Based on a positive attitude towards multilingualism among children, parents, teams, and the environment, the project aimed to: 1. Share knowledge and reflect on how to respond to the needs of multilingual children in childcare 2. Share knowledge and reflect on how to support functional language use (towards children, parents, teams, and the neighborhood) of multilingual professionals 3. Compile a multilingualism toolkit that supports professionals and organizations 4. Share the results within the networks of all participating organizations 5. Increase the quality of childcare as core mission of the partners (and build an international partner network
In metropolitan contexts such as Amsterdam and Ghent, diversity and multilingualism are ubiquitous. Not only the children but also parents and staff have a variety of first languages. The concrete motivation for the project was that the partners observed significant interest among professionals in questions about diversity and multilingualism, and a need to gather more insight into the possibilities within existing and future legal frameworks regarding language.