Response to inception impact assessment on the future Recommendation on Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care

EuroHealthNet submitted a response to the inception impact assessment on the future Recommendation on Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, April 2018.

It also submitted a joint response as part of the alliance for investing in Children.

EuroHealthNet’s policy recommendations are:

• The QECEC Recommendation should make a clear connection to health equity and wellbeing over the life course.
• The QECEC Recommendation should promote the investment in early years to support good quality early years education and childcare provided in a proportionate way across the social gradient. Support for families should be improved by investing in pre- and post-natal interventions, encouraging parental leave, ensuring the income for a decent life, as well as through parenting programmes and children’s centres including outreach interventions to identify the most vulnerable and provide targeted support.
• Use the European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund to implement early child health and development interventions in areas of social deprivation.
• Foster the implementation of the EC Recommendation on Investing in Children, which calls on MS to support parents into paid work and improve access to affordable early year’s childcare, education, and healthcare.
• Connect the initiative to the EU Semester (Country Specific Recommendations, National Reform Programmes, and the Social Scoreboard – in the latter is it necessary to broaden the use of indicators to “children at the risk of poverty and social exclusion”).
• Connect the initiative to the European Pillar of Social Rights (Principle 11: Childcare and Support to Children; the Social Scoreboard; the Work-Life Balance Directive).

Read the joint response here.

Read the EU Alliance for Investing in Children response here.