On 27.09.2022, New Bulgarian University (NBU) hosted the international conference "Social and Emotional Skills Development in Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe". The event was the final conference of the project "Social and Emotiоnal SKILLS Development in Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe", EU-Self (2019-1-BG01-KA201-062593), under the Erasmus + Programme, organized jointly with Kindergarten No. 37 "Vulshebstvo".
Official greetings were given by Dr. Elena Tarnichkova, representative of the Ministry of Education and Science; Mr. Angel Valkov, representative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy; Ms. Kalina Hristova, representative of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Bulgaria; Ms. Christina de Broyne, representative of UNICEF-Bulgaria; Dr. Vanya Kastreva, Head of Regional Education Department, Sofia-city; Dr. Ivanka Shalapatova, Executive Director, For Our Children Foundation; Prof. Plamen Doynov, PhD, Rector, New Bulgarian University; prof. Lilia Gurova, Head of the Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, New Bulgarian University.
The conference programme was opened with a video presentation by Ms. Rowena Fair, representative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on "Caring, Sharing, Courage. Speakers at the event were international experts from the project consortium that worked on the development of the materials (Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well as experts from Bulgaria. At the conference were presented:
A general framework for understanding social and emotional skills by Nikolay Mihailov (MU-Varna) and Nadia Kolcheva (NBU);
Social and Emotional Learning in Preschool Settings;
(https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.691670/full )
Digital Resources for Social and Emotional Development, an interactive online platform with information on the development of social and emotional skills in young and preschool children (https://euself.nbu.bg), Francisco Machado, (University of Maya - ISMAI);
The state of social and emotional skills development in Europe. A collection of country descriptions in Europe, Francisco Machado, Carla Peixoto and Vera Coelho, University of Maya - ISMAI and Nadia Kolcheva, NBU
(https://euself.nbu.bg/documents/5/CountryOverviewBook-EU-Self-20220820-1120-02f584.pdf )
On European practices in the EU-Self project, Bert Wostain (Erasmus University Brussels for Applied Sciences and Arts)
(https://euself.nbu.bg/documents/6/ProgramsBook-EU-Self-20220820-1120-bfae1d.pdf)
Assessing social and emotional skills. A collection of assessment tools Nadia Kolcheva, New Bulgarian University
(https://euself.nbu.bg/documents/8/Web_AM_EU-Self-20220829-1614-672b45.pdf )
Educational context, case studies from practice and criteria observed. EU-Self project book, Amila Muezinovic (University of Tuzla)
(https://euself.nbu.bg/documents/7/EU-Self_Project_Book-20220828-2153-2f2334.pdf )
The practical experience of 37 kindergartens "Valshebstvo", Bulgaria (Gergana Petrova and Denislava Nikolova), Social Centre Sutelo, Portugal (Isabel Sofia Costa) and Private pre-school institution "Montessori IQ Corner", Bosnia and Herzegovina (Benjamin Avdic) was presented.
Assoc. Sevdjihan Eyubova (Shumen University "Konstantin Preslavsky") presented the program for the development of emotional literacy "Play with Fory" developed by her, and Ioanna Marinova (Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation) told about the projects supported by the Foundation. The topic of the role of the development of social and emotional skills in the inclusion of children was not overlooked. It was presented by Erika Columban (Galileo Progetti, University of Semmelweis, Faculty of András Pető).
The interest in the event was huge. More than 200 specialists from all over Bulgaria (teachers, psychologists, speech therapists, pedagogical advisors, social workers, directors of educational institutions, representatives of NGOs involved in early childhood development, regional centres for supporting the process of inclusive education and parent organisations, students and lecturers from the NBU, etc.) and about 20 guests from abroad participated. Thanks to the support of the Lachezar Tsotzorkov Foundation, scholarships were provided for participants living outside the capital. New tools and materials were also presented to help the specialists in our country (Elena Bacheva, Mom's Diary; Stanislava Parvanova, Noble Star Communications Ltd; Neli Indzheva, Robo Trading Ltd; Georgi Tsonev, Ina Publishing Ltd; Radka Ivanova, Publishing House "PROSVETA - SOFIA" JSC; Polina Kotseva, Fantasia International Ltd).
We hope that our social and emotional skills "map" of Europe will become an indispensable tool for a variety of activities for early childhood and pre-school children - prevention, inclusion, research, educational services, intervention planning, etc. and thus contribute to the development of key competences for early childhood and pre-school children, their inclusion in society, reduction of school drop-out, improvement of the quality of early childhood care and education (ECCE) providers, etc. that respond to new challenges.
The EU-Self digital platform is a powerful tool to create a proactive and effective network of people with different profiles, needs and interests in children's social and emotional development. All this has a huge potential for long-term impact not only for participating partners, researchers and early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers, but also for indirect stakeholder groups such as experts; educators; parents; students; future ECEC practitioners; service providers; experts working with children and families; policymakers; decision-makers; NGOs; local authorities; EU bodies; etc. We hope that this project will contribute to the social and emotional development of children, both within the European Union and worldwide.
A recording of the conference is available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rELdLkCaF64
The information about the event in Bulgarian:
