TOY for Inclusion presented at the ISSA pre-conference workshop

On 17 June, 20 ECEC experts from 15 countries took part in the ISSA pre-conference workshop titled ‘From Hard to Reach Families to Easy to Reach Services’, co-organised by ICDI and JES Rijnland.

Increasing accessibility to services to support all families with young children and especially vulnerable ones, is a pillar of inclusive and universal high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC). This is still a challenge in many contexts. During the workshop we presented, explored and discussed some very promising practices that were successful in increasing accessibility and inclusiveness.

The focus was on two pioneering approaches to work with families with young children, and especially those who may be marginalised, that have proven effective in:

• building bridges between families and ECEC services;
• building trust between families of different backgrounds;
• supporting interaction and learning across all generations including older adults in the community;
• providing a community space for inter-agency cooperation between early years services.

The first approach presented was the ‘VVV- approach’, developed by JES Rijnland to reach out, find the families, help them to ask the questions they have about parenting and connect them with the right services.

The second one was the award-winning TOY for Inclusion approach, developed by ICDI in collaboration ISSA and ISSA members. This is designed to promote access to non-formal and inclusive ECEC services, the ECEC Play Hubs, for children with a migrant and minority background through play and intergenerational learning. The TOY for Inclusion partners from Hungary and Slovenia shared their experiences of setting up and running their Play Hubs as well as the stories of the children and families who attend the Hubs.

On 18 and 19 June, ICDI also presented the TOY for Quality Programme and organised an interactive workshop on the policy and practice recommendations of TOY for Inclusion at the ISSA Conference.

If you are interested to know more about TOY for Inclusion, watch this video and visit our website.