Experiences during the first three years of life have been shown to have a lasting effect on a child's development, and eventual life outcomes. In light of this the need for high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is widely recognised. Countries across Europe are facing complex, multifaceted problems that are negatively affecting its children. Challenges of immigration and integration are common. One in four children under the age of six in Europe is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and may need specific measures to support their educational needs. Prevention and early intervention practices and approaches have been proven to be effective in addressing these challenges, particularly when they are focused on the earliest years of life. Our project aims to share best practice in the areas of prevention and early intervention (PEI) in disadvantaged populations, evidence informed practice, practitioner training in PEI approaches, and the importance of early childhood care and education (ECEC) as a preventative tool. The objective of this learning exchange is to allow partner organisations to develop and reinforce networks, increase their capacity to work at a transnational level, share and confront ideas, practices and methods in ECEC and PEI. This project has four partners: International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI), is a Dutch non-profit organisation with a worldwide brief, and a focus on European and developing countries. It promotes the well being of children growing up in difficult circumstances, and works to improve the policies and practices which affect these children by assisting in the development of local capacity. The University of Coimbra in Portugal has over 700 years of experience in education, training and research, and today has over 24,000 students. Its Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences are involved in research in the fields of parental and family education, early childhood education, and socio-educational interventions with children and families. UiT – the Arctic University of Norway, is the third largest in Norway and the northernmost university of the world. RKBU North (Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare) is involved in research and education of professionals within child welfare and mental health in Norway, and develops research-based practices for services that are working directly with children and youth. The final partner is the Northside Partnership hosted Prevention and Early Intervention Network (PEIN) in Ireland. It is a network of evidence-based practice, advocacy and research organisations across the Republic of Ireland that share a commitment to improving outcomes for children, young people, and their communities. The project involves a series of learning exchange visits to each of the partner countries. Activities during the exchanges will include: visit to the host organisation with presentation on their work; two site visits to local programmes/ projects; two expert inputs/ presentations from mixture of academic/ policy / practitioner; project meeting. There will also be two larger open learning events with local and national stakeholders. There will be a mixture of research, policy and practice in the learning exchanges, bringing together experts in all of these three fields. The methodology we will use in this project will be participatory and experiential, involving open discussion and dialogue and involving visits to services and programmes, as well as inputs from practitioners, applied researchers, and those involved in policy formation. In the belief that strong interpersonal relationships form the basis for successful strategic partnerships and effective collaborative working, there will be space given to networking and information sharing, at all meetings and events. At the end of this project participants will have developed a better understanding of the situation in different countries in terms of ECEC and PEI practice, as well as the similarities and differences in the context, challenges and responses that exist in each country, and within the different organisations and programmes. Participants will also come away with an understanding of how education and child services systems operate in different countries, and with some new ideas that may be usefully put into practice in their home countries. It is expected that the partnerships developed through this project outlive the lifespan of the current project, and will lead to future and perhaps more ambitious strategic partnerships, job shadowing arrangements, research collaborations and practitioner exchanges. It is also expected that this project will have a long term and sustained positive impact on the wider fields of PEI and ECEC in partner countries.
Experiences during the first three years of life have been shown to have a lasting effect on a child's development, and eventual life outcomes. Consequently, the need for high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is well recognised. Countries across Europe are facing complex problems that negatively affect their children. Challenges of immigration and integration are common. One in four children under the age of six in Europe is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and may need specific measures to support their educational needs. Prevention and early intervention practices and approaches have proven to be effective in addressing these challenges, particularly when they are focused on the earliest years of life. This project aimed to share best practice in the areas of prevention and early intervention (PEI) in disadvantaged populations, evidence-informed practice, practitioner training in PEI approaches, and the importance of ECEC as a preventative tool. The objective of the learning exchange was to allow partner organisations to develop and reinforce networks; increase their capacity to work at a transnational level; share and confront ideas, practices and methods in ECEC and PEI. The project comprised four partners: • International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI), a Dutch non-profit organisation with a worldwide brief; • the University of Coimbra in Portugal whose Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences is involved in research in the fields of parental and family education, early childhood education, and socio-educational interventions with children and families; • UiT – the Arctic University of Norway whose Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare is involved in research and education of professionals within child welfare and mental health in Norway; • the Northside Partnership hosted Prevention and Early Intervention Network (PEIN) in Ireland, a network of evidence-based practice, advocacy and research organisations across the Republic of Ireland that share a commitment to improving outcomes for children, young people, and their communities. The project involved a series of learning exchange visits to each of the partner countries, though the final study visit to Ireland had to be conducted online because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Activities during the exchanges included: visits to the host organisation with presentations on their work; site visits to local projects; expert inputs from academics, policy-makers and practitioners; project meetings. Each visit also involved larger open learning events with local and national stakeholders. Learning exchanges focused on a mix of research, policy and practice, and brought together experts in those fields. A total of 89 individuals from across the partner organisations participated in the four learning exchanges, with a considerably larger number attending the open learning events. Informed by the overarching theme of the project, each learning exchange visit focused on a relevant ECEC theme as follows: • Norway and Portugal: Prevention and intervention in the early years • Netherlands: How prevention and early intervention works for children with additional needs • Ireland: Pregnancy and early childhood, preparing for pregnancy The partners adopted a range of methods to assess the impact of the project. These included: • an evaluation of each study visit, completed by participants immediately after an individual learning event; • an impact evaluation questionnaire that was completed by participants a number of months after a learning event. Notable short term impacts expressed by participants from across the four learning exchanges were: • new learning arising from exposure to diverse learning experiences; • appreciation of information-sharing and knowledge-exchange across jurisdictions • generation of new ideas for future research, practice and training in ECEC. Longer-term benefits consistently noted by participants were: • impact on individuals’ ECEC knowledge and practice, and on their perspectives relating to prevention and early intervention; • participants’ intent to apply new learning in practice, particularly in the development of new ECEC projects; • new learning acting as a basis for future institutional cooperation (for example, thirteen months after the study visit to the Netherlands, half of the participants had made follow-up contact with partners met during the exchange); • participants’ commitment to disseminate learning garnered through exchange visits across a range of fora. A quote from one of the project evaluation reports summarises the primary value of the project: “Information and sharing experiences appear as crucial to the improvement of professional and personal skills… Sharing knowledge and having the opportunity to watch and be immersed in real experiences seems to be a rich way to learn, develop new ideas and to project new programmes.”