Participation leadership from birth
With about 180 ECE facilities statewide, Vizo is the leading birth-3 daycare organization. With the support of the Caraso Motors and Beracha foundations, we entered a five-year plan to promote this important public system, guided and mentored by Dr. Naomi Moreno, Head of Vizo International ECE department.
In the first year and with the department’s involvement, we opened the program with both the supervision system and Vizo’s daycare centers statewide, calling upon all our ECE teams to launch processes of building a participation culture in their facilities.
Why participation?
The caregivers in birth-3 education are the beating heart, the embracing arms, the seeing eyes, the smiles and the warmth, and as such they are the most meaningful and important factor.
In democratic education we see the individual’s movement in the world as one of passion, realizing responsibility and as a receiver of configurations and behaviors. We believe therefore that educators should operate with a sense of meaning and joy when in contact with their very young wards, and they must be free and available to care for the children.
We at Vizo aim to promote the fortitude of Israeli society, emphasizing equal opportunities and the minimizing of social and economic gaps. We see our quality care, education and welfare systems and their adaptation to the changing needs of young families in Israel as a means to that end.
These two approaches come together in the concept of participation in the workplace, and under the “Daycare Promote Participation Leadership” banner we go forward together.
In a participation facilitating workplace, each worker is seen as a whole human being with needs, dreams, wants and thoughts on how their work is carried out. In such a work environment, all team members can think and plan together and support each other. This work environment facilitates a sense of belonging, significance and welfare in the workplace. This is a trust-based environment.
Not deterred by this challenge, the Vizo team chose to realize this dramatic responsibility to children’s lives through trust in the people working with them.
How is it done?
We worked very closely with the first teams who chose to enter the program, creating a common language and allowing for trial and error space within the participation practices, learning from mistakes and from successes, and generally embarking on this journey without knowing where it would take us, believe in the people and in the all-important cause that unites them.
Ms. Beracha Afriat, head of the Kiryat Malachi daycare center and Ms. Tali Perez, its supervisor, have adopted this initiative with open arms.
Ms. Beracha, with dreams and thoughts of what is important, led her team in some soul searching processes of their own. Together they embarked on a joint dreaming process and set the values and principles for the daycare center and for their work. A steering committee of teachers from the center’s individual groups took the common dream of belonging, acquaintance and mutual support, and joined everyone’s passion and their shared responsibility.
Already, the fruits of this labor are evident, with the staff reporting a surprising new alliance between its members. Ideas led to new and remarkable directions and the firm routines designed and decided on by staff members have been instantly and effectively assimilated in the center’s everyday life.
We wish to thank our partners for this significant opportunity to create a warm human language in such an influential social crossroad in the lives of so many children and families. We are proud of the IDE’s ECE team who has been leading this educational and organizational innovation.
