Do you really take into account the exigencies of children with special needs or fewer opportunities, when designing Early childhood education and care - ECEC services? If yes, please tell us how by writing to opportunities@ciape.it - we are looking for excellences. If you are aware of valuable practices, please report them to us; we would love to give them visibility within our project!

Launched in late October, Diversity+ looks to develop governance, benchmarking, recognition and professionalisation tools for Early childhood education and care - ECEC professionals in order to understand and improve their current approach to diversity inclusion.

ECEC – the phase before primary education – is increasingly acknowledged as providing the foundations for lifelong learning and development. The European Pillar of Social Rights declares that 'children have the right to affordable early childhood education and care of good quality'. Participation in high quality ECEC is proven to be especially advantageous for children from disadvantaged and/or marginalised groups.

ECEC facilities, approaches and services have not always been designed to meet the pluralistic needs of all children. This can be seen in the fact that minority and disadvantaged groups remain underrepresented in ECEC. This approach leaves ECEC professionals unsure about how to develop services which are inclusive for the full range of marginalisation and vulnerability.

Diversity+ looks to allow ECEC organisations to fully understand how different Diversity identities fit into their services, and so develop approaches which are fully inclusive to all. This will be achieved by calibrating the EU Quality Framework for ECEC in light of inclusiveness of provision.

Diversity+ resources offer a structured and supported approach to quality inclusive service design. The toolkit contains:

• A Diversity+ Charter to set out the minimum requirements for an ECEC organisation to be considered diversity positive;
• An interactive digital Assessment tool which ECEC practitioners will be able to use to assess current services and track improvements;
• An EQF profile and training resources for the development of a Diversity Ambassador role;
• A serious game that will help ECEC practitioners remove negative attitudes, bias and prejudices among kids, fostering empathy, compassion and awareness in relation to equality and diversity.

The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The consortium, coordinated by CIAPE, is made up of 7 partners from 6 European countries.

For further info CLICK HERE