During the project Standards of Quality for Early Childhood Education and Care Facilities we would like to prepare the standards of quality for facilities taking care of children up to 3 years old (in the Czech Republic the target groups are child groups, but in other countries it would be pre-kindergartens or other ECEC facilities).

The base for the creation of the Standards is the already existent Standars for Social Services. The standards define a set of measurable and verifiable criteria which enable a meaningful assessment of quality of the service. The idea is not to determine new rules or obligations for the providers of the services, but to create a tool for the users of the service (the parents) to recognize a quality provider.

The standards will protect the rights of children, the end-users of the service, they will contribute to the development of the organization as a service provider, they will help parents and, last but not least, the employees (nurses) working in the childcare facilities.

The aims of the project are the following:

1) Exchange of know-how among the childcare services providers in 5 EU countries including debates among the managers of the facilities, the employees (carers) and the users (parents) in order to define the most important quality criteria in early childcare and education

2) Creation of a set of Standards of Quality for ECEC Facilities based on the exchange of know-how including a methodology for evaluating the quality of a childcare facility

3) Pilot testing of the Standards of Quality in at least 7 ECEC facilities and creation of a best practice and bad practice catalogue for ECEC

Family and Job as an umbrella organisation currently having more than 100 members (about 1/5 of all child groups existent in the Czech Republic) will furthermore promote the Standards among the child groups and parents and introduce them as a kind of quality sign for child groups.

The project application

The project will be a Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training in the area of Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices. The deadline for submission to the Czech National Agency is the 21st of March. We are looking for partners - ECEC facilities or their founders in the Erasmus+ programme countries. Especially welcomed are partners from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Baltic countries, France or Austria.

Activities of the project:

• 3 transnational meetings for 2 participants from each country
• 2 short-term joint staff training events for 3 participants from each country (5 days each)
• 3 intellectual outputs
  • target group analysis - survey among the parents and its evaluation including recommendation for ECEC providers
  • Standards of Quality for ECEC
  • best practice and bad practice catalogue for ECEC providers based on the pilot testing of the Standards

If you are interested in cooperation, please send us your partner information form (including PIC number and previous project experience) before 2nd of March 2018.

 Child Care

 Erasmus+