Training & Professional Development

The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative (ECWI) has been working since 2016 to strengthen workforce policies, improve professionalization, and integrate well-being into early childhood workforce development. Now in its third phase, ECWI—through a partnership among ISSA, ARNEC, AfECN, and ANECD, with support from the Early Childhood Regional Networks Fund—has advanced cross-regional efforts to ensure early childhood professionals receive the training, recognition, and support they need.

🔗 Register here.

This Global Dialogue on the Early Childhood Workforce will bring together policymakers, donors, and leading organizations to discuss concrete strategies for elevating and supporting the workforce. By showcasing the achievements of the Regional Networks and amplifying their evidence-based advocacy efforts, the event aims to mobilize greater investment in professionalization, mental health, and systemic workforce reforms. Strengthening collaboration between national, regional, and global actors is key to ensuring early childhood professionals receive the training, support, and recognition they need to provide high-quality services to children and families.

What to Expect:

✅ Insights on how cross-regional collaboration has elevated workforce professionalization and well-being.
✅ Discussion on urgent investment needs to address workforce challenges.
✅ Examples of national and regional workforce initiatives influencing global frameworks.

🗣️ Format: Panel Discussion

Join us in this essential conversation on building a stronger, more resilient early childhood workforce!


Speakers:

ISSA: 
Zorica Trikic, Senior Program Manager, ISSA; Gulbadan Zakayeva, Director, Community Educational Foundation "School for All", Kazakhstan.

ARNEC:
Evelyn Santiago, Executive Director, ARNEC; Dr. Melissa Bartolome, Associate Professor, Philippine Normal University; Dr. April Ann Curugan, Associate Professor, Philippine Normal University.

AfECN: 
Given Daka, Regional Coordinator, AfECN; Lamin Jobe, Principal Education Officer, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Gambia.

ANECD: 
Mohamad Al Bekaai, Regional Coordinator, ANECD; Dr. Garene Kaloustian, ECD & ECE Specialist and Lead Researcher, ANECD.

International speakers: 
Vidur Chopra, Early Childhood Specialist & ECEC Lead, UNICEF ECARO; Kyungah Kristy Bang, Program Specialist, UNESCO Bangkok; Prof. Hasina Banu Ebrahim, UNESCO Co-Chair in ECD and Convener of the Knowledge Generation Working Group, African Union CESA ECED Cluster; Jane West, Senior Advisor, Two Lilies Foundation.

Facilitator: 
Dr. Mihaela Ionescu, Program Director, ISSA.

This date of these webinars has passed. Please find the recordings below.

This webinar provides a platform for discussing the identity of the early childhood workforce and how this impacts on early childhood policies and practices and the recognition of the early childhood profession.

• How can public policy reflect the science and common understanding of early childhood development needs across the diverse sectors working with young children and their families?
• Is there a role for shared fundamental standards and training to promote coherence in the delivery of early childhood services?
• How can pre-service and in-service training help bridge the gap created by a diverse but often fragmented ECD workforce?
• What links can be established across different sectors to foster a cohesive approach to working with young children and their families?
• Is the workplace environment supportive of different types of ECD workers?
• How can public policy be more supportive in strengthening the identity of the ECD workforce and build upon the richness of its diversity?

The event brings together key actors from across the world who are working in the field of early childhood development (ECD), with a focus on the ECD workforce.

Meet the Panelists for July 12th :

Moderator:

• Anaïs Loizillon, independent consultant specializing in global education policy [Bio]

Speaker:

• Dr. Mihaela Ionescu, Program Director ISSA- International Step by Step Association [Bio]
• Lynette Okengo, Executive Director of the African Early Childhood Network [Bio]
• Lydia Foong, Head of the Faculty of Education, SEGi University, Malaysia  [Bio]
• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University (NYU) Steinhardt, University Professor and Co-Director of the Global TIES for Children center [Bio]
• Professor Dr Mogana Dhamotharan, Professor of Education, SEGi University, Kota Damansara, Malaysia [Bio]

Meet the Panelists for July 13th :

Moderator:

• Anaïs Loizillon, independent consultant specializing in global education policy [Bio]

Speaker:

• Kimberly Josephson, Program Associate at Results for Development Institute (R4D) [Bio]
• Sian Williams, independent consultant in policy and programming for children in Jamaica and across Caribbean Community countries [Bio]
• Dr. Eunice Lumsden, Head of Early Years at The University of Northampton [Bio]
• Antonio Rizzoli Córdoba MD, PhD, Founder and Head of the Neurodevelopmental Research Unit at the Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez (HIMFG) [Bio]

This date of this webinar has passed. Please find the recording below.

Adopting multi-sectoral approaches in the early years, which integrate parenting support, nutrition, health, social protection, child protection, and education, is widely recognised as the way forward to meet global challenges. Multifaceted problems require both multiple as well as aligned and well-coordinated interventions. Poverty, discrimination and increasing inequalities need to be addressed in an integrated manner in order to bring about qualitative and quantitative change.

So called ‘integrated services’ are seen as desirable for responding to the complex problems that characterise the realities of children and families. Therefore, the way early childhood systems are designed, governed and financed, and the way early childhood services are delivered can make a dramatic difference in children’s as well as in their families’ life. Yet, that there are many barriers to making integration work and that it may take different shapes depending on the context.
The objective of this webinar was to discuss the conditions for interagency work from the perspective of those in a position of leadership in the early year’s workforce.
This webinar proposed to discuss the following statements:

• Research indicates that the integration of services at a managerial level does not always ensure the effectiveness of professionals working together on the frontline.
• Working in an integrated low-threshold way for 'hard-to-reach' families requires different attitudes and values of professionals: the old ‘expert’ way (including paternalistic attitudes) will need to make way for a more enabling, welcoming, participative and inclusive work attitude. Parents/carers and children should receive the services they actually deserve/want, not what professionals think they deserve/want. This will make the services more accessible as well and will make people more motivated to work together.
• There is mixed evidence for the importance of co-location as a key driver for integration. While studies have asserted that co-location is necessary, others have reported this is not always the case. Co-location may even have undesirable side-effects, for example in terms of socially selective access.
• Developing competent practices cannot be considered as the sole responsibility of individual practitioners but is a joint effort that involves teams, training centres, local administrative institutions and nongovernmental bodies, as well as national and/or regional governance systems that provide the conditions for staff development. Successful initiatives are characterised by a coherent policy on institutional and inter-institutional levels, involving:    1. Training the coordinators/managers/directors of ECEC centres;    2. Exchange of practices among centres (documenting, networking and disseminating);    3. Peer group meetings (learning communities);    4.  Pedagogical mentoring by specialised staff.

Meet the Panelists:

Moderator:
• Giulia Cortellesi, Senior Programme Manager, Early Years Team, International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI), Leiden, The Netherlands [Bio]

Panelists:
• Jacqueline Barnes, Director of Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birbeck University of London, UK [Bio] 
• Jan Peeters, Director of VBJK, Centre for Innovation in the Early Years at Ghent University, Belgium [Bio]

This date of this webinar has passed. Please find the recording below.

ISSA and R4D, in partnership with ICDI, are glad to announce a new webinar series in the framework of the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative. This webinar puts the spotlight on the notion of early childhood practice being political, and on early years practitioners as activists and change agents. In an interactive format we explore:

• What does early childhood activism mean or look like in different political, geographical and cultural contexts?
• Are advocacy, activism and the ability to effect positive change essential elements of professionalism in general, and therefore the early childhood profession in particular?
• Is it reasonable to expect early childhood practitioners to balance an activist critical stance alongside other roles such as pedagogical expert; builder and maintainer of relationships with children, their parents and other professionals; as well as manager in return for little recognition and poor remuneration?

The webinar is primarily intended for early childhood practitioners, leaders in early childhood services and lecturers/trainers teaching pre-service and continuing professional development courses on leadership, professional practice in the early years, working with families with young children and social policy.  

It is also beneficial to those who represent the interests of the early childhood workforce (trade unions, professional councils, representative bodies) at national and international levels.

Meet the Panelists:

Moderator:

• Margaret Kernan, Team Leader Early Years of International Child Development Initiatives (ICDI) [Bio]

Speakers:

• Emma Byrne-MacNamee, Early Years Programme Manager of Northside Partnership [Bio]
• Felicity Norton, Deputy of Pen Green Centre for Children and their Families and Research, Development and Training Base [Bio]
• Margy Whalley, Research Associate, Formally Director of Pen Green Centre for Children and their Families and Research, Development and Training Base [Bio]

The date of this webinar has passed. You may access the recording below.