BACKGROUND & CHALLENGESOver the last decade, early childhood education and care has increasingly taken place through informal structures for many families, creating at the same time an employment opportunity and path for many people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, such as migrants, refugees, unemployed, NEETs and people living on benefit. The skillssets required by informal and formal child caregivers are not the same. The available learning pathways, programmes and resources for informal childminders are not adequate to enable them to develop the necessary skills and provide childcare in an informal context like home, at the necessary quality and professional standards, thus closing the gap with formal provision of early education & care. Especially disadvantaged informal childminders need Open Educational Resources that can be accessed at one’s own pace, available preferably online, to improve their skills as regards effective home-based education and care of children aged 0-6 years, who do not attend kindergarten or need care in hours that formal arrangements are not available.OBJECTIVES1. Enhance access of informal childminders to training, developing open educational resources tailored to their needs.2. Introduce a modern training delivery method, enabling learners to follow flexible learning pathways as regards the acquisition of skills relevant to the early childhood care in an informal context.3. Enable municipalities, VET providers and associations of disadvantaged groups to offer courses for informal childminders open to their citizens, learners and members, with the aim to attract especially learners with disadvantaged backgrounds.4. Ensure sustainability of project results through the active involvement of public VET providers, social organisations and municipalities in the partnership countries. THE CHILDINMIND PARTNERSHIPThe partnership comprises 5 organisations from 5 countries, from the worlds of VET, research, learning innovation and disadvantaged groups’ representation. UNIMC and FLORIDA bring significant experience in developing high quality educational resources for informal childminders that work with children aged 0-6 years, in research in the ECEC field, and on training provision for the sector’s staff. ECI has experience in training informal childminders, and offering quality experiences for young children and their families in their settings. PROMEA brings expertise in research methodologies design and implementation, and in innovative learning solutions focused on professional skills. NCRP has extensive knowledge on VET courses for disadvantaged learners and families.ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGY- Analysis of current and future training needs to develop learning outcomes updated and tailored to informal childminders needs.- Development of learning units, learning and assessment materials to be offered online as OERs in a comprehensive VET programme in informal childminding.- Development, testing, and delivery of a self-paced open online course on informal childminding, promoting the adoption of innovative practices in VET.- Development of knowledge resources and tools for course providers to facilitate the organisation, running and dissemination of course.- Involvement of municipalities, NGOs, associations of disadvantaged to ensure the adoption of ChildInMind knowledge resources and online course.- Sharing and evaluation of projects outputs through multiplier events, inviting target groups to uptake ChildInMInd results and act as disseminators.RESULTS & IMPACT- Validated learning outcomes for training provision for informal childminders, impacting 300 VET providers.- Evaluated VET learning units and materials, reaching 10000 learners. - Tested self-paced Open Online Course for informal childminders, involving 250 learners.- Evaluated knowledge resources to facilitate course provision, reaching 150+ associations of disadvantaged, NGOs and public administrations. - Five training workshops and five national infodays to promote project results and validate all developed learning and knowledge resources, reaching 700 participants.POST-PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY- Participation of a growing number of learners planning to work as informal childminders in online courses based on project outputs.- Uptake of ChildInMind learning units and materials from relevant VET providers, municipalities and social organisations across EU.- Expansion of the strategic partnership through the adoption of the ChildInMind knowledge resources by interested training entities, municipal and sectoral stakeholders, including childminding companies and entities representing disadvantaged people, which will develop new courses to respond to sector’s training needs.- VET certification to promote the recognition of informal childminders’ skills.