The project aims to develop a line of action on preschools which aims to foster the well being of the child in relation to the promotion of healthy lifestyles, through synergistic actions between school, family and professionals who deal with the health and wellness of child in the 0/6 range.This course wants to interface with the Italian, Swedish, Greek and Portuguese experiences, to take out each of these good practices to be implemented in the model built in the reference schools.It also intends to carry out a follow through questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, ways of life within families as well as may change due to any act developed at school.The project is mainly based on the visit and exchange of experiences, comparison, experimentation and subsequent evaluation of new practices related to nutrition, exercise, relationships, personal hygiene and environmental friendliness

Quality in Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has gained an increasingly prominent position on European and national policy agendas. Quality of ECEC depends largely on the system as whole and on the competence of its components like staff, families and communities. The main problem that the partnership has identified and intends to address stands in the fact that involvement and participation of the parents and carers are scarcely or not sufficiently acknowledged as a key component contributing to quality of ECEC as a competent system.The project has pursued four specific objectives:1) To identify, test and mainstream best practices and innovative methods of participation particularly in context of diversity (socio-economic and cultural diversity, minorities, etc);2) To improve the teachers competences pertaining strategies and approaches the involvement of parent by learning from the experiences of colleagues from other countries in Europe ;3) To improve the integration and interaction of the different components of the system (children, practitioners, researchers, families, community);4) To address participation in ECEC as a process in a more effective way through quality indicators;The partnership consists of 11 partners from 7 EU countries. The organizations involved in the partnership are: 3 pre-schools, 2 local authorities managing pre-schools, 1 teachers training organization, 2 universities, 2 research centers, 1 transnational networks of local and regional authorities.The project has involved a total of 162 participants in the transnational meetings and training actvities and 618 participants in the multiplier events representing three main target groups: practitioners (pre-school teachers and managers, representative of local authorities and academics / trainers).The achievement of the goals was possible thanks to an implementation path based on the following macro phases. The first phase saw an analysis of national situations in relation to the topic in terms of existing policy framework and guidelines. This phase ended with the identification of practices on participation in the context of the partnership and made it possible to create a baseline for setting up the next phase. The second phase of the project was focused on defining the project's approach to the theme of participation with the definition of the four areas of participation (learning about the family, communicating with the family, deciding and acting together with the family, collaborating and cooperating with the community ) and the indicators connected to each area. The third phase was focused on identifying the practices to be deepened in the ligt of the focus areas and the indicators and the subsequent observation activity through job shadowing. The fourth step was to transfer and experiment on practices locally based on job shadowing results. Based on the transfer and the effectiveness of the practice in a European context other than the original one, the fifth phase of the creation of the toolbox prototype started. Subsequently the prototypes were shared with the stakeholders through the multiplication bodies (phase six) and on the basis of the feedback received, the paper and online versions were finalized (seven steps).The main results (impact resulting from the activities in the local contexts of the partners) of the project have been:Innovative forms of participation (enabling practices and methods) were identified, transferred in other EU countries and tested; A toolbox enhancing participation has been created including (introduction, instructions, focus areas, and best practices) and disseminated in 9 EU languages. The toolbox has both a paper version and online version;Increased interaction of the different components of the system (family members, practitioners, community)Increased competences of the ECEC staff pertaining participation Increased internationalization and stronger European dimension of the involved pre-schoolsDevelopment of more effective indicators addressing comprehensively the theme of participationOne of the main long term impact of the project has been an increased awareness locally and internationally and more centrality attached to participation of families and carers as a key component enhancing quality of the Early Childhood Education and Care