Tool

GREELCO, Green Learning Community, is an online community designed to connect Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals, offering opportunities to enhance their digital skills, share expertise, and reflect on their practices. Registered members can attend and access recordings of previous study visits and receive updates about upcoming ones. These study visits are available both live via Zoom and on-demand in video format.

Why GREELCO Matters:

1. Community Learning Across Contexts: GREELCO fosters a community where ECEC professionals from diverse national and educational backgrounds can learn from each other. This exchange of ideas and experiences focuses on implementing child-centered approaches to ensure quality practices in kindergarten classrooms.
2. Addressing Professional Isolation: The pandemic has highlighted the issue of professional isolation, limiting opportunities for connection and the sharing of practices. It has also underscored the need to strengthen digital competencies among ECEC professionals.
3. International Exchange and Development: Inspired by recent experiences, GREELCO aims to facilitate valuable international exchanges among professionals. Through virtual study visits to eight kindergartens in different European Union countries, GREELCO provides a platform for sharing best practices and innovative approaches.

Access and Participation:

All these resources and opportunities are provided free of charge, accessible virtually from anywhere. The content is prepared by kindergarten professionals for their peers, including kindergarten management and other interested audiences.

Join GREELCO to connect, learn, and grow within a vibrant community of ECEC professionals.

Access the platform here.

GREELCO partners

The PIQET Principles represent a groundbreaking initiative under the Erasmus+ project, designed to elevate the standard of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for educators across diverse educational landscapes. Authored by a consortium including the Educational Research Institute in Slovenia, Open Academy Step by Step in Croatia, and the International Step by Step Association, this resource articulates a set of nine comprehensive principles aimed at refining the recruitment, training, and ongoing support of CPD educators. These principles are meticulously crafted to address the core needs of educator development, emphasizing subject expertise, diversity and inclusion, participant-centered planning, and continuous self-improvement among others.

Rooted in the values of social justice, equity, and inclusion, the PIQET Principles serve as both a policy framework and a hands-on tool, offering quality statements, indicators, and reflective questions to guide CPD educators in enhancing their practice. This document not only aims to foster a shared understanding of CPD quality across educational institutions but also encourages active contribution and professional engagement within the CPD community, setting a new benchmark for educator professional development globally.

Access the resource here.

Educational Research Institute Slovenia, Open Academy Step by Step in Croatia, and the International Step by Step Association

2023

The Asia-Pacific ECCE Teacher Training Handbook for Social and Emotional Learning (APETT-SEL) including ten modules were developed in partnership with Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), as part of the “Empowering ECCE Teachers with a Transformative Vision of Education” project which was financially supported by the Government of Japan and implemented by UNESCO Bangkok.

The handbook and modules addresses the importance and recognition of social and emotional learning (SEL)’s importance and aims to correspond to the lack of robust and more contextually relevant and culturally sensitive social emotional learning (SEL) program for teachers to effectively deliver SEL in the Asia-Pacific region. The resources consists of 10 modules along with the teacher training handbook:

• Theme 1: Calm, clear and kind teachers (Self-care for teachers) - three modules
• Theme 2: Building a pro-social and responsive classroom (Children’s Social and emotional learning) - four modules
• Theme 3: Celebrating similarities and differences (Diversity, inclusion, cultural responsiveness and equity) - one module
• Theme 4: Zones of knowing and doing (Measurement and assessment) - two modules

Monisha Singh Diwan, published by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - UNESCO

2022

The Parent Support Workforce Needs Assessment Tool aims to help officials within Ministries and government agencies reflect on the ways in which they can support personnel delivering parent support programs for pregnant mothers and caregivers with children under 3. This tool is relevant for programs embedded in primary healthcare as well as those that are delivered across other sectors, including social/child protection, nutrition, and education. Drawing inspiration from the UNICEF Pre-Primary Diagnostic and Planning Tool and the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, this tool is intended for countries with parent support programs at either the sub-national or national levels. The scope of this tool includes parent support facilitators, community health workers, nurses, social workers, and other frontline providers who work directly with young children and their families, as well as supervisors and trainers, working to deliver programs primarily in community settings and/or in health clinics.

Results for Development and International Step by Step Association

2023

Reflective supervision is a form of supervision that supports home visiting implementation quality by helping providers develop critical competencies and manage powerful emotions that often accompany the work. Sessions focus on the complexity and importance of all relationships (e.g., supervisor-supervisee; provider-client; parent-child) over administrative compliance or performance evaluation. Quality reflective supervision delivered over time may lead to improvements in service quality, staff retention, and family outcomes. Most evidence-based home visiting models encourage the use of reflective supervision, as does the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program.

Despite this general acceptance, home visiting lacks a clear, agreed-upon definition of reflective supervision and an understanding of key elements and best practices. The field also lacks evidence that reflective supervision achieves its intended outcomes, and an understanding of the elements that work best for specific contexts and supervisees. The Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce project seeks to identify gaps in knowledge about reflective supervision and home visitor professional well-being and to develop a conceptual model for each to support future research, policy, and practice.

Allison West and Patricia Madariaga, Johns Hopkins University Mariel Sparr, James Bell Associates

2022

For most children, early childhood education and care (ECEC) provides the first experience of life in a group away from their families. This experience plays a crucial role in children’s learning, development and well-being. The benefits of high-quality ECEC are not restricted to children’s first years of life. However, little is known about this first experience. What do children learn and do in ECEC settings? With which staff do children interact at their centers? Do all children face the same opportunities to enroll in high-quality settings? What are the main spending priorities to raise the quality of ECEC? These are key questions for parents, staff and policy makers. The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) is the first international survey that focuses on the ECEC workforce. It offers an opportunity to learn about the characteristics of the workforce, the practices they use with children, their beliefs about children’s development and their views on the profession and on the sector.

This first volume of findings, Providing Quality Early Childhood Education and Care, examines multiple factors that can affect the quality of ECEC and thereby can influence children’s learning, development and well-being.

OECD

2020

The success of a child’s healthy development is largely dependent on their primary caregiver’s capacity. The 2016 Lancet Early Childhood Development Series1 highlights that efforts to support children are not likely to bear success unless they concurrently provide support for the caregivers upon whom children depend for care.

Many barriers exist to caregiving including that:

• Caregivers may lack the physical, psychological and social capacity to care for their child.
• Highly adverse conditions may introduce threats to caregiver’s well-being and their resources for caregiving.

In responding to these barriers, there is also recognition that frontline workers, who are often community volunteers and caregivers themselves, are not equipped with adequate skills to enable them to support caregiver needs.

Caring for the Caregiver (CFC) is a foundational training module that is designed to address these needs, and to complement existing maternal and child health programmes including the UNICEF/WHO Care for Child Development (CCD) Package and the UNICEF Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) Package. CFC can also be utilised as a foundational course for other sector programs whose success is dependent on caregiver and family capacity (e.g. health promotion programmes such as WASH or child protection programmes).

CFC training translates well-established evidence on how to support emotional well-being and mental health, presenting these in practical activities which encourage self-care, family engagement and social support. The training package provides curriculum for training frontline workers to address barriers to responsive caregiving and it provides supporting implementation materials for counselling caregivers.

CFC was developed for the UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) by expert consultants, with a series of consultations and pilot training activities in two countries: Mali and Sierra Leone.

UNICEF

2019

This Guide accompanies the Home Visiting Workforce Needs Assessment Tool, which aims to help Ministries and government agencies reflect on the ways in which they can support personnel delivering home visiting programs across sectors for pregnant mothers and caregivers with children under 3. 



Drawing inspiration from the UNICEF Pre-Primary Diagnostic and Planning Tool, this tool is intended for countries with home visiting programs at either the sub-national or national levels. The scope of the Tool includes home visitors who work directly with young children and their families, as well as supervisors and trainers.

 

The newly completed User's Guide completes the Tool's package. It includes supporting materials, as well as editable handouts and annexes. It is easy to download, translate and adapt to your context. The User's Guide lays out the steps needed to:

• Prepare for the application of the Tool,
• Organize and facilitate a workshop with stakeholders at both the national and sub-national levels, and
• Take action on findings generated from the workshop.


Below, you can find two versions of the User's Guide: 

Version 1: a downloadable PDF
Version 2: a ZIP file for Print, which contains:

• A Print version of the User Guide
• 11 editable handouts and annexes that can be adapted for implementation
• A slide deck, which presents an overview of the Tool

Access the Tool here.

Mihaela Ionescu and Zorica Trikic (International Step by Step Association) and Denise Bonsu, Kavita Hatipoglu, Michelle Neuman, and Vidya Putcha (Results for Development).

2020

COVID-19 can disrupt the environments in which children grow and develop. Disruptions to families, friendships, daily routines and the wider community can have negative consequences for children’s well-being, development and protection. Measures used to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19, including quarantine measures such as school closures and restrictions on movements disrupt children's routine and social support while also placing new stressors on parents and caregivers who may have to find new childcare options or forgo work. With added stress, school closures and restricted movement, children and caregivers may face increased social isolation, psychosocial distress and heightened domestic violence. Movement restrictions can also make it much harder for a children or caregivers affected by violence to leave their household and seek help. In addition, stigma and discrimination related to COVID-19 may make children more vulnerable to violence and psychosocial distress. Children and families who are already vulnerable due to socio-economic exclusion, have a history of violence in the home, or those who living in overcrowded settings are particularly at risk. For all of these reasons, the continuation of case management to very high-risk children and families is a fundamental part of emergency response and should be considered child lifesaving.

All children, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances, have the right to be protected, nurtured and free from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Respecting and supporting this right is the essence of child safeguarding. All forms of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) are a violation of human rights.

In line with Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) Instruction No.031, dated 20 March 2020 and Instruction, dated 26 March 2020 on Prevention and Protection of COVID-19 Infection to Children without family, relative or guardian specifically on social work and psychosocial supports for children and families affected by COVID-19, this Guideline aims to further provide technical guidance to child protection workers to better respond to the child protection risks during a COVID-19 pandemic through case management, including psychosocial support.

Download it here.

Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) of Cambodia

2020

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Flagship Community Health Worker (CHW) Resource Package compiles priority resources for strengthening CHW programs developed through USAID’s Bureau for Global Health (BGH) investments, as well as what USAID BGH’s flagship partners have produced and prioritized. It includes tools, research, guides, approaches, and best practices recommended by USAID’s flagship project community health experts through a series of convenings and reviews. The rationale for the development of this package was to showcase these priority resources for greater internal and external dissemination and agenda setting, including the Community Roadmap and the WHO CHW Hub. It is a living document*, and we expect to update it periodically as emergent state-of-the-art resources are recommended by flagship experts.

The resources can be used to integrate CHWs within the broader health workforce and to promote their professionalization. For this reason, some resources may support broader health workforce development and strengthening, policy, program implementation, or financing, but can be applied to CHW programs. Professionalizing CHWs is a key step for ensuring the effective role of community health within primary health care, critical for achieving health for all and global health goals. Resources may be cross-cutting or technically specific, and all are relevant to optimizing CHWs in a health systems context.

The resources are presented according to the WHO guideline on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programs using the HRH2030 lifecycle approach and the main categories of WHO’s recommendations:

• CHW policy implementation enablers (cross-cutting)
• Build
• Manage
• Optimize

USAID

2020