ACEPP, Association of children-Parents-Professional Collectives is a network gathering today nearly a thousand local initiatives mainly centred on caring for young children (0 to 3 or to 6 years old), distributed on the whole territory of France, in urban as well as in rural environments.

The characteristic of these childcare centres and other local parental initiatives is that they are set up, managed and led by parents who are actively involved in their children's education with the collaboration of qualified professionals.

Since 1986, ACEPP, with the support of Bernard Van Leer Foundation, runs a program in disadvantaged suburbs to create, early childhood centres focusing on the exchange between families and children of different cultures and social backgrounds.

In these childcare centres families and professionals define together a common educational project which is intercultural because its starting point is each families practices and it is based on the negotiation between all adults. The original approach of ACEPP is to work about diversity in involving parents: In daily life and decision-making the parents have an active role; they start initiatives, propose projects etc. The parental intercultural centres are tools of citizenship and democracy.

Also, the presence of the parents makes it possible to better identify the culture and identity of each child and to integrate this information in the care of child to avoid ruptures in his education and/or to avoid identity conflicts.

From this experiment, ACEPP worked out a reflexion on topics like respect for diversity, the co-operation between parents and professionals and accessibility which ACEPP spreads to a lot of childcares centres, by taking the following actions:

• Supporting parents or professionals to create new intercultural centres.
  
• Facilitation of a Partnership Committee "Early childhood and Integration", space of exchanges between institutional partners, parents and professionals. Its role is to engage in an exchange between these actors to guarantee the accessibility of childcares centres
  
• Realization of research-actions on topics related to diversity and/or the involvement of parents
  
• Trainings and support of the childcare centres
  
• Publications
  
• Forums for parents and professionals.
  
• Innovative actions: Parent universities; trainings to support the childcare centres on quality and diversity using participative methods.
  
  

fon +33 1 44 73 85 20
fax +33 1 44 73 85 39

http://www.acepp.asso.fr

Contact: Emmanuelle Murcier
emmanuelle.murcier@acepp.asso.fr