Building the Capacity of Early Childhood Services
INTESYS (Integrated Systems in Early Childhood) was a three-year European cooperation project (2015–2018) co-funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Programme. The initiative sought to address fragmentation in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) systems by strengthening integration across sectors, professions, and governance levels.
Recognising that young children and their families often navigate disconnected services, INTESYS focused on building more coherent, inclusive, and responsive systems across Europe.
The Learning for Well-being Foundation contributed to the project by supporting a systemic, holistic perspective on early childhood development and collaboration.
Across Europe, services for young children frequently operate in isolation. Education, health, welfare, and family support systems often lack coordination. As a result, families – especially those in vulnerable situations – struggle to access continuous, high-quality support.
Moreover, fragmentation between governance levels and professional disciplines limits long-term impact and weakens continuity in children’s development.
INTESYS responded to this structural gap by promoting integration across:
To move beyond theory, INTESYS piloted innovative models of service integration in several European countries.
Specifically, the project focused on:
By testing these approaches in real-world contexts, the project generated practical tools and learning for systemic reform.
The project was led by the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium) and brought together a consortium of national and international partners committed to advancing integrated early childhood systems. Together, these organisations combined expertise in research, policy, philanthropy, and professional development to strengthen coordination across early childhood systems.
Over the course of the project, INTESYS contributed to long-term transformation by:
Ultimately, INTESYS demonstrated that integration is not simply administrative alignment. It requires shared vision, collaborative leadership, and sustained cross-sector dialogue.
