ISSA Participates in Eurochild 6th Annual Conference

ISSA has been a member of Eurochild since 2008. Aija Tuna, ISSA Program Director, represented ISSA at Eurochild’s 6th Annual Conference: Monitoring Child Well-being: better policy and practice, in Cyprus, 11-13 November 2009.  The main message of the conference was that the morality of any society is tested through what it does for its children. Children are legal entities with their own voice that should be heard and taken into account; they are not subjects for protection only and indicators are not only for chasing numbers but for understanding situations and planning next steps.

Ms. Tuna participated in a workshop specifically devoted to early years education and care – the topic of one of the Eurochild Thematic Working Groups of which ISSA is a member. Ms. Tuna contributed expertise from the region of the ISSA Network. Two excellent presentations were made during the workshop by Aldo Fortunati, La Bottega di Geppetto, President, Early Childhood Research and Documentation Centre, Italy and Anastasia Houndoumadi, SCHEDIA – Centre for Artistic and Pedagogical Training, Athens, Greece, member of the DECET network– Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training. Aldo Fortunati emphasized the belief that education of young children should be a community project, using examples of communities in Italy where this is the case. He advocated for “a universally available service that is conceptualized as a public responsibility and one that attests to the virtuous relationship that can be established between the recognition of children’s protagonism, community participation and public policy, at a time when policies persist in taking directions that are predominantly different from those of the children.”

It was agreed during the conference, that measurement and indicators are at the heart of improving performance in policy and practice. Unless we measure an issue or problem, chances are it will be ignored and nothing will get done. Child well-being is notoriously difficult to measure, but there are more and more examples of where it is being done with good effect on policy development. This conference was framed within the European Union’s Social Inclusion agenda which has identified the eradication of child poverty by breaking the cycle of intergenerational inheritance as one of its key objectives. To help achieve this goal, the EU monitors income poverty and material deprivation, and there are plans to develop common indicators that better reflect child well-being. The objective of this conference was to feed into that debate. The EU social inclusion agenda also aims to bring about policy change through mutual learning and exchange of practice across Member States. This conference offered the platform to share how indicators are being used: in policy development at national and regional level, in advocating for children’s rights and well-being, in improving practice, and setting standards in service delivery to families and children.

For more information about the conference contact Aija Tuna or visit www.eurochild.org.