The integrated system of early childhood education and care of the Emilia-Romagna Region. Case studies of innovative services.

The Report analyses the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services, which are certainly one of the core policy areas of the SIP – Social Investment Package (COM 2013/83). Moreover, according to the Europe 2020 Strategy, ECEC services are an essential requirement to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The Report presents the results of an eight-month research program undertaken under the INNOSI Project framework, pursuing three main objectives: - Proving that ECEC services are beneficial to a wide array of actors: children, families and society at large; - Collecting knowledge aimed at improve quality and effectiveness (equitable access) of ECEC system to reach a higher level of growth and to guarantee children’s academic results and employability in the future; - Analysing, through a case study approach, the integrated ECEC services’ system in Emilia-Romagna Region as possible best-practice of Social Innovation with regard to the partnership between public, private for profit and nonprofit actors. Namely social economy initiatives pro-actively engaged with local actors, including children, their families and the communities in which they are living. The reports monitoring the situation of ECEC in the national context highlight that accessibility and the educational quality provided by ECEC services are very unequally displayed across the national territory, although exceptions exists in those Regions where investment in ECEC has occurred over a long period of time (e.g. Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany). The choice of the ECEC services system of Emilia-Romagna Region (focusing specifically on the services addressed to children aged 0 to 3 and their families) is due to the relevance of this policy area for the theme of Social Investment and because of the significant presence of partnership with social economy actors such as social cooperatives. Concerning the methodology of INNOSI project, in order to verify the potentialities in term of Social Innovation of the ECEC services in the Emilia-Romagna region, we opted for the “Case Studies” research technique. We carried out an ECEC services analyses articulated at the micro (social demands), meso (societal challenges) and macro (systemic change) levels. We selected three cases: “Filonido” in the city of Bologna; “Il Girotondo intorno al Bosco” in the village of Serramazzoni; “La Gabianella” and “L’albero delle meraviglie” in the small town of Comacchio; one for each ECEC main typology operating in the system: Nurseries-kindergartens; Integrative-complementary services; Home services. We also took in consideration the following variables: Geographic distribution; Municipality dimension; Ownership structure. We analysed three main dimensions of the services’ outcomes: a) reconciliation of family and working life responsibilities for parents; b) equal educational opportunities for children’s development and growth; c) participation of groups which are at risk of social exclusion (low-income families, children from ethnic minority background). The main results can be summarised as follows: From the analysis of the data collected (through interviews with managers and local decision-makers) it emerged that no-one model fits all. Rather the key success factors for increasing the availability as well as the affordability of ECEC provision seems to reside in the flexible combination of different funding sources coming from the public sector – as well as from the private NFP sector and private enterprises – within a comprehensive framework of public policies that responsively addresses the needs identified within each community while striving for universalism. In this sense, the case studies analysed provide exemplary cases of how a diversified ECEC provision serving the diverse needs of children and families within local communities could be realised with a special focus on accessibility and economic sustainability. Beside addressing the issues of sustainability and accessibility, the case studies shed light on how the pedagogical quality of ECEC provision and its ongoing improvement could be nurtured through the co-creation and sharing of knowledge, expertise and experiences that is generated by innovative forms of public governance (local and regional networks, partnerships with parents, coalitions for policy advocacy, inter-agency collaboration).