"Reinforce Educators - Empower Children (REEC)" project

REEC is a trasnational project seeking to protect children from abuse in Greece and Italy. It forges a protection response to reinforce existing capacities of Early Childhood Development (ECD) and primary educators’ as well as child protection (CP) practitioners’ capacities to detect and provide responsive services to children experiencing or at risk of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

REEC

Main objective:

Terre des hommes Hellas (Tdh) works together with the International Rescue Committee Hellas (IRC) and the Municipalities of Milan and Athens to protect children of pre-school and primary school age from any kind of abuse and promote their positive development in a protective environment fostered through synergies among schools, parents/ caregivers & child protection services in the community.

REEC Activities:

  • Baseline survey to better understand knowledge, attitudes and practices of ECD and primary educators as well as of CP practitioners; Use findings to inform project design (desk research and key informant interviews/focus group discussions with educators, parents, children)
  • Development of a new training methodology & toolkits for educators through the adaptation of two tested methodologies:
    • Healing Classroom / Social Emotional Learning Curricula of IRC
    • Movement Games & Sports of Tdh
  • Capacity building of ECD educators, primary teachers and child protection professionals in Greece and Italy
    • A. Trainings 1st cycle:
      • 1. Child safeguarding & child protection training (target: ECD educators & primary school teachers)
      • 2. Specialised child protection (target: child protection professionals)
      • 3. Safeguarding activities for children (target: educators)
    • B. Trainings 2nd cycle:
      • 1. New methodology - Healing Classrooms / Social Emotional Learning and Movements, Games and Sports (target: ECD educators & primary school teachers)
      • 2. Coaching support to trained educators
      • 3. Webinars on different thematic areas
  • Exchange visits between Greece & Italy
    • A. Education: Representatives from competent Ministries of Greece and Italy and of the Municipalities (Athens & Milan) visit each other’s countries to exchange learning and share good practices on education
    • B. Child Protection: Representatives from competent Ministries of Greece and Italy, as well as Municipalities (Athens & Milan) visit each other’s countries to exchange learning and share good practices on child protection
  • Dissemination to stakeholders at national and EU level
    • A. Roundtables in Greece and Italy with the participation of national child rights’ networks, civil society organisations, relevant national and local authorities, frontline workers, policy makers, public authorities
    • B. Awareness campaign
    • C. Conference in Brussels
    • D. Sharing of lessons learnt and best practices

 

A Community Advisory Group with parents is established in each country to offer consultation at every major stage of the project.

 

Expected results

  • Improved knowledge of ECD educators/primary teachers and CP practitioners to address issues & behaviours deriving from violence, trauma or difficult life experiences.
  • Improved cooperation among schools, children at risk and their families, and child protection services in the community.
  • Increased awareness of stakeholders, including professionals, caregivers & policy makers, of child protection risks and appropriate ways to prevent, identify and respond

The project is coordinated by Terre des hommes (Tdh), Hellas in partnership with International Rescue Committee (IRC) Hellas and the Municipality of Milan (CM) and in close cooperation with Municipality of Athens

Duration: January 2021 – December 2022

Areas of implementation: Athens & Milan

TO WATCH THE RECORDED SEMINARS ON CHILD PROTECTION AND SAFEGUARDING, AND DOWNLOAD USEFUL MATERIAL (in Greek) FOR EDUCATORS AND PROFESSIONALS, PLEASE VISIT THE GREEK SECTION OF THE PROJECT, BY CLICKING HERE

 

 

REEC is co-financed by the “Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union”.