Date: 09-07-2018

NEWS - Strengthening systems and families for Early Childhood Interventions

Cross-continental efforts for barrier free child participation in Minsk

In June, UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) and UNICEF Belarus Country Office, together with other UNICEF Country Offices and partners together with the government of Belarus and with support of the Russian Federation, joined forces at the conference Early Childhood Intervention: Strengthening Systems & Empowering Families to examine and discuss how Children’s Rights can be improved across the continent by strengthening and scaling up ECI services.

The Conference turned out to be a grand landmark in Early Childhood Education and Care in the region of Europe and Central Asia with voices of policy makers, representatives from ministries of health, education and social protection, experts, parents and practitioners from some twenty countries united in promoting new practices and policies. 

Global connections, local partnerships
The central theme of the conference was the realization of the human rights of children in the earliest most formative years, ensuring development of their fullest potential and meaningful barrier free participation in all aspects of life.  Particular emphasis was given to the importance of partnering with parents through a family-centered approach.  The guiding conceptual scaffold was the recently launched Nurturing Care Framework (see www.nurturing-care.org).

One of the highlights of the Conference was a Skype presentation by Carlos Pereira (Brazil) on the use of assistive and augmentative communication technology Livox for young children with communication challenges. 

Nurturing Care
ISSA’s Senior Program manager, Zorica Trikic, contributed to the conference by delivering a presentation in the panel on: “Supporting Families with Children who Develop Differently:  Enabling Nurturing Care: the Resource Modules for Home Visitors.”

Additional information:
Eurlyaid – The European Association on Early Childhood Intervention (EAECI) will be organizing an ECI Conference in Kharkiv, Ukraine, October 10-12, 2018
Early Childhood Intervention: changing paradigms through participatory practices with families, professionals and society if you are interested you can find more information on http://conference.eurlyaid.eu/