Parents must not be punished but given the right to choose

The European Commission has proposed a new directive to the European Parliament and the European Council entitled 'A New Start to Support Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers'. The official, compulsory feedback period will end at the end of June. EPA has made a public contribution to the initiative in line with the clearly expressed wish of parents all over Europe. The proposal can be found here. Read EPA's short feedback below.

The World Celebrates Parents as Educators Today

International Day of Families 2017

The International Day of Families is held on 15 May every year. This year the United Nations has decided to focus on parents as the primary educators of their children. The message of the year does not only acknowledge parents as educators and emphasise the crucial role parents play in the education of their children, but also calls the attention of policy makers to the importance of empowering parents as well as offering them conditions for balancing work and family life. The European Parents’ Association has been advocating exactly for this for more than 30 years and this was also why we fostered the establishment of the International Parents Network, a global network of people – parents and non-parents alike – who wish to act for parents and with parents to ensure parents’ rights for the best interest of the child. Parent activist all over the world warmly welcome the official message of the UN highlighting the “vital role of parents in safeguarding good quality education starting with early childhood and extending throughout their children’s and grandchildren’s lifespan”.

A socially just Europe – as parents would like to see it

PRESS RELEASE

Just a few days before the European Commission published its (hopefully) first package on the Social Pillar of the European Union, parents from 18 different European countries gathered in Paphos, Cyprus for the conference of EPA (European Parents’ Association) on ‘A More Socially Just Europe for Children and Parents?!’ on 22-24 April. The event was the opportunity to launch a major EPA position paper on The Best Interest of the Young Child, and participants also built their vision of a socially just Europe in interactive plenary and workshop sessions.

The Best Interest of the Young Child paper on early childhood education needs and provisions from a parents’ perspective is a result of a Europe-wide consultation and based on the widest possible consensus of national parents’ association from Nordic to Southern countries.

DigiLitEY Think Tank meeting in London – report

I was invited to join the Think Tank meeting of the DigiLitEY project in London at the end of March 2017 as an expert. This research project is focused on technology use by children under 8 years of age. The London event mostly focused on the working group that focuses on parents and home. While we were presented interesting research evidence mostly gathered through literature review, a discussion has also been started on how it would be possible to engage as many parents in the discourse as possible.

Expert concerns about the General Data Protection Regulation

5 reasons why children should not require compulsory parental consent for internet service access 

Janice Richardson, an international expert on internet safety has approched EPA asking for support of the statement below. She was one of the keynote speakers at the Lisbon EPA conference on the challenges of the digital age. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU last year and will be compulsory for all EU countries. There is regulation in the GDPR making it compulory to acquire parental consent for the use of any online service for children, a step that restricts parents' rights, there are pedagogical concerns about it and it is likely to widen the digital divide. Thus the Board of EPA decided to fully support the statement.

Stop Cyberbullying - campaign in Catalonia to educate parents

Newsflash by Josep-Manuel Prats, EPA Vice President

While the EU is enforcing a directive trying to legally restrict the internet use of our children, parents’ associations in Catalonia has initiated a campaign totally in line with EPA’s policy paper, adopted by consensus of the members.

All the federations of parents' associations in Catalonia have agreed to start an awareness raising campaign the target groups of which are especially fathers and mothers. We have the explicit support of the Government of Catalonia.

A child rights perspective on parental involvement and child participation

This paper was prepared for school heads and assistant heads participating at a school leadership training, but it may also be useful for all parents and teachers for designing a rights-based participatory system in their schools. It also contains some child rights aspects to be considered generally in education, some of them often violated, a couple of them are regularly violated on the basis of false assumptions on responsibility or out of ignorance. With 20 November, the day we celebrate the rights of the child, approaching, it seems to be a timely publication. The logo illustrating the article is awarded to schools respecting the rights of the child. There is a lot to be done to achieve that.

What are young children telling us? - Think about school segregation from a totally different angle

The Serbian member of EPA, Pomoc Deci organised a very interesting event in Belgrade in the middle of September 2016 with participants from Balkan countries, Albania, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro as well as Northern Ireland. While the event had an early childhood focus, EPA was offered the opportunity to give our views on parental involvement and child participation with special focus on peace-building, as well as to hold a totally interactive workshop on active European citizenship on school level. This was also a great opportunity to pilot our ELICIT+ training material in an exciting context, the Balkans.

The most interesting presentation of the event was by Prof. Bojana Breneselovic from Belgrade University. The title of the conference was borrowed from her, and she made us change lenses and see segregation from a totally different angle. After listening to the presentation, you are likely to have realised that the younger your child is, the more likely it is they go to a segregated school. But to prove that, you need to understand what segregation really means according to the Oxford English Dictionary ‘the action or state of setting someone or something apart from others’.