Global

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

This report offers an analysis of the application of the ILO (2014) Policy Guidelines on the Promotion of Decent Work for ECE Personnel and provides recommendations for review. It addresses key themes, including the voluntary nature of a commitment level among state and non-state stakeholders, challenges in holding governments accountable without legal obligations, and the difficulties in establishing a standardised and workable monitoring framework.

The report highlights the significance of the ILO Guidelines in promoting decent work for Early Childhood Personnel (ECP), while acknowledging the need to address challenges to ensure universal implementation and accountability. The research emphasizes the ongoing global efforts to assess and advance the progress of the ILO Guidelines by Education International, which aligns with the 10th anniversary of promoting decent work for ECP.

Colette Byrne, Mercedes Mayol Lassalle, Carolina Semmoloni, Mathias Urban

Education International

2024

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

The ICM Standards for Midwifery Education (2021) are an essential pillar of ICM’s efforts to strengthen midwifery worldwide by promoting high quality education programs that prepare midwives who meet the ICM definition of a midwife. The ICM Standards for Midwifery Education are based on foundational ICM Core Documents and Position Statements. Importantly, the Standards address inclusion of the Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice (2019) as the basis of the midwifery curriculum.

The purpose of the ICM Standards for Midwifery Education (2021) is to establish benchmarks for midwifery education programs, promote high-quality teaching and learning processes, incorporate the ICM Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice (2019) into the curriculum, provide a framework for designing and evaluating midwifery education programs, assist in continuous quality improvement, enable systematic reporting of quality indicators, and contribute to improving midwifery education programs worldwide.

International Confederation of Midwives

2021

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

The work of early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals is the major driver of the quality of an ECEC system. As evidence accumulates on the strong benefits of investing in early education, countries need effective policies to attract, maintain and retain a highly skilled workforce in the sector. This report looks at the makeup of the early childhood education and care workforce across countries, assessing how initial preparation programs compare across different systems, what types of in-service training and informal learning activities help staff to upgrade their skills, and what staff say about their working conditions, as well as identifying policies that can reduce staff stress levels and increase well-being at work. The report also looks at which leadership and managerial practices in ECEC centers contribute to improving the skills, working conditions and working methods of staff. The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) is the first international survey that focuses on the early childhood education and care workforce. It offers an opportunity to learn about the characteristics of ECEC staff and center leaders, their practices at work, and their views on the profession and the sector.

This second volume of findings, Building a High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce, examines factors that influence the skills development of ECEC professionals, their working conditions and well-being at work, and leadership in ECEC centers.

OECD

2020

The experience of children under age three with early childhood education and care (ECEC) is crucial for their learning, development and well-being and for parents’ return to work. Despite increasing recognition of the importance of ECEC for the youngest children, little is known about this sector. The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey  (TALIS Starting Strong) is the first international survey that focuses on the ECEC workforce. It asks staff and leaders about themselves and their settings, including the practices they use with children and their views on the sector.

This thematic report focusses on ECEC for children under age three, an option of the Survey in which four countries (Denmark, Germany, Israel and Norway) participated. The report answers many questions that are important for parents, actors in the field, and policymakers.

OECD

2020

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 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has upended families’ lives, with school closures, social distancing, and stay-at-home measures limiting their access to support systems, while adding to health concerns and economic uncertainties. As families face these varied stressors, it is even more important that parenting programs, which seek to promote positive and responsive caregiving, improve health and nutrition, and enhance social and child protection, continue to operate. Against this backdrop, and facing restrictions on normal in-person operations, many parenting programs have had to innovate to continue service delivery and help families navigate this difficult time.

• How are parenting programs reorienting their services in response to COVID-19?
• How are parenting programs supporting their personnel to deliver these critical services? 

This brief seeks to shed light on these questions. Developed by the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative (ECWI), a multi-stakeholder global initiative co-led by Results for Development (R4D) and the International Step by Step Association (ISSA) that works to support and empower those who work directly with young children, the brief highlights common approaches parenting programs are using to continue engaging with families, including transitioning to deliver services virtually and adapting to provide enhanced psychosocial support. We use the five priority actions to support the early childhood workforce outlined in ECWI’s COVID-19 Position Statement as a light guide and explore how some parenting programs are prioritizing the health, safety, and psychosocial well-being, expanding training and guidance, and recognizing the workforce delivering these critical services. Several short case studies provide context and detail to these programs’ efforts and the brief concludes with a set of reflections on the challenges and possibilities ahead.

Kavita Hatipoglu with support from Michelle Neuman and Denise Bonsu (R4D) and Konstantina Rentzou and Zorica Trikic (ISSA)

2021

A well-supported, appropriately equipped, empowered, and protected social service workforce is essential to mitigating the damaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social service workers can build on their existing strong ties to children, families, and communities to rapidly respond in ways that are effective. However, to do so, they must stay safe and healthy. This document is intended to provide guidance on how to support the social service workforce and empower them to safely serve children, families, and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This guidance is for governments, non-governmental organizations, social service workers, and their supervisors.

Global Social Service Workforce Alliance, UNICEF, International Federation of Social Workers, Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action

2020