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Promoting the science of nurturing care and sharing best practices in transitioning successful early childhood programmes to scale.

In the early 1970s, Bernard van Leer Foundation staff realised that many of the people they met working on early childhood development around the world did not know about each other. As a result, it was hard for them to see how their work and ideas could help one another serve young children more effectively. We started to type a newsletter and mail it to partners.

In the 1980s and 1990s, this evolved into a formal publishing programme: our journal Early Childhood Matters, first published in 1998, last year celebrated its 20th anniversary. Since the 2000s, we have become more active in organising opportunities for partners to meet and supporting advocacy to spread the message of why investing in the early years is so important.

Going beyond Parents+ and Urban95, our work on the Early Years is an expression of our continued commitment to growing and strengthening the broader field of early childhood development. We continue to engage with the early childhood specialists who are at the core of our work, while at the same time trying to broaden the conversation with a larger group of stakeholders to include policymakers, funders and managers who come from very different fields of work but are willing to include early childhood development in their portfolio.

The below cases detail some of the ways we have approached this task – from engagement with mainstream and specialist media to executive education programmes and coalition building.

Resources

Annual Report 2018

Annual Report 2018

The Bernard van Leer Foundation’s Annual Report 2018 contains a foreword from the Chair of the Board of Trustees, message from the Executive Director, selected updates from around the world… Read more

Early Childhood Matters 2018

The 2018 edition of Early Childhood Matters features keynote contributions from the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, on the ‘De Cero a Siempre’ policy; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General… Read more

Annual Report 2017

Cover_Annual Report 2017

The Bernard van Leer Foundation's Annual Report 2017 contains a foreword from the Chair of the Board of Trustees, message from the Executive Director, selected updates from around the world… Read more

Early Childhood Matters 2017

Early Childhood Matters 2017

This latest edition of the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s journal showcases advances in early childhood development, bringing new ideas from around the world and exploring the challenges of scaling up. Read more

Annual Report 2016

The Bernard van Leer Foundation's Annual Report for 2016 shares highlights from the last year, including stories from Tel Aviv, Bhubaneshwar and the Amazon basin. It explores the new strategic… Read more

Early Childhood Matters 2016

The 2016 edition of Early Childhood Matters features contributions from UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake; WHO Assistant Director General Flavia Bustreo; Alice Albright and colleagues at the Global Partnership for… Read more

A good start: advances in early childhood development

Publication ECM124 A Good Start: advances in early childhood development

A special issue to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bernard van Leer Foundation's first grant in early childhood, this edition of ECM surveys the state of the early childhood… Read more

Annual Report 2015

Bernard van Leer Foundation - Annual Report 2015

This edition of the Bernard van Leer Foundation's Annual Report shares highlights from our work in 2015 and explains the thought processes that led us to the three new solution… Read more