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Projects

VBJK is currently involved in the following projects:

 

CoRe project

The CoRe project is a 14 months research project on ‘competences requirements of staff in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)’ in Europe and is financed by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture. The University of East London leads the project in a consortium with the University of Ghent, Department for Social Welfare Studies, with VBJK as a project partner.

This project started in November 2009 and will be completed in April 2012

Early childhood education and care has been, since 1992 Council Recommendations on child care, a recurring topic on European policy agendas. In recent years the importance of high quality services for young children and their families has been further emphasized. Socio-economic, educational and civil rights based rationales for investing in high quality services for young children and their families have been laid out in European and international policy documents. Throughout the EU, there is a consensus on the need for more and higher quality services, increasing integration of ‘childcare’ and ‘early education’, and enhanced training and status for the workforce whose members are known as essential to quality provision. But this consensus does not extend to how to achieve these goals: national strategies and approaches vary and the European Commission had identified a lack of common understanding of the competences of practitioners working with young children and their relationship to the outcomes for children in high quality early childhood services.

Therefore, the topic of this research is a comprehensive study of the competences required by staff working in ECEC. This study is an international research on quality, competences and professionalism in early childhood. At European level, a wide range of member states and candidate countries are included in the survey and detailed case studies are conducted. The project aims to provide a definition of core competences and to develop recommendations for action at professional and national and European policy level.

The specific objectives of the project are:

  1. To produce a summary of current evidence about the competences required by ECEC staff, based on a systematic, comprehensive and critical literature review.
  2. To provide a comprehensive summary of the competences that countries require their ECEC staff to possess, based on definitions in relevant national legislations and polity documents.
  3. To provide a description of competences taught in a geographically balanced sample of training programs that lead to qualifications required in order to be able to work in ECEC services, including countries that have no legislation on competences requirements.
  4. To conduct seven case studies of ECEC policy and provision in a geographically balanced sample, emphasizing high quality programs and analyzing staff competences contributing to the quality of provision.
  5. To propose a definition of the core competences that all ECEC staff require in order to contribute to a high quality ECEC service.
  6. To develop recommendations for actions that should be taken at national and European level.

For this project, the core research team at London and Ghent is supported by an international Expert Advisory Team and is closely collaborating with following key European and International professional networks:

Contact: Katrien Van Laere (katrien.vanlaere@vbjk.be)

 

Research team:

  • Prof. Dr. Michel Vandenbroeck
  • Dr. Jan Peeters
  • Katrien Van Laere
  • Prof. Dr. Mathias Urban
  • Arianna Lazzari

 

WANDA project

‘WANDA’ is a transnational project financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). Artevelde University College Ghent leads the project in collaboration with VBJK as a project partner.

This project started in September 2010 and will be completed in August 2012.

Wanda stands for ‘Waarderen, ANalyseren en Daden’, which means to value, to analyze and acts. This project wants to develop a reflective methodology to increase the competences of professionals in ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care).

Therefore inspiration is found in ‘analyse de pratiques’, a methodology that’s been used in ECEC in France. This project wants to introduce and translate this French methodology to the Flemish situation.

‘Analyse de pratique’ is a methodology that can be used as well in services for ECEC, but also in education and training of professionals in ECEC.

Special attention goes to enrich this methodology with the ‘appreciative inquiry’. This approach starts from the strengths of people.

For the project ‘WANDA’ there is a close collaboration with the sector of ECEC in Flanders. The project gets support and advice from an expert group.

Contact: Katrien Van Laere (katrien.vanlaere@vbjk.be)

 

Building Strong Family Day Care

‘Building Strong Family day care’ is financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). VBJK is the promoter of this project in cooperation with CEGO, the Centre for Experiential Education based in the University of Leuven (Belgium), as a project partner. The project started in January 2011 and will be completed in December 2013.

Similar to other countries, family day care in the Flemish community is under pressure: the number of candidates who are interested in and able to work in family day care is decreasing. In general, the traditional recruits for family day care work have been women with low levels of qualifications who found themselves to be out of the labor market during extended periodsof time. This group is rapidly decreasing as women have gained better access to the labour market , education and training. A broad consensus exists according to which several factors stand in the way of the development of a high quality family day care service. One of these factors is the low level of qualification and training,generally expected from family day care providers.

This project aims to increase the quality of training and guidance of family day carers within the Flemish community. Therefore the project develops a training for people interested in working in family day care services. The training's objective is to give candidates an insight and understanding into the content, expectations and requirements for the job. They also have to be aware of their own capacities in order to work in a family day care service.

Secondly, the project also develops tools for the pedagogical guidance of family day carers. Special attention goes to the creation of learning communities for family day carers.

This project wants family day carers to:

  • make a well-considered choice for the job
  • have the necessary competences and capacities to work as a family day carer
  • have a supportive professional network on which they can rely

For the project ‘Building Strong Family day care’ a close collaboration with the sector of family day care and child care in Flanders has been established.

The project is based on the results of the European EQUAL project ecce ama! childcare in learning networks.

Contact: Sandra Van der Mespel (sandra.van.der.mespel@vbjk.be)