NEWS – Dr. Maria Kambouri (Associate Professor of Early Years Childhood Education and Care, University of Reading) gave an on-line invited talk about her research to colleagues at the Aristotle University (Greece)

On Thursday 20th of January 2022, Dr. Maria Kambouri (Associate Professor of Early Years Childhood Education and Care, University of Reading) gave an on-line invited talk about her research to colleagues at the Aristotle University’s School of Early Childhood Education (Greece). The seminar was presented in collaboration with Dr. Myria Pieridou (Open University, UK) and was hosted by Maria Birbili (Associate Professor, Aristotle University). The seminar brought teachers from across the region together with academics from a wide range of Greek and Cypriot universities, linked to the theme of early years education.

Dr. Kambouri’s and Dr. Pieridou’s presentation focused on parent-practitioners’ partnership in the early years, its importance, challenges and enablers, to develop deeper thinking and understanding of working in partnership in the early years. During the presentation, the CAFE partnership model was presented, which was a key outcome of the 4Ps project: Parents, Practitioners, Play Partnership that was conducted by the University of Reading (funded by Froebel Trust) under the supervision and leadership of Dr. Kambouri. The CAFE model highlights the key characteristics of an effective parent-practitioner partnership which could be summarised with the CAFE acronym which signifies that a Collaborative/Communicative (C), Active (A) and Friendly (F) Environment (E) is essential when aiming to develop effective parent-practitioner partnerships in early years education (see figure above). (For more details on this work, please see her article in the Reference section below).

The work was received exceptionally well with a number of teachers and academics wanting to work alongside Dr. Kambouri and Dr. Pieridou to develop the partnership module proposed their own settings, practice and further research.

To learn more about Dr. Kambouri’s research, visit her profile page here. She tweets at @maria_eva_37.

 

 

References

Kambouri, M., Wilson, T., Pieridou, M., Quinn, S.F., & Liu, J. (2021). Making partnerships work: Proposing a model to support parent-practitioner partnerships in the early years. Early Childhood Education Journal. DOI :10.1007/s10643-021-01181-6.