Untitled Document

The MUTUAL Story

At the Outset…
… there was a kindergarten in Austria who cares for children from a variety of different cultural and religious backgrounds.
To provide a culturally inclusive day care for families this particular kindergarten employs successfully caregivers with a migrant background. They have an important role in creating an environment for the children that respects and values the differences and similarities of all cultures represented in the kindergarten.
These carers support the communication with the parents and they help all children to develop attitudes and skills that they need to live in an increasingly diverse and varied society of mixed cultures.

Where the project started from…
However, the manager of this kindergarten strongly believes that the competencies of both her carers with migrant background and her whole team could still be developed and improved if they were offered further vocational training. This idea was taken up by a large Austrian service provider, Volkshilfe Steiermark. Volkshilfe Steiermark initiated a cooperation between 13 partners from 10 European countries, namely Austria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania and United Kingdom. Among them are childcare services, assocations of pre-primary and primary school teachers, training providers, research units and media experts.

Volkshilfe Steiermark

MUTUAL Partnership

Intercultural Dialogue
The aim of this partnership was to apply for a transnational project in the European programme for vocational education and training “Leonardo da Vinci”.
For the application round 2003/2004 the European Commission had released a central thematic action for raising the “Intercultural Dialogue.” The aims of the call fitted well with the outline of the project and the project received funding for a 3 years cooperation (2004-2007) to develop competency based training packages for people with migrant background who want to work in childcare.

European Commission – Education and training

The Learners’ Prior Experiences
After drawing up a set of competencies that were found necessary for work in multicultural childcare the partnership developed a system for identifying and acknowledging prior learning and experiences of people with a migration background who wish to work in childcare.
The MUTUAL Handbook provides the relevant resources for this and can be downloaded as a pdf-file here. The main aim of the process shown in the handbook is to built a presentation portfolio (link to section “training/The Portfolio”) related to the competencies for work in multicultural childcare.

MUTUAL Training

MUTUAL Products

Training
The next step in the project was to develop training modules accompanied by a trainers’ guide including material and resources for teaching. The material was tested in 3 different pilot sites (Graz/AT, Copenhagen/DK and Cawsand/Cornwall/UK Link to section “training/pilots”) from November 2006 to February 2007.
In addition to the material presented in the training guide the project has also developed media based exercises that can be accessed here.
The MUTUAL Training Compendium contains all material and resources as well as guidance notes to the teachers and can be downloaded here. (Link: Products/The MUTUAL Training Compendium)

MUTUAL Training

Outlook…
The material developed by the MUTUAL partnership provides a practical approach to problems that may occur in multilingual and multicultural children’s groups. It builds on encouraging the carers to reflect their own behaviour and attitudes, use their experiences and to develop an atmosphere in childcare that fosters culturally appropriate communication between staff, children and families. The MUTUAL project and the products developed by the partnership are therefore a contribution to raise the Intercultural Dialogue in Childcare.

European Commission – 2008: Year of Intercultural Dialogue

The MUTUAL Story	Print

At the Outset… … there was a kindergarten in Austria who cares for children from a variety of different cultural and religious backgrounds. To provide a culturally inclusive day care for families this particular kindergarten employs successfully caregivers with a migrant background. They have an important role in creating an environment for the children that respects and values the differences and similarities of all cultures represented in the kindergarten. These carers support the communication with the parents and they help all children to develop attitudes and skills that they need to live in an increasingly diverse and varied society of mixed cultures.

Where the project started from… However, the manager of this kindergarten strongly believes that the competencies of both her carers with migrant background and her whole team could still be developed and improved if they were offered further vocational training. This idea was taken up by a large Austrian service provider, Volkshilfe Steiermark. Volkshilfe Steiermark initiated a cooperation between 13 partners from 10 European countries, namely Austria, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania and United Kingdom. Among them are childcare services, assocations of pre-primary and primary school teachers, training providers, research units and media experts.
Volkshilfe Steiermark
MUTUAL Partnership

Intercultural Dialogue The aim of this partnership was to apply for a transnational project in the European programme for vocational education and training “Leonardo da Vinci”. For the application round 2003/2004 the European Commission had released a central thematic action for raising the “Intercultural Dialogue.” The aims of the call fitted well with the outline of the project and the project received funding for a 3 years cooperation (2004-2007) to develop competency based training packages for people with migrant background who want to work in childcare.
European Commission – Education and training

The Learners’ Prior Experiences After drawing up a set of competencies that were found necessary for work in multicultural childcare the partnership developed a system for identifying and acknowledging prior learning and experiences of people with a migration background who wish to work in childcare. The MUTUAL Handbook provides the relevant resources for this and can be downloaded as a pdf-file here. The main aim of the process shown in the handbook is to built a presentation portfolio (link to section “training/The Portfolio”) related to the competencies for work in multicultural childcare.
MUTUAL Training
MUTUAL Products

Training The next step in the project was to develop training modules accompanied by a trainers’ guide including material and resources for teaching. The material was tested in 3 different pilot sites (Graz/AT, Copenhagen/DK and Cawsand/Cornwall/UK Link to section “training/pilots”) from November 2006 to February 2007. In addition to the material presented in the training guide the project has also developed media based exercises that can be accessed here. The MUTUAL Training Compendium contains all material and resources as well as guidance notes to the teachers and can be downloaded here. (Link: Products/The MUTUAL Training Compendium)
MUTUAL Training

Outlook… The material developed by the MUTUAL partnership provides a practical approach to problems that may occur in multilingual and multicultural children’s groups. It builds on encouraging the carers to reflect their own behaviour and attitudes, use their experiences and to develop an atmosphere in childcare that fosters culturally appropriate communication between staff, children and families. The MUTUAL project and the products developed by the partnership are therefore a contribution to raise the Intercultural Dialogue in Childcare.
European Commission – 2008: Year of Intercultural Dialogue