work in the First 1,000 Days
EPE’s work recently gained national attention in Devenir, the only French-language European magazine dedicated to early childhood development. A special issue highlighted the importance of Maisons des 1000 Premiers Jours® — welcoming, structured spaces where parents can access facilitated peer groups and guidance during early parenthood.
These centers address persistent challenges in France: uneven distribution of services, gaps in mental health support for new parents, and growing social inequalities. With mental health declared the Great National Cause of 2025, preventive, community-based approaches like these have become essential.
Digital Innovation Strengthening Human Connection
EPE’s strategy also embraces digital tools and data-informed evaluation as a way to reinforce, not replace, human relationships. Digital innovation helps free professional time for meaningful interactions, ensure consistent quality, and enable scalable training and impact measurement. Combined with evidence-based programs, this approach strengthens the overall coherence and reach of early childhood services.
An Invitation to Collaborate
EPE’s achievements reflect a broader ambition: to build early childhood systems anchored in quality, evidence, and early family support. Their programs are generating measurable impact across diverse contexts — and are ready to be shared and adapted through new partnerships.
If your country or institution shares our priorities — quality, evidence, prevention, and early family support — we would be delighted to explore conversations and shared initiatives.
For more information, contact EPE.
