ISSA An International Learning Community Powered by its Members
REVIEW OF ISSA’S 2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Introduction Each year ISSA members are offered an exclusive opportunity to take part in the Peer Learning Activities (PLA) organized by the association. In every survey of members the PLA are ranked as ‘highly valued’ by the membership, and it is easy to see why.
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE Over the course of 2015 ISSA supported 11 Peer Learning Activities in 18 countries, involving 25 member organizations
ISSA’s Peer Learning Activities offer a unique opportunity for ISSA members to meet in smaller, more intimate groups, to share their expertise and learning experiences, grow their knowledge and strengthen ISSA as a learning community. Over the years ISSA members have benefitted from network building relationships, witnessing best practices, and working together to put high-quality and equitable Early Childcare Development services at the heart of communities, schools and government. Members have said that the PLA are a perfect reflection of ISSA’s values; quality, diversity, community and learning. The range of topics covered and the results clearly demonstrate the advantages of being a member of ISSA – an international learning community powered by its members! We are pleased to share with you the activites from 2015 and hope they inspire you to participate this year. All the Peer Learning Activities are funded by ISSA. If you would like to participate, we invite you to Join ISSA.
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Bulgaria and Macedonia Learning Lessons: Changing Lives On 29–30 September 2015 in Sofia, Bulgaria, one of ISSA’s newer members, the Bulgaria Network for Children, hosted a two-day seminar and study visit for 18 organizations working with Roma children. Tapping into the expertise within ISSA, the Bulgarian members used the PLA as an opportunity to deepen the knowledge of colleagues from Macedonia for mutual advantage. Fifteen member organizations of the Bulgarian National Network for Children and three partner organizations from Macedonia shared successful approaches and methods of working in Roma communities with children and parents.
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PLA goes to the essence of what we will need for a sustainable future. Mutual learning is at the core of ISSA.
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Representatives of the Foundation for Educational and Cultural Initiatives in Macedonia presented their experiences of working with Roma children and families from Suto Orizari, the largest Roma neighborhood in Skopje, and shared the vital lessons learned there with their Bulgarian counterparts. The new colleagues discussed the legislative framework for Early Childhood Education and Care in the European Union, Bulgaria and Macedonia, unpacking existing practices and policies and producing recommendations and advocacy messages. Following the seminar, the Bulgarian professionals visited three centers in Skopje, Macedonia – the Center for Social Initiatives, Nadej, the Center for Educational Support for Roma pupils, Dendo Vas, and saw the work of one of ISSA’s oldest ‘Step by Step’ members at the Children Creativity Center of the Foundation for Educational and Cultural Initiatives.
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Living Diversity – Promoting Equity Based in Luxembourg, 4Motion was founded in 2002 by three friends wishing to create a stronger culture of inclusion by rising the levels of understanding of diversity in the country. By delivering training on diversity, participation and well-being, they put theory into practice by creating situations which are inclusive, participatory and offer opportunities to break down the barriers put up by discrimination. 4Motion joined ISSA in 2015 and in the same year organized the PLA ‘Living Diversity – Promoting Equity’ Over three days in October 2015, eight ISSA members met in Luxembourg. All participants were experienced trainers and have in-depth expertise of working with practitioners, families and children in contexts of diversity. The objective of the meeting was to create a platform for shared learning around approaches, practices and lessons learned from many years of work dedicated to promoting and respecting diversity and inclusion among early childhood actors, including young children. There is a rich capital of knowledge and experience in ISSA’s network, with various resources being used and created to empower practitioners, families and communities to become agents of change towards more inclusive and diversity-friendly environments. Such richness needs to nurture reflection and give possible answers to many of the challenges that the early childhood world and societies are facing today. This PLA allowed quality time for participants to gather valuable insights from each other’s experiences of working with various vulnerable and marginalized groups. The discussions and insights gained during the PLA formed the basis for developing the ISSA publication ‘Living Diversity – Promoting Equity’ to which ISSA members will contribute with their own reflections, lessons learned and examples on how inclusion and diversity can become core-living values and be enacted in young children’s lives.
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New Cooperative Playgroups in Belarus ISSA members, the Belarusian League of Parents and Teachers, ‘Krok za Krokam’ and Comenius, Poland came together four times during 2015 to share and learn Comenius’ Conscious Parenting practices through playgroups. Impressed by Comenius’ initiatives and training, ‘Krok za Krokam’ believed that developing involved parenting practices, and learning how to implement new forms of education and care, would be valuable to Belarusian families.
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE This PLA resulted in the formation of: • 10 new playgroups
Great progress was made during the reciprocal visits, and many families and teachers were directly affected by this initiative. Like all ISSA’s PLA activities, the work will carry on beyond these initial steps. In the future, ‘Krok za Krokam’ plans to expand the number of playgroups and build upon the first batch of trainees by using their experience to develop the training and roll it out to more and families in need of support.
• 70 children and their parents regularly attending playgroups together • 20 staff newly trained in Conscious Parenting techniques 5
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It’s an opportunity to get new knowledge from peers I have known for many years. We are from different countries but we all have the one goal of ensuring high-quality education in our countries.
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Growing Together: Learning Together During this Peer Learning Activity, five of ISSA’s older members gathered to strengthen the synergies between their programs and explore ways of coordinating sub-regional of initiatives. Many of these members have recently developed sustainability strategies and coming together in this PLA was an important step in their growing mutual support. ISSA members from Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and Kosovo worked together and decided on: •
A strategy which will keep all the organizations better informed of programs and lessons learned through their field work;
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Developing areas of common interest established as a precursor for thematic working groups;
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Agreeing on short and medium-term actions;
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The importance of sharing of experiences and resources.
Together, they planned for the future and will collaborate on a joint short-term project ‘Learning Values’, a medium-term collaborative action revision, and a rebrand of ‘Step by Step’ Program into modular training packages.
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The European Quality Framework for ECEC VBJK from Belgium has been involved in many partnerships with the ISSA over the years and, more recently, as a member. Bureau Mutant, from the Netherlands, is one of ISSA’s newer members, and together they co-hosted this PLA to develop a ‘training of trainers’, introducing the European Quality Framework (EQF) for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in the Flemish community of Belgium and in the Netherlands.
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE This PLA developed • A training pack for using the European Quality Framework in Belgium and the Netherlands
The European Framework is an important policy document; a standard and guideline for improving quality of ECEC in all EU member states. Jointly VBJK and Bureau Mutant, developed a training package to make the EQF an accessible and inspiring framework document for quality of ECEC in Belgium and the Netherlands with links to the national curricula. The framework document now includes reflection exercises and resources, a program and guidelines for trainers. Pilot masterclasses and training course were implemented in the Netherlands and the next step will be to translate the training pack into English, and made available for all ISSA members.
• A translated version of the training pack and resources will soon be available in English for all ISSA members 7
Implementation of the National Strategy on Roma Integration, Ukraine In 2013 the Ukrainian government supported the National Strategy for the Protection and Integration of Roma people into Ukrainian Society until 2020. Following the implementation of an Action Plan, a subsequent report demonstrated gaps between the original intentions and the real impact, especially in relation to the education of Roma children
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE This PLA resulted in • Uniting international and Ukrainian government ministries, local Roma NGOs and practitioners from Slovakia, Latvia and Bulgaria
Funded by ISSA under the REYN initiative, the Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation organized this two-day seminar bringing together experts from across the ISSA and REYN networks. By involving Ukrainian government ministries, ISSA and REYN members had an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and experience directly to policy makers and support Ukrainian Step by Step Foundation in their desire to bring about meaningful change in Roma communities.
• A commitment to organize local Steering Committees to monitor changes in the implementation of the local action plans • Introducing the position of Roma teacher assistants in three regions while developing necessary changes in the local/ national policies
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TOY in REYN Together Old and Young is an Intergenerational Learning Project produced by Dutch members ICDI as part of the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Project. In an effort to continue their work and develop it for a new audience ICDI advanced the proposal of TOY to ISSA to expand it as a REYN initiative. The aim of TOY is to enhance social cohesion through Intergenerational Learning (IGL) in inclusive ECEC settings.
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ISSA’s Peer Learning Activities cannot be summed up as one thing. They are all so diverse, creative, imaginative and powerful.
Alongside members of ISSA’s Secretariat and five members from Belgium, Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, with experience of working with Roma communities, ICDI hosted a two-day meeting to design a project proposal focused on combating segregation of Roma young children and families to be submitted in-line with opportunities for fundraising. The meeting resulted in the joint project proposal TOY in REYN: Combating segregation of Roma young children and families and enhancing social cohesion through intergenerational learning (IGL) in inclusive ECEC settings to the European Commission under the DG Justice Action Grants.
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2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE
Learning, Advancing and Promoting Quality Since 2004, the Mongolian Education Alliance (MEA) has been pursuing education reform in Mongolia. Among ISSA’s original members, MEA has been working to upgrade the Mongolian education system and bring it up to par with the education systems of other countries.
This PLA • established the reliability of 4 Mongolian Education Alliance mentors in ISSA’s Quality Principals • trained 19 ‘Step by Step’ teachers to use ISSA’s Quality Resource Pack materials
MEA were involved in the PLA for the second consecutive year, building capacity of their staff and of mentors working directly with practitioners in preschool services in different regions of Mongolia, specifically around ISSA’s Quality Principles and the resources in the Quality Resource Pack. Working with the Center for Innovative Education from Lithuania, they developed knowledge and shared understanding on ISSA Quality Principles and delivered training to over 25 mentors. In terms of advocacy for quality and inclusive education, MEA with the support of ISSA’s PLA, met with the Deputy Director of Mongolian National University of Education and a Senior Specialist of Strategy Implementation Department of Ministry of Education, Culture and Science with the aim to include the ISSA’s child centred approach of the ISSA Principles of Quality Pedagogy in the pre-service training of preschool practitioners.
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Moved By! ……. Communications Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Fysio Educatief is an independent publisher specializing in health education, focusing on children and their environment. Moved By! is a successful communications tool and campaign designed and delivered by Fysio Educatief which empowers children to think about who moves them both physically and emotionally. For the 2015 PLA, Fysio Educatief hosted a communication skills workshop for ISSA staff and five members.
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It helps us ‘to steal’ the best ideas, to learn from colleagues and gives us a sense of belonging to a network.
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Designed to help members see the power behind their stories, develop audience appreciation, and appeal to funders, together the team brainstormed campaign ideas for their own countries and the ISSA network. Concerned with quality and inclusion in early childhood, the workshop team developed their storytelling skills and campaign building techniques, to use them in their programmatic and organizational work.
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Latvian Experts Visit Slovenia to Study ISSA’s Quality Principals in Action This PLA was an extraordinary example of knowledge sharing.
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE This PLA developed • Participants knowledge of how to use of ISSA Principles of Quality Pedagogy in the development of university study programs
ISSA’s Latvian members, Center for Education Initiatives, worked directly with their colleagues from Slovenia, Educational Research Institute, Developmental Research Center for Pedagogical Initiatives Step by Step, to learn how they cooperated with the higher educational institutions to include the ISSA Principles of Quality Pedagogy, and the resources related to them, in pedagogical university programs. Alongside ISSA members in this learning process, were representatives from both the Latvian and Slovenia Ministries of Education, as well as Latvian representatives of higher education institutions. The learning process will continue as new indicators are developed for the accreditation of school head teachers in Latvia and new material and a seminar for staff and teachers of pedagogical universities is produced.
• Knowledge on how ISSA’s Quality Resource Pack is used in Slovenia to improve the quality of education • An exchange of knowledge and practice on how the ‘Principles’ are implemented in the Slovenian education system • Methods of cooperation with the higher education institutions to include ISSA ‘Principles’ in pedagogical university programs
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Persona Doll Training in Kosovo The Persona Doll approach encourages young children to develop empathy and challenge discrimination and unfairness. It helps counter the prejudices and misinformation they pick up. With support from ISSA, trainers from Partners Hungary Foundation were hosted by the Kosovo Education Center to offer the Persona Doll training to 17 preschool practitioners working with young children, they also provided a ‘training of trainers’ for 10 facilitators.
2015 PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY FACTS AT A GLANCE This PLA produced • 26 newly trained Preschool teachers in the Persona Doll method
The Persona Doll is no ordinary puppet or doll, but is recognized by the children as a friend who comes from another culture. This friend feels sadness and pain when not accepted and by working with the Persona Doll the children develop empathy and understanding. In Kosovo, practitioners were guided on how to give the doll a personality and make them ‘people’ with individual personalities that have family, culture, names, gender and ages. Once trained in the Persona Doll method, teachers immediately started working with their preschoolers, many from minority backgrounds, to learn how to combat prejudice and embrace diversity.
• Translated the Persona Doll manual and guidelines into Albanian 13
ISSA – an international learning community powered by the leading early childhood experts in Europe and Central Asia. ISSA unites and supports professionals and partners to deliver high quality early years services equitably.
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