International Society on Early Intervention Conference in Stockholm 8.-10.6.2016 gathered over 600 participants from 55 country.  The conference themes  and presentations emphasized children’s education and habilitation. Further the need to enhance child’s and family’s full participation was underlined. In the first keynote Eva Björk-Åckersson opened the seminar giving us a wonderful view to the inclusive pre-school in Sweden and also to the challenges for early intervention.

One of the most inspiring presentations was held by Professor Rune Simeonsson from the University of North Carolina. He focused on the realization of the rights of the child and its three core areas: protection, provision and participation. In his wonderful speech he showed how the ICF-CY can be linked to the rights of the child.

Pia Rebello Britto, from UNICEF, opened our thoughts to the global view on the early childhood interventions. She underlined the importance of including the early childhood interventions to the United Nations sustainable development goals. Rebello Britto is a powerful speaker and indicated the influence of environment to the development of the child.

One of the keynote lecturers Emily Vargas-Baron talked also about sustainability. Her point of view was in building the national systems for early childhood interventions. The implementation of early childhood systems, programmes and interventions were the main themes in the conference presentations.

Joanna Lundqvist presented a wonderful study on kid’s likes concerning early education. Lundqvist’s just published doctoral thesis can be found here.  Also Tiina Lautamo from Jyväskylä presented a new tool for assessing child’s play. Lautamo informed that this tool is available for purchase also in English and Swedish in autumn 2016.

The Finnish team Salla Sipari, Nea Vänskä, Erja Pietiläinen and Miina Weckroth shared results of the projects and practical tools in two different sessions. Many participants of the conference were very interested of the Good Life Puzzle – tool for parents to prepare for the service planning – developed by Jaatinen ry and The Finnish Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (hyvan-elaman-palapeli-julkaistu.) The Look-project networked again with many key persons form Australia, USA and Sweden.

Erja Pietiläinen and Salla Sipari presenting: Participation-based approaches to promote Inclusion.

Look-project has published a literature review on good practices in rehabilitation to strengthen child’s agency and participation. The publication in Finnish can be read here. The session room was full of happy participants when the Look- project’s results were presented in the second last session of the conference.

Nea Vänskä and the Look-project on the stage.

The beautiful campus area of Stockholm University offered a wonderful location for the ISEI- conference. A wide variety of different perspectives, new studies and development projects were shared from all around the world. Once again we are delighted to notice how the development work that we are focusing on at the Look- project is needed and valuable. This is the way forward, and we are happy to carry on.

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