Many parents are raising their children in a multilingual context. This context is growing increasingly complex: more languages are being spoken in one single household, home languages are being redefined in both their day-to-day use and as a cultural frame of reference, while other languages are experiencing, either positive or negative, societal pressure.In this process, parents are the prime educators and their basic choices are therefore tremendously important. We are duly aware that this is not an easy task for many multilingual parents with young children or parents-to-be. We are thinking in particular about socially disadvantaged families. Up to date literature or other sources are not readily available to them. These families usually have a migration background sometimes stretching back three or four generations. This is obviously incredibly enriching but every generation thinks and feels differently about home and integration languages. Families with young children have to find their own creative approach in these matters. They also have to ‘justify’ their choices towards others. Other families are refugees who need to reflect on their language choices since they have seen their lives change from one day to the next. What role will home languages play in their new lives and are they considering the possibility of return? How to introduce new languages into the household? Parents are in need of support in making these choices. We want to face up to this task, by providing parents with accessible tools that will enable them to both develop and follow up their own strategies, as well as to communicate them to the outside world.These parents will be our first target group.As a second target group we’ll address practitioners. Young parents are in touch with professionals, often for health care and early education. For migrant parents in a more difficult social situation, these contacts are unique opportunities to be empowered in their language education. It is important that practitioners increase their insight in multilingual education. Often they have some ideas, some conceptions but they are also confronted with the pressure towards the current language policies and more complex diversity between family contexts.The partners involved are: Association for the Promotion of Polish Language Abroad (UK), Stichting Onderwijsadvies (Netherlands), Multilingual Café (France) , UCLAN Cyprus Limited (Cyprus), and Foyer vzw (Belgium). They share the need to develop a better approach for young multilingual parents. We are convinced that these parents have a great potential to support their children and that our tools will sustain them in a learning process to realize their personal objectives. The diversity of groups we’re in contact with will make sure that our outcome will be usable in varied contexts. We want to develop a monitoring process with concrete supporting tools that target three issues in particular. Our aim is to address these issues gradually, so as to integrate them into a learning process:1.Multilingual adults gain insight into important aspects of multilingual child education. This output will result in a film and language portraits based on depth interviews, literature and our experience.2.These young multilingual parents reflect on how they could implement these insights in their own specific context and thus develop their own educational strategies. Here we create a booklet and reminder using a user-centered-design methodology involving our target groups in the process.3.These adults will also be able to communicate their choices and strategies to others. Here a passport will be developed with suggestions on how to use it in communication.A detailed working plan is developed to create and improve the outcome gradually.During the project we’ll involve parents as well as their communities in a process of sensitization about the subject of early multilingual education and this in individual contacts and workshops. Practitioners will be involved as ‘testers’ and in a reflection group. A lot of attention will be paid to impact and implementation.The partners are already aware of the importance to develop the planned content. But we need to be seen more explicit towards other stakeholders for their expertise. So for each of our organizations we want to raise the profile of the organisation: as experts concerning multilingual educations and as supporters towards other professionals and multilingual parents.We wil aim at engaging more stakeholders to support multilingual families and this with an increased insight in the learning process. In this matter, we concentrate on professionals already in contact with multilingual young parents. Finally we wish to engage parents to become active supporters. We want that the parents who go through our process afterwards will motivate other parents and people of their community to take up important issues.

TALES@home (Talking About Language and EmotionS at home). This project aims to empower multilingual families in their language management at home. With reference to this management the focus is on language attitudes and emotions and this for two main reasons:- Multilingual families play a significant and important role in the language learning of the family members and this for all languages concerned (minority languages, heritage languages, languages of integration). Attitudes and emotions influence motivation and the learning of these languages.- Language use in the multilingual family influences the wellbeing of the family members. Multilingual families should be supported to create an optimal environment for language learning and wellbeing. They should create an open atmosphere in which decisions on language maintenance /shift are considered and debatable. They should reinforce the mutual understanding between different generations and a positive approach to language learning. They should be able to handle negative attitudes and reinforce the positive ones. This is a family matter for each multilingual family. Professionals (educators, social/medical workers, teachers etc.) working with multilingual families are confronted with family members who sometimes struggle with the multilingual context that they are living in or who express negative connotations towards the home language and/or language of integration. The negative attitudes influence their wellbeing and/or language learning. These professionals need tools to help clients to express the attitudes and bend them in a more positive direction and this supported by the family. The central tool is an interactive application. The tool provides the possibility to the family members (from 6 years on) to input their emotions and ideas concerning the languages' use at home. We provided different activities. Family members can create their language portraits and they can visualize their language competences on a ladder. They can measure their ‘temperature’ (cold/warm feelings) for different language situations at home such as dinner, discussions, visits etc. They can tell something about important (cultural) references in their lives and draw a timeline of their process of migration and language learning. Professionals introduce the use of the tool in the family and support the communication about the outcome. To support the correct use of the app a user guide (in six languages) and short film are provided. In line with this, a training course for professionals is available in online talks about different subjects: they provide background information, an overview of the research done in this project and a presentation of the tool.This project was taken up by 7 Partners. Soros International House (Vilnius, Lithuania), EURAC Bolzano (Bolzano, Italy), UNIPA (Palermo, Italy), Double Helix Resourses (London, England), Foyer vzw (Brussels, Belgium) provided the theoretical background and elaborated the constant involvement of the stakeholders from first questioning until finalizing the development of the tool. Howest, Department Devine-Digital Design & Development (Kortrijk, Brussels) was responsible for the design and development of the tool and lead the other partners through the methodology of User-Centered-Design. ENSA-network (Brussels, Belgium) sustained the dissemination.To develop this app the chosen approach was “User Centred Design”; this means that the stakeholders (families and professionals) were strongly involved in the process of development.During the process we could observe the impact of this approach on different levels. For the multilingual families: It was remarkable that often parents discovered aspects about themselves and/or the children they didn't realize before. They understood quite fast the importance of working on positive approaches of mother tongues and languages of integration. It had an empowering effect: it was something they could do! So it was possible to see the impact immediately. In this stage (with the tool only recently available), we cannot be sure if it was long-term impact or short-term. A long time use can make this clear. For the professionals: They became more aware of the impact of language attitudes on learning and well being. They became more aware of the importance to take these issues up with their students of clients. For our organizations: It gave us the opportunity to exchange experiences in different language contexts.All materials are freely accessible to the users on the project website www.talesathome.eu.

To address the issue of religious diversity, RETOPEA will develop active learning from history: This is a new approach that provides teenagers with tools allowing them to think about religious cohabitation in a more nuanced, empathic way. The project encompasses research and innovation activities. It will carry out challenging research on historical peace treaties and conflict settlements, as well as on contemporary representations of religious cohabitation in culture and media. Studying historical peace-making initiatives will deepen our understanding of how religious conflicts and tensions have been accommodated and solved in different traditions (Christian, Muslim, Jewish) over time. Research into contemporary representations will subsequently reveal how such initiatives are used, misinterpreted or ignored in different types of culture and media today. These studies will provide insights into (a) effective policies and practices for approaching religious coexistence, and (b) alternative representations of religious cohabitation that engage constructively with contemporary concerns and past traditions. Based on this research, RETOPEA will develop innovative educational tools and evidence-based policy recommendations. Through active participation in the production of docutubes (online movies), teenagers will be encouraged to actively engage with different ways of understanding religious cohabitation. RETOPEA will build an educational package to support students in creating their docutubes. A training course will provide professional educators with information and training about religious diversity and peace-making in an accessible and attractive way. It will use the “Badged Open Course” format – a free online format that provides a certificate on completion. The experiences with students and the research results will offer the basis of policy recommendations to schools, educational authorities, religious leaders and (regional, national and European) policymakers.