Support to LSGs in developing and shaping of playful parenting related policies and practices

The project "Support to LSGs in developing and shaping of playful parenting related policies and practices " focuses on developing and improving existing public policies and procedures of local governments by strengthening support services in the areas of parenting and early childhood development. This project is implemented as part of the program "Scaling Up Playful Parenting", which is jointly implemented by UNICEF, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM), Consortium of institutions and organisations supporting the scaling up of playful parenting such as the City Institute for Public Health Belgrade, Republic Institute for Social Protection, Alliance of the Associations of Medical Nurses in Preschool Centres of Serbia, Centre for Support to Early Childhood Development and Family Relations – Harmony, as well as the Institute for Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, with the support of Lego Foundation.

The goal of program "Scaling Up Playful Parenting" aims at strengthening the integrated support services in the area of parenting and early childhood development, primarily by upgrading the quality of support services to children at early age and their caregivers as well as by increasing the caregivers` demand for support in exercising parenting roles based on play and quality interaction with their children. Program is expected to deliver changes on four levels:

• Improvement of parental practices;
• Strengthening of institutional and professional capacities in health care, preschool education, social welfare and local administrative services intended to provide improved and sustainable support to parents;
• Improvement of public policies and regulations;
• Changing of social norms by promoting more responsive and gender balanced parenting and highlighting the importance of quality parent-child interactions from the very first day of child’s life.

SCTM by implementing the project activities aims to support the improvement of local public policies and regulations through active engagement with 33 local governments by supporting development of institutional and professional capacities of local self-government as well as health protection, preschool education and social welfare systems for the implementation of local services in the area of parenting and early child development.

In the  first phase of the project, SCTM will collaborate with 6 cities and municipalities (6 pilot LSGs) aiming to improve existing policies and establish inter-sectoral cooperation mechanisms between services and community institutions in the field of early childhood development.  In the second phase of the project, the newly acquired knowledge and best practices enabling positive outcomes in parental practices, will be transferred from the 6 pilot LSGs to the other 27 local governments.

Through the project, SCTM will support selected local governments through a series of related measures such as:

• Establishment of the inter-sectoral mechanism for co-ordination of local public policies and services in all relevant area;
• Drafting of local public policies based on real data;
• Establishment of new and improvement of already existing procedures pertaining to public services supporting parents and early child development;
• Mapping and allocation of adequate budget funds to finance adopted public policies and established public services;
• Improved data collection mechanisms by relevant institutions, with the purpose of increasing the accessibility and quality of inter-sectoral services for supporting parenting during early child development phase;
• Development and implementation of local communication strategies and the establishment and empowerment of local networks of experts and parents, with the aim of communicating and involving stakeholders in relevant local activities;
• Capacity building of employees in competent institutions in the local community as well as parents and guardians.

During implementation of this project, Lego Foundation and UNICEF with the assistance of SCTM will provide funds that will be disbursed in form of grants to 33 LSGs in accordance to their expressed needs.

Implementationof the project is planned from November and 2020 until March 2024.

The project is implemented by UNICEF Serbia with the support of the LEGO Foundation as part of the global playful parenting support programme that included five countries on different continents. The project in Serbia has been launched in 2019 with the support of the former Cabinet of the Minister without portfolio responsible for Demography and Population Policy and in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Science and Technological development, Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy as well as the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.

UNICEF main implementing partners in the process of parenting and ECD services and system strengthening in 33 Serbian municipalities are the following: Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities Belgrade, Consortium of institutions and organisations supporting the scaling up of playful parenting such as the City Institute for Public Health Belgrade, Republic Institute for Social Protection, Alliance of the Associations of Medical Nurses in Preschool Centres of Serbia, Centre for Support to Early Childhood Development and Family Relations – Harmony, as well as the Institute for Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade.