Deadline: 10-Jun-25
The ECE + Care: Early Steps, Equal Chances initiative has been conceived to support local governments and stakeholders in creating sustainable, family-centered ECE ecosystems.
By focusing on both formal preschool education and complementary caregiving support, the planned initiative emphasizes a holistic approach to child development, integrating health, psychosocial support, and parental engagement.
Focus Areas
- Education:
- Early childhood development
Aims
- Through UNICEF contributions complemented with Hromada contributions, targeted capacity building, infrastructure enhancement, and inclusive community outreach, the programme aims to:
- Improve the quality and inclusiveness of early childhood education and the data available on inclusion by training educators in early childhood development principles, inclusive pedagogy, socio-emotional learning, and adaptive teaching strategies and a sustainable trainer-of-trainers approach.
- Improve the quality and inclusiveness of early childhood education by training educators in early childhood development principles, inclusive pedagogy, socio-emotional learning, adaptive teaching strategies and a sustainable trainer-of-trainers approach, and data collection and reporting.
- Building on currently available materials on inclusion and other areas of ECE that are consistent and aligned to national ECE strategies and UNICEF vision, to build on them as part of the improvement and expansion of services and avoid duplications.
- Expand access to early learning services and/or increase the types of services available, including flexible modalities, to better reach underserved and hard-to-reach communities, particularly children with disabilities, IDPs and children from Roma families. When possible, introduce one of the 9 models introduced by the law on ECE to assess its viability and sustainability.
- Support caregivers through tailored training programs provide more equitable access to women with children to the job market. By working closely with local authorities, education professionals, and families, ECE + Care: Early Steps, Equal Chances in Lutska, Uzhhorodska, and Mukachivska Hromadas aspires to build resilient, child-friendly communities where every child can thrive from the very start of life.
Expected Outcomes
- Expanded access to early learning for underserved populations: To ensure that more young children, particularly those from underserved, remote, or marginalized communities, have access to early childhood education, the project will support the expansion of flexible, inclusive early learning opportunities across the three targeted hromadas and in consideration of barriers faced by specific groups:
- Support local partnerships to increase early learning service provision including rehabilitation and equipment of early learning centers in line with new standards for quality learning environment and collecting appropriate data to report in the increase of access in those services.
- Support diversification of early learning service provision to improve access in unserved and hard-to-reach communities/areas.
- Strengthened skills and knowledge of early childhood educators: Local professionals will receive professional development on inclusive pedagogy, early identification of developmental concerns, and the use of adaptive learning strategies, in alignment with the National Strategy on Inclusive Education:
- Training program for ECE educators’ development/adaptation to the needs of the particular Hromada.
- Train trainers to deliver improved learning approaches based on socio emotional learning and supporting mixed modalities.
- Strengthened systems for inclusive education and intersectoral service coordination: To ensure long-term, systemic change, the project will support the development and integration of an inclusive education component within the broader national Better Start for Better Learning and Better Care Strategy:
- Facilitate development of the inclusive education component within the Better Start for Better Learning and Better Care Strategy, using the experience of Lutsk hromada as a model.
- Strengthened hromada-level data systems for inclusive early childhood education through improved mechanisms for collecting, reporting, and analyzing disaggregated data, enabling evidence-based decision-making.
Eligibility Criteria
- Officially registered Ukrainian civil society organizations (CSOs) with experience in implementing early childhood education (ECE) projects, working with parents and at-risk communities, as well as expertise in developing training programs for ECE educators and project management, are invited to participate in the open call and submit a project proposal that addresses one or more of the outlined outputs.
For more information, visit UN Partner Portal.