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Description
The project Bulgaria Grows with its Children is aimed at improving the quality of services and measures to promote early childhood development. The project is aimed at improving the quality of services and measures to promote early childhood development in the country. The project will explore one of the main fields in urgent need of improvement of public policies, i.e. the role of professionals working with children in early childhood and their families. A survey will be carried out to find out to what extent the specialists in the education and social system have the necessary knowledge, skills and competence to support early childhood development in a secure family environment. The survey will help outline recommendations about changes in public policies that will be made to decision-makers on political and institutional level by means of advocacy actions. The project will contribute to raising public awareness about the importance of early childhood development and the importance of competence and knowledge of the professionals working with children in early childhood and their families. The main target groups will be specialists, children aged 0-7 and their families. The project will explore one of the main fields in urgent need of improvement of public policies, i.e. the role of professionals working with children in early childhood and their families. A survey will be carried out to find out to what extent the specialists in the education and social system have the necessary knowledge, skills and competence to support early childhood development in a secure family environment. The survey will help outline recommendations about changes in public policies that will be made to decision-makers on political and institutional level by means of advocacy actions.
Summary of project results
Wit the study Bulgaria Grows with Its Children: Building Professional Competencies of the Early Childhood Workforce, the project formulated recommendations for building a competent and motivated workforce. The recommendations are based on the experience and knowledge of a wide scope of practitioners in early education, social protection and healthcare, who participated in the study, and they are validated by experts in the three sectors. The project gave wide publicity to the results of the study and prompted professional discussions in three advocacy meetings with stakeholders and in the international conference Bulgaria Grows with Its Children which attracted leading European scholars and Bulgarian specialists as well as central and local government institutions. The mass media campaign focused on the importance of early childhood development and the role of the practitioners for the quality of early childhood services raised awareness among specialised and non-specialised audiences about the main problems related to the early years’ workforce and the necessary actions to address them.
The impact of the project products on public awareness and policy-making in the area of early childhood development is not limited to the project term. For Our Children Foundation continues advocacy work for the realisation of the recommendations based on three advocacy positions for the early years’ workforce in the sectors of education, social services for children and healthcare, developed within the project,. These positions specify policy recommendations and outline long-term advocacy actions for their implementation in practice.