Setting Our Agenda on Early Learning, Violence and Physical Environment

This edition of Early Childhood Matters, a journal published twice per year by the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF), outlines BvLF's thinking as the organisation fleshes out its goals for the period 2010 to 2015. Key new areas of focus in the 11 countries and regions in which BvLF will work during this period, as described by the Foundation's Programme Director, Michael Feigelson, in the introduction to the journal issue, include:

1. Bringing quality early learning programmes to scale: "We expect to be encouraging support for the view that, as governments embark on scaling up services for young children, they need to pay particular attention to the groups most vulnerable to being left out or left behind... We also hope to become a repository of practical knowledge that can help governments and advocates alike think through the design and implementation of good policies."
2. Reducing violence in young children's lives - including: amplifying children's voices and advocating for children within legislative reforms; advocating for and supporting national systems for data collection; forming national action plans to eliminate violence against children; conducting research; exploring beliefs about the acceptability of interpersonal violence, about masculinity, and about the social status of women and children; and focusing on other fields which are working on some of the root causes of violence, including unemployment, public insecurity, and alcohol abuse.
3. Improving the physical environments where young children grow up will involve BvLF: working closely with city planners, architects, and construction companies to see how considering young children's interests might influence their approach (ideally, working together with young children at the centre of their discussions); addressing poor sanitation, poor-quality housing, and overcrowding; and securing safe and easily accessible public spaces for children to play. "In our pursuit of this goal, we also anticipate forming creative alliances with community associations..."

Articles in this journal explore various aspects of the new goals and include contributions from: the Wolfensohn Centre, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); an interview with UN special representative on violence against children, Marta Santos Pais; and country-specific insights from Brazil, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

For example, Marta Santos Pais highlights the importance of participatory governance, noting that merely outlawing a practice in a way that might seem judgemental and accusatory to those maintaining it cannot foster behaviour change. "It is critical to promote discussions with community opinion leaders, including religious leaders, as well as grassroots organisations. People need to feel that the impetus for legal change is not imposed but also comes from them."

In another article focused on violence against young children, Gary Barker and Marcos Nascimento explore poverty and structural inequalities that shape care settings, cultural and social norms related to child-rearing practices, and gender norms and dynamics. They discuss results from their recent research on an intervention carried out by the Brazilian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Instituto Promundo: "[f]or most mothers corporal punishment and psychological violence, such as humiliation and shouting, were...something they knew they should not do, but frequently did when they lost control or were stressed." The authors offer several insights for action to prevent violence against young children, such as engaging men to a greater extent in caregiving.