INTESYS is a 3-year, Forward Looking Cooperation Project co-funded by the European Commission's Erasmus+ Programme. The project focuses on piloting new approaches to Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) systems in Europe with a view to ensuring that children and families in vulnerable situations have access to high quality ECEC provided by services that are better integrated across the different sectors (education, health, welfare, etc.), professions and across age groups and governance levels.

ISSA ensures the quality of the reports and products created in the course of the INTESYS project, as well as the quality of the coordination meetings in the consortium.

In 2017, ISSA’s Mihaela Ionescu led the process of finalizing the draft version of the INTESYS toolkit that is currently being tested within the pilot phase of the project. This toolkit is adapted by partners, to the specific contexts of the pilots in Belgium, Italy, Slovenia and Portugal.

The toolkit provides a common ground for the four countries in the project to work towards fostering the integration within ECEC system. It is meant to be an inspiring and versatile resource for the partners in supporting the activities in the pilots, while being responsive to specific country and local contexts.

Of the project, Petra Bozovičar from the Step by Step Center for Quality in Education, Slovenia, says “It is important to establish a culture of cooperation between different experts from different institutions: to provide an opportunity to sit together at the same table; to get to know each other; to exchange information about each institution's work, their principles, successes and challenges; to align the principles that lead their work..”

Lessons learned from the project have been profound. Vera Bispo, Pre-school teacher at Associação Tempo de Mudar, "...I feel lucky to have been able to participate."

To read more about the INTESYS project, visit intesys.be.