Public Policy Exchange organised a symposium in Brussels on 15 January 2019 on early childhood development and related systems that can help tackle inequalities. Parents International was invited as a speaker to bring in the parents’ perspective on the modernisation of childcare systems. Our contribution focused on the best interest of the child and parents. Other speakers included Nóra Milotay, a well-known international early childhood education expert currently working for the European Parliament Research Service.

Our contribution was focusing on the empowerment needs of parents, the first educators of their children, the need to acknowledge and value those parents, especially mothers, opting for care responsibilities rather than paid work, and the physical (breastfeeding) and psychological (separation anxiety) needs of very young children to be considered when developing early childhood policies.

The first years in human life are crucial for the development of essential competences, skills and learning dispositions that influence future education and employment prospects. According to the OECD Family Database, the participation rate for 0-to-2-years-olds in formal childcare and pre-school services is generally increasing across the EU, being on average of 30% rate. However, this number varies largely from one member state to another, varying between more than 60% in Denmark and 5% in the Czech Republic (OECD Family Database, 2016). Moreover, the GDP public spending on early childhood education and care is also differs (eg. 1.3% in Denmark, 0.4%GDP in the Czech Republic (OECD Family Database, 2017)).

In the EU early childhood development provisions are narrowed down to early childhood education and care institutional provisions driven by the 2002 Barcelona targets to provide childcare services to at least 33% of children under three years old. This is one of the EU provisions aiming at reducing the risk of inequities in opportunities of education and early school leaving. The EU is promoting easy access to childcare services for the official EU policy on the reconciliation of work and family life meaning promoting and incentivising young mothers to go back to work as soon as possible.

This international symposium, with the participation of relevant stakeholders, was also aiming at informing policy making by setting priorities for future policy recommendations and priorities, and it also made it possible to share ideas and inspiring practices from Europe and Canada.

The week of the Facing All the Facts conference marked the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the documents Eleanor Roosevelt called the international Magna Carta for all men everywhere. The event focused on an important human rights issue: hate speech and hate crime, focusing on the role of the internet in fuelling them, but also in prevention. All stakeholders have an important role in prevention – this was emphasised by the hosting Microsoft’s Vice President, John Frank, and in line with this, Parents International was contributing on behalf of parents as stakeholders.

Facing the Facts is an ongoing project coordinated by CEJI developing a multitude of online courses for police, government officials, civil society organisations and online community moderators, based on action research done in 6 countries. During the conference educators and journalists were also identified as audience for such trainings that may be developed in the last 6 months of the project.

Several thought-provoking issues were raised and discussed, for example the question whether victims receive the support they need, how many attacks are necessary to identify it as a problem, whether the present system is a maze or a framework. A major emphasis was put on the content and quality of public authority – civil society cooperation and the need to understand and exploit its potential. Participants have agreed that there is still a long way to go, resulting from a lack of awareness and a lack of trust among other factors.

Another topic, especially relevant for Parents International was to identify and define the role of international organisations. It is, among other things, to keep the topic on the agenda, give space for those working in the field to meet internationally, and to fund activities. However, a warning was also given: although research evidence shows that this role is mostly seen as positive, there are question marks around possible ‘interference’ with national affairs and independence related to funding.

The role of civil society was identified as that of a ‘critical friend’. The challenge here lays with finding the right balance and preventing takeover of either criticism over friendship or friendship over criticism.

Several inspiring initiatives were introduced to the audience that may also inspire the reader:

Dangerous Speech Project

Moonshot

YouTuber Jazza John

Parents International is committed to participate in this work in order to help parents educating their children about hate speech and hate crime prevention; to make them able to identify and tackle the situation if their children become victims; and to work together with schools and teachers to prevent criminalisation of young offenders if possible by alternatives to prosecution.

Facing all the Facts is a multimedia conference for a collaborative approach to tackling hate crime and hate speech together with national government representatives, law enforcement, civil society and international organisations – all who are concerned with better responses to hate crime and hate speech

WHEN: December 11th 2018

WHERE: Brussels @ Microsoft Centre Brussels

FOR WHOM: For national government representatives, law enforcement, civil society and international organisations –  All who are concerned with better responses to hate crime and hate speech

HIGHLIGHTS

• Results of transnational research on gaps and opportunities to improve national hate crime recording systems, focus on Italy, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Ireland and United Kingdom.
• Launching of multiple new Facing Facts Online e-learning modules for police and civil society, available for preview in the exhibition space.
• Demonstration of Photographic, Musical and Theatrical approaches to educating about hate crime
• Frank and productive discussions that help us all to move ahead in this field that is quickly evolving

This November, IKEA, The LEGO Foundation, Unilever’s Dirt is Good brands and National Geographic have joined forces as the Real Play Coalition with their shared believe in the value of play to bring us the Global Month of Play! The Global Month of Play is a month-long celebration that provides more opportunities for children to play at home, at school and in the community. Together, the Real Play Coalition Global Month of Play activities will reach nearly 2.5 million children in more than 100 countries and activities will take place in almost 20,000 classrooms.

Additionally, the Real Play Coalition is announcing its development of the world’s first-ever Play Gap Report, created in partnership with University Collect London (UCL). The Play Gap Report will be a global study which will help pinpoint the gaps in access to quality play between genders and different socio-economic groups among more than 40 countries. It will be created in partnership with University College London (UCL). The key results will be announced in early 2019, which will fuel future Real Play Coalition programmes.

To inspire parents, guardians, teachers and children alike to play, the Real Play Coalition launched a brand-new website containing 150 games and activities www.realplaycoalition.com. The play catalogue will also be available on the Real Play Coalition App that will be launching soon.

Learn about what the partners are doing:

IKEA: Let’s Play For Change

Designed by children, for children, the 2018 SAGOSKATT collection is the result of the annual IKEA soft toy drawing competition. This sees creative kids from all around the world draw the soft toy of their dreams, with the six most unique drawings turned into real soft toys sold at IKEA stores during 2019. The full purchase price of each toy will be donated to campaigns supporting children’s rights to play and develop. Follow all IKEA activity throughout the Global Month of Play through #letsplayforchange.

The LEGO Foundation: World Children’s Day

UNICEF’s Universal Children’s Day on November 20th marks the day when the most widely ratified human right treaty in history, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, was adopted. It is a global day of action for children, by children, where leaders are held to account on their promises to children.

Throughout November, The LEGO Foundation and the LEGO Group will support this celebration through Build the Change events, where children in select schools in Mexico, the UK, China, South Africa and Denmark have been invited to build their dream school. As an outcome, The LEGO Foundation will collate and document a selection of insights from the activation and hand them to world leaders at the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2019. Follow activities during the Global Month of Play through #worldchildrensday

Unilever’s Dirt is Good: Outdoor Classroom Day

Closely related to PlayFutures Exploration 6: Green, blue spaces, Outdoor Classroom Day is a global campaign to inspire and celebrate outdoor learning and play, led by NGO Project Dirt. Yesterday, on November 1st, thousands of schools around the world will took lessons outside to prioritise playtime, sending a message of how learning outside of the classroom engages and excites children in spectacular ways. In 2018 alone, over 2.5M children and 23.000 schools will have joined this movement. Learn more on www.outdoorclassroomday.com.

National Geographic: Play Made Me This Way

On Monday November 5th National Geographic will be launching a fascinating series of videos called Play Made Me This Way, featuring the stories of a number of very different individuals. The videos will reveal how play during the formative years have had a life-changing impact on who they grew up to be, and are making sure their own children have the same quality and time available to play. The first video can be watched on National Geographic and Real Play Coalition social media channels. #PlayMadeMeThisWay.

The world is invited to reappraise play as the rocket fuel children need to boost their skill development so let’s do this!

Keep an eye on updates via www.realplaycoalition.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitterand Pinterest.

Maximise your play this November!

We were invited to represent parents as an important stakeholder group – both lifelong learners and lifelong educators – at a major conference on the future of adult learning in Europe on 15/16 October 2018. It was organised by the European Commission and EPALE (Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe) and brought together about 230 policy makers, educators and researchers from all European countries, way beyond the EU. From the parents’ perspective the highlight of the conference was the emphasis on the role schools should play in involving local communities in adult education and the importance of working with parents for this.

The event focused on two main topics, the present and future of adult learning in Europe and the role of the electronic platform EPALE can play in fostering participation. In a stocktaking presentation Dana Bachman, the responsible Head of Unit at the European Commission showed statistics and inspiring practices from some European countries. The statistics on adult learning participation stirred the audience and it was discussed in great detail in workshops later. It seems that different countries implement different methodologies to measure participation and some countries only included formal provisions. There was an agreement that there is a need to acknowledge and include non-formal and informal learning, the latter being the most difficult to detect.

Parents organisation has long advocated for a new, community learning center approach to school buildings, and thus we were very happy to see that two of the few inspiring practices presented by the European Commission were this can be detected. One is a practice from Estonia where schools actively reach out to parents to promote adult learning opportunities, the other is from Poland where school infrastructure is used to cover learning provisions needs in the local community.

The most interesting and forward-looking part of the conference was the discussion on future European policy on adult learning. This will only inform the next governance of the EU after the EU elections in May as the outgoing European Commission will not initiate anything new. They will then design European education policy for the period after 2020, hopefully in line with the need to reach Sustainable Development Goals by 2035.

The European Union has little jurisdiction in this field, and participants tried to collect ideas with this in view. The EU could do a lot to make information available on differences and similarities between national systems, this was not questioned by anybody. There is a need to act together to overcome the existing stigma linked to adult learning in many countries. Reflecting on the above-mentioned statistics, participants also called the EU to act in order to make learning visible. Funding should be available to invest more in competence building of educators – including parents in our view.

An important step would be to have a holistic, lifelong learning approach, to valorise learning regardless the place and form it takes. Today, even if we consider non-formal and informal provisions for adult learning, there are some forms that are not under the same umbrella, often with a higher value in the eyes of many in the case of higher education and vocational education. By implementing a consistent lifelong learning approach and including all forms of learning in it would be the way to the necessary valorisation.

The upcoming Erasmus+ programme for the period of 2021-2029 would be the necessary tool used by the EU by also implementing a cross-sectoral, holistic, lifelong learning programme that the current, 2014-2020 programme promised but has failed to achieve. EPALE is an important tool to support necessary developments, however, making everything available in national languages would be key. Today the platform is richest in English.

You can watch recordings of the conference livestream following this link: https://ec.europa.eu/epale/en/blog/epale-conference-2018-fostering-inspiring-adult-learning-community