On 21 and 22 June, the beautiful city of Prague welcomed the final Transnational Partners Meeting of the Diversity+ project. Warmly hosted by the Czech project partner Schola Empirica, the Diversity+ team reviewed what has been achieved over the last three years, learned more about the Czech Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system, its challenges and examples of best practices, and explored ideas about future collaboration.
Diversity+ project achievements
The D+ consortium has created a set of tools to assist early childhood education and care practitioners and managers in developing inclusive, bias-free, and diversity-friendly practices and environments. All tools are available in English, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak and Italian and two of them, the Diversity+ Charter and Footprint Assessment Tool, are also translated in Dutch.
- Diversity+ eBook: Informative reading with an analysis and overview of ECEC systems in six countries, and thirty-three inspiring practices from 11 EU countries.
- 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+) The added value of the Charter is that it is based on the EU Council Recommendations on High-Quality ECEC and is organized around its five key themes: access, workforce, curriculum, monitoring and evaluation, and governance.
- Diversity+ Footprint Assessment Tool: a digital, inspiring self-assessment tool for ECEC managers, and professionals to assess current services, reflect on common practices and mostly understand in a visual way the concrete, necessary steps needed to create a fully inclusive environment. The Tool is aligned with EU Council Recommendations on High-Quality ECEC and provides additional readings and information to support the process of transformation.
- Diversity+ Ambassador in ECEC environments: Presents a European Qualification profile (EQF Level 5) of the Diversity+ Ambassador active in ECEC environments. The EQF aims to improve ECEC HR management and to profile key knowledge, skills and attitudes required to respond to individual and group needs of children from different backgrounds and with special educational needs. Specific learning resources complement the EQF profile in order to smoothly develop the role of the Diversity+ Ambassador.
- Diversity+ Interactive Scenarios/Serious Game: An innovative online game-based tool with a set of thirty-one scenarios to help ECEC practitioners in their professional development, solving practical challenges related to diversity inclusion and working with children on recognizing and addressing biases, prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion. Scenarios are covering nine topics, and aim to sustain critical thinking in children and adults and support them to speak out for themselves and others, and treat everybody with empathy and respect regardless of their origin, gender, background, level of abilities, language and other existing differences.
Learning from each other - The ECEC system in Czech Republic and the Diversity+ approach
During the meeting, we were joined by Dr Petra Ristic, a preschool teacher and preschool education expert from the Faculty of Education, Charles University, Prague.
Dr Ristic offered a very comprehensive overview of the ECEC system in the Czech Republic, and shared with us the preschool methodology from Slunicko pod Strechon, a state nursery school in Prague hosting 135 children from 2 to 7 years old.
It was a great opportunity for the consortium to hear first-hand the views of an expert in early childhood education on the tools developed by the project and in particular on the Serious Game. The feedback was very positive and Dr Ristic shared practical ideas on how the Serious Game can be used online and offline, during face-to-face professional development sessions.
Diversity+ project follow up: a fruitful partnership and a desire for collaboration in the future
All partners highlighted the inspiring and fruitful collaboration and great synergy generated within the partnership over the three years of the project. Dedication, professionalism, resilience and a sense of humor were among the most shared impressions from the participants.
After a reflective analysis of the results obtained, and following the conviction to continue advancing towards a more inclusive society starting in the early years, some ideas for future collaboration were shared among participants. The Diversity+ journey is not over…
Stay tuned and follow us on our social media channels (Facebook and YouTube channel) and keep in contact via our newsletter for new chapters….
Author: ISSA
English