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VIDA Conference 2013

Conference: The Effects on Children of VIDA – a Knowledge-based Early Childhood Educational Effort in Danish Preschools

Closing conference for the VIDA project - Knowledge-based Efforts for Socially Disadvantaged Children in Day-care 9-10 December 2013.

Find PowerPoints and presentations from the conference in english here

VIDA studies the effects of providing professional development to centre leaders and personnel within day-care which supports their focused, systematic, and knowledge-based efforts to enhance child learning and well-being through inclusion in day-care. The project has developed a number of tools and methods which can help improve quality and enhance professional development to support learning and well-being for all children. The outcome analysis was designed in such a way as to not only offer an answer to the question Does VIDA work?, but also questions such as In which ways, under which conditions, and for which target groups is VIDA most effective? At the closing conference, the results of this outcome analysis are presented alongside concrete implementation strategies based on an organizational learning and social innovation perspective.

The conference is addressed to politicians, local authorities, centre leaders and personnel, researchers, teachers, and students.

Financed by The Ministry of Social Affairs, Children and Integration, the VIDA programme has involved 4 municipalities, 120 public day care centres, 7,000 children and their families, and approximately 250 leaders and members of staff at the centres. Launched in December 2010, the project will be concluded in December 2013 with a conference presenting the programme’s methods, design and results, as well as concrete examples of modes of implementation and of materials and tools.

The conference will feature presentations from Annette Vilhelmsen, the Danish Minister of Social Affairs, Children and Integration, from a leading figure in the field of Early Childhood Intervention research in the USA, and from a leading Danish researcher who will discuss the importance of a knowledge-based approach when working with social innovation in policy and practice. There will also be presentations from many of those who have been affiliated with the programme, including researchers from the Department of Education and the Department of Economics and Business at Aarhus University, representatives from teacher training colleges (UCSyd, UCN and UCL), local authority heads of day care in Randers, Horsens, Gentofte and Brøndby, consultants, and leaders and members of staff from participating day care centres.