Toolkit on inclusive community based ECEC

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Toolkit on inclusive community based ECEC

Inclusive education requires the use of varied strategies and techniques to ensure equal participation of all children to advance their development. Due to its nature and qualities, play forms part of flexible, child-centred and participatory/experiential educational strategies for celebrating diversity in education.

This Toolkit is for practitioners in any non-formal setting for children 0-8 years old interested in strengthening inclusive education. More about this resource can be found here.

The Toolkit is available in English. Translation in Ukrainian and other languages will be available soon.

Activity Cards for the Toolkit on inclusive community based ECEC

The Activity Cards were created to be used in the Play Hubs by practitioners to promote inclusive formal and non-formal education with young children and their parents, paying special attention to children with disabilities and special needs. However, they can be used and adapted by any other formal and non-formal service. Read more here

It can be downloaded in English, with Hungarian and Slovak translations coming soon.

‘Play for Inclusion’ Handbook

Professional development is key to the quality and impact of any ECEC service. Professionals working with refugee children need appropriate knowledge, competencies, and skills to build safe environments and promote the integration and well-being of distressed children and their caregivers.

The ‘Play for Inclusion’ Handbook is a new resource for practitioners who work in non-formal early childhood education and care (ECEC) services supporting the integration and psychosocial well-being of young refugee children and their caregivers. Read here for more information.

The Handbook is available in English and Slovak. Translations in Ukrainian and other languages will be available soon.

Diveristy+ Charter: First steps towards diversity positive services

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.

What we mean by: Playful Parenting in the early years

The LEGO Foundation aims to build a future in which learning through play empowers all children to become creative, engaged, life-long learners. Parents are fundamental to that aim, as they are heavily invested in their children’s development and learning. While this is true across all ages of children, this leaflet has a critical focus on children from birth to three years old. The importance of parenting for infants and young children in this age group cannot be overstated.

This leaflet brings together our understanding of playful experiences that lead to deeper learning, with the international conversation around high quality parenting.

Playful Parenting Activity Booklet

This booklet contains ideas for parents and caregivers to help support their young child’s physical, cognitive and social-emotional development. The booklet includes specific ideas for children from 0-9 and is broken into helpful sections based on a young child’s developmental milestones.

Toolkit for inclusive early childhood education and care. Providing high quality education and care to all young children

The Toolkit for inclusion in ECEC recalls political commitments made e.g. in the European Pillar of Social Rights, policy recommendations which have been adopted by EU Member States as well as research findings. They all converge towards the need and will to develop more inclusive ECEC systems and settings.

To ensure equity for all children in accessing and benefitting from ECEC, the toolkit includes a set of practical solutions and measures to inspire ECEC policy makers at the national, regional or local level, as well as ECEC practitioners. It includes examples of good practice in ECEC settings and identifies useful ideas and resources to inspire leaders and staff across Europe to progress towards practice that is more inclusive. The toolkit aims to inspire decision-makers to use the examples of good practice to create appropriate conditions that can benefit all children and families.