Dear ISSA Community,
2025 was not a year of business as usual. It was a year of movement and change. Across countries, systems, and ways of working.
ISSA has always worked for long-term, systems-level change. In 2025, that commitment was tested. With fewer resources and greater pressure, we stayed focused on what matters most: improving outcomes for young children by strengthening the people, practices, and systems around them.
Here we share the top five ways that impact became visible in 2025 and taken to a higher level in 2026, from some of the collaborative initiatives in which the ISSA Network Hub led or was engaged.
1. Improving outcomes for young children by strengthening systems for wellbeing
Together with ISSA members we worked across health, education, and social services to help systems work better together for young children and families.
In partnership with UNICEF ECARO and WHO Europe, we advanced family-centred, preventive approaches and cross-sector coordination. → View recorded webinars
Additionally, in partnership with several members, we supported practitioners across Europe to better integrate health, mental health, and early childhood development in routine services. → Read more about CHAVORE
We also raised awareness about and improved practices around Child Participation → Check out the Toolkit
At EU level, ISSA also contributed evidence and practice insights to the reports of the European Commission’s Working Group on ECEC and the ENESET report.
2. Improving outcomes for young children by strengthening the early childhood workforce
Across the network, members strengthened how professionals support young children — in everyday practice and at system level.
Work in 2025 advanced Psychological First Aid, trauma-informed practice, Embracing Diversity, and pathways to accreditation. These efforts are helping embed care, competence, and inclusion where children experience it most directly. → Visit the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative website
At national level, ISSA also supported system reform, including the development of a child-centred school-readiness curriculum and training package under a World Bank–funded ECD programme in Tajikistan, to be implemented nationwide from 2026.
3. Emergency Preparedness
Members continued to show that participation and protection are not optional, even in crisis. From flexible services such as Play Hubs to workforce preparation for Psychological First Aid, the network amplified practical models that centre children’s voices and safeguard their wellbeing, reinforcing that resilience is built before emergencies hit. → Explore the ECDiE Interactive Compendium
4. Fatherhood and care
In 2025, engaged fatherhood moved further into the mainstream of policy and practice. Through the Engaging Men in Nurturing Care initiative, evidence, advocacy, and public narratives helped reframe care as a shared responsibility, contributing to stronger early relationships, greater gender equality, and the prevention of violence against children and women across Italy, Spain, and Portugal. → See EMiNC publications and advocacy from 2025
5. ECD Field Infrastructure: the ECOS Institute
A major development of 2025 was the strengthening of shared infrastructure. Under the banner “Early Childhood, One System”, with ECOS, ISSA, its members and partners, laid the foundations for a collaborative platform that connects learning, practice, research, and sustainability, designed to extend the reach of local expertise and support long-term impact across the field. ECOS will be launching imminently. You will hear about it via this ISSA e-newsletter.
Looking ahead
What defines 2025 is not just what was delivered, but how true we stayed on our mission and how consistently we acted on shared values: collective ownership, distributed leadership, and a long-term view of impact.
As we enter 2026, our focus is on deepening partnership and collaboration — within the network, across regions, and with global and regional partners, to take this work further. By strengthening how we learn together, align efforts, and share infrastructure, ISSA aims to help move the early childhood field to a new level of coherence, quality, and impact for young children and their families.
Thank you for being part of this work.
With appreciation,
The Team at the ISSA Network Hub
