The fourth working conference in the frame of EFFECTS programme with the partners of Tulip Foundation from Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Croatia took place in Sofia from 11 to 14 November 2017.
The partners presented practices and current policies for inclusion of families and creating consensus-based plans with professionals and person/s affected form their countries during the first day. Tulip Foundation presented briefly the Parent for contact model and more in details the practice of Family Group conferencing in Bulgaria. Yanka Nikolova from Opportunity and Protection Association in Haskovo and Lyudmila Tsvetanova from Centre Maria in Gorna Oriahovitsa told about the practical implementation of FGC. The information and the feedback from families and specialists that they shared provoked numerous questions.
On the following day the participants visited MIR centre of HESED Foundation in Fakulteta neighborhood where they got acquainted on the spot with the various programmes for inclusion of children and families.
In the afternoon of the same day colleagues form civil organisations and ministries joined us at Europe House. Dr. Lesley Curtis, Head of Everton Nursery School and Family Centre in Liverpool, England, United Kingdom, presented the mission and the activities of the centre. Uta Reuter from Das Diakonische Werk der Evang. Landeskirche in Baden e.V., spoke about the joint presentation with Jana Herzberg from BAG Familienbildung und Beratung e. V., Berlin presented the ESF program “Chance for Parents II – Winning Families early for Education" which is a Follow-up project to “Chances for Parents are Chances for Children" (2011-2014).
During the third working day Dr. Lesley Curtis from the Everton Family Centre in Liverpool shared detailed information about the various programme and opportunities for working parents, inclusion of families form the local community into the centre, development and support for the team. She answered numerous questions from colleagues form civil organisations that will pilot the Sure start programme in Bulgaria.
Our partners in this programme are Diakonie Baden, Evangelische Hochschule Freiburg and BAG Familienbildung und Beratung e.V. in Germany, Udruga za rad s mladima Breza from Croatia, Everton Nursery School and Family Centre from The UK and Haro, riksorganisationen för valfrihet jämställdhet, föräldraskap in Sweden. The activities are co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.
