Proposals for Action for early childhood
Six months after the launch of the Primeiros Anos a Nossa Prioridade campaign, around thirty public, private and social sector institutions have presented a set of Proposals for Action that reinforce the importance of promoting integrated policies for early childhood and propose the adoption of a Global and Integrated Policy for 0-6 years old.
The campaign brings together partners with different sensibilities, knowledge, practices and experiences that allowed formulating, throughout the campaign, concrete proposals for Portugal to strengthen the measures aimed at promoting child development. The set Proposals for Action counted, therefore, with the contributions of the campaign partners and was based on the Conclusions of the Big Meeting First Years Count! What’ next?.
The importance of the first 1.000 days of life and of the family, the guarantee of access to quality health care, the need to assume early childhood education as the fundamental foundation of a society and the creation of effective conditions so that children in alternative care can grow up in family-based arrangements are the main lines of the Global and Integrated Policy proposed by the national coalition.
The national coalition counts on around 30 entities, which bring together a network of thousands of local organisations in Portugal.
Among the Proposals for Action are the reinforcement of measures to regulate work and family life balance (extension of the duration of paid parental leave and more flexible working hours for parents during the first years of their children’s lives), as well as the increase the coverage of crèches and other qualified educational settlements, available for, and affordable to, all families, the guarantee of access for all children (3-6 years old) to pre-school education and the end of the split early childhood education and care system (between 0-3 and 3-6 years), with its unification under the Ministry of Education.
The development of new models of care and protection of children at risk/danger, based on scientific knowledge, which favour the child’s life project in a natural context of life, but also the accelerated expansion of the national network of foster families for cases where it is not possible to keep the child in their birth family , is another proposal seen as fundamental by the campaign partners.
The promotion of physical and mental health in early childhood is another priority identified in the Proposals for Action, namely with the training of nursing teams in Primary Health Care for the assessment of child development (identification of deviations) and appropriate referral, capacitation of these teams to parenting support interventions, strengthening and valorisation (with the consequent coverage increase) of the SNIPI – National System for Early Intervention in Childhood. It also advocates for the creation of a “green pathway” to guarantee access to specialised health care for all children who need it.
The national campaign Primeiros Anos a Nossa Prioridade is developed within the European campaign FIRST YEARS FIRST PRIORITY, which is coordinated, at national level, in 9 countries in Europe: Pomoc Dec (Serbia), Plataforma de Infancia (Spain), Fundação Nossa Senhora do Bom Sucesso (Portugal), Central Union for Child Welfare (Finland), Family, Child, Youth Association (Hungary), Child Rights Alliance (Ireland), Trust for Social Achievement (Bulgaria), Step by Step Center for Education and Professional Development (Romania), Ensemble pour l’Éducation de la Petite Enfance (France).
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