SEEDs of Change: Supporting social and emotional well-being of children in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) through team reflection

Abstract

‘SEED: Social and Emotional Education and Development’ (2017-2019) was a European project that was designed to draw attention to the importance of social and emotional well-being for children’s learning and development, by supporting the continuing professional development of practitioners working with 2.5 to 6-yearolds in this area. SEED partners conducted action oriented research with the view to improve ECEC practice in Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Norway and the Netherlands. The findings of the first part of the research, which focused on understandings of social and emotional well-being in ECEC settings, and which was based on interviews with 140 ECEC practitioners and 44 principals about social well-being of 1195 five-year-old children in these countries can be found here [https://icdi.nl/media/ uploads/downloads/seed-research-report-21dec18-final.pdf]. These Guidelines are the outcome of the second part of the project, during which we piloted a group reflection pathway, called WANDA, with 80 ECEC practitioners with the aim to help them to deal with daily challenges in their practice so they could better support the socio-emotional well-being of children in their care.