Jointly organised by COFACE Families Europe and the Odissee Centre for Family Studies the interdisciplinary conference brought together researchers, policymakers and practitioners in the last week of September in Brussels. Together with civil servants and civil society representatives they examined integrated, place-based approaches to enhancing family resilience and social equity through systemic service coordination.

A keynote panel established the framework for the discussions, examining family support systems through three critical lenses: poverty prevention, early childhood development, and gender parity. Four thematic breakout sessions allowed participants to delve deeper into innovative approaches addressing fragmentation in family support systems. Speakers from Odissee and the Universities of Stockholm, Utrecht, Bonn, Erfurt and Padua; OECD, the European Commission, Bertelsmann Foundation, UNICEF, ISSA, Save the Children, Ministries of Social Affairs, Eurofound shared their positions. Practices form Belgium, Germany, Italy, Estonia were followed with big interest.

Maria Petkova presented the experience of Tulip Foundation and local partners in Bulgaria in developing the Sure Start programme in a number of municipalities. She shared also information from the latest evaluation report about the social impact of the programme on children, families and communities.

On the last day many participants joined a site visit to the House of the child "Elmer Noord".Elmer organises a family centre as an integrated service. They combine preventive family support, medical prevention in the early years, educational activities for children and parents, guidance on education, social participation and language development, with childcare.