Description:
The King Baudouin Foundation, together with partner foundations from the Europe and the United States, have created the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years, bringing together leading scientists, practitioners, civil society members, business leaders and political decision-makers from Europe and North America. Forum participants will explore policies and projects supporting the early childhood development of children from migrant and low-income families.
The aim is to exchange newest research results, strategies, policies, innovations and best practices and create the opportunity to scale-up existing knowledge and evidence-based research. The Forum will bring together high-level policymakers and decision-makers with a view to making early childhood education and care for children from migrant and low-income families a priority on the political agenda in Europe and beyond.
The forum will explore the following themes:
1. Quality Early Childhood Services for All: Addressing Disparities in Access for Children from Migrant and Low-Income Families (January 21-23,2013 - Ghent, Belgium)
Evaluate access to and affordability of quality services, including the barriers faced by children across policy and practice levels, and how they are being addressed.
2. Workforce Preparation and Curriculum Innovations (10-12 July 2013 - New York, USA)
Propose improved workforce-preparation systems by better understanding changes in instructional practice, teacher preparation and curricula that have been successful in engaging children from migrant and low-income families.
3. Child Care and Parent Engagement (Winter 2013-2014 - Lisbon, Portugal)
Explore what systems, standards and regulations have been successful in ensuring access to quality child care and examine how to engage migrant and low-income parents to become their children's "first teachers" and life-long advocates for their children's education.
4. Multilingualism and Multiple Identities/Belongings (Spring 2014- The Netherlands)
Identify the advantages and disadvantages of current models of education (e.g. bilingual education and second language immersion) in multilingual settings, taking into consideration culture, identity and integration.
5. Role of National Governments, Policy Levers, Effective Decentralization (Fall 2014 - USA)
Examine the role that national governments can play in leveraging national goal-setting and regulation to implement early childhood policies that promote equality as well as investing in meaningful evaluations.
6. Integrated Systems and Closing of TFIEY: Priorities for the Next Decade (Spring 2015 - EU)
Identify effective strategies that ensure the needs of children from migrant and low-income backgrounds are being met, particularly as a number of nations move toward integrating their early care and education systems into a streamlined network of services under the umbrella of a lead government ministry or agency.