"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" is a space for early socialization and prevention of children from 0 to 3 years and 11 months, for a smooth transition between the family, the children's institution and society. It was founded in 2018 by a team of the Faculty of Public Health of the Medical University-Varna as a project in the field of health promotion with a modern reading of the ideas of Françoise Dolto. For 5 years now, the space for meetings and communication between parents-children-specialists in the period of early child development has been emblematic of the community. It's a center of partnerships on many and different levels. For the first time, specialists are both close to the community and practically helpful to it. With us, the child is a person - receives basic security and peace of mind, develops through play and communication, experiences first social encounters, acquires security and autonomy in the presence of a parent/guardian, the first concepts of rules in/of society are created. Here, parents get the opportunity to discuss the daily issues that concern them, related to the child, and specific to the given communities to which they define themselves. Specialists help parents and children through observation, analysis and expert opinion. 45 years later after the first Paris "Green House", the activity of our space is marked by the ideas and spirit of Dolto, and the content brings the specificity of the place and time in which we live and the expert approach to early childhood.
4th PLACE
Community Engagement Initiative of the Year Award
The Green Sea Yard of Varna
4th PLACE Community Engagement Initiative of the Year Award
Peoples' Choice Category Winner
Peoples' Choice Overall Winner
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health, "The Green Sea Yard of Varna" - Bulgaria
"Children-parents-specialists - we growing together in communication and playing! "
Engage on social media
https://www.linkedin.com/school/medical-university-varna/(Official Medical University-Varna LinkedIn account)
https://www.facebook.com/TheGreenSeaYardofVarna(Official "The Green Sea Yard of Varna" Facebook account)
(Official Playlist of "The Green Sea Yard of Varna" on the YouTube channel of the University Television MU-Vi TV)
Summary
Key People
Ekaterina Valtcheva
Assistant Professor, an Idea Holder and Leader of the Project
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Teodora Dimitrova
Professor, Head of Methodology, Dean of the Faculty of Public Health
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Emanuela Raycheva-Mutafova
Associate professor, Former Dean of the Faculty of Public Health and Project Manager
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Maria Damianova
Professor, Clinical Psychologist - Psychotherapist, Neuropsychologist, Supervisor
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Ognian Dimov
Doctor of Philosophy and Psychology, Psychoanalyst, Supervisor
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Svetla Doncheva
Specialist in Library and Information Activities
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna
Ventsislav Nikolov
Ergotherapy Expert, MD
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna
Yavor Chenkov
Assistant Professor, an Expert Psychiatrist
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna
Stanislava Spasova
Еxpert - Speech Therapist, Art Therapist
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Desislava Alexandrova
Psychologist Expert in Psychoanalytic Training
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Nikolay Mihaylov
Assistant Professor, Doctor of Sociology, Specialist in Clinical, Counseling and Community Psychology and Sociology
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Tihomir Ivanov
Еxpert Clinical Psychologist, Early Childhood Intervention Specialist
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Miroslava Grigorova
Expert Psychologist
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna, Faculty of Public Health
Diana Dimitrova
Doctor of Psychology, Expert in Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Sexology
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna" ,
Medical University-Varna
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Academic Management of the Medical University-Varna, to the Board of Directors of "Sea Casino"-Varna, to the Healthcare Directorate-Municipality of Varna, to the specialists and to the French Cultural Institute, with whom we started five years ago, to the supervisors!
We thank all our volunteers and friends, colleagues who administratively serve the space and provide a healthy environment for its existence! Special thanks to the University Television and Publishing House, Bulgarian National Radio-Varna, who always support us and help spread the ideas of "The Green Sea Yard of Varna"!
We thank all the children and parents for the irreplaceable and incomparable meetings in our Varna space for early socialization and prevention of children from 0 to 3 years and 11 months!
Images
The fifth birthday, part of the team
A student volunteer in space
Puppet theater by parent volunteers
The heroine of our children's book
Creative children's celebration for Children's Day
We all read Dolto
"The Green Sea Yard of Varna"
The children and the beloved donation box
Radio discussion - our team on the Dolto’s way
Our team - a guest of a school for parents
IMPACT STORY
Impacting lifes
Theo's story over the past year has been special in many ways and for everyone involved. Therefore, it‘s both common and amazing. From the very first meeting, we’re impressed by the family's intellectually stimulating environment for early childhood development. However, as with most families with a first child, Theo's socialization was delayed. We also observed motor deficits for his age. Gradually, our team, Theo and his parents built a trusting relationship. This helped them adapt to meeting and interacting with the other families and professionals in the space. Parents began to hear and accept not only our expert opinion, but also the experience of others. So Theo and his parents visited our space and started early childhood intervention as well. His motor skills and socialization developed smoothly - he now walks confidently and explores the world on his own; has an increasing desire to communicate with the people around him and initiates it himself. The whole family feels relaxed and allows us more and more into their personal world, sharing their joys and worries and the dynamics of their relationships. It’s preparing to welcome a new family member and now the four of them will be visiting the space. They are convinced that we will help them, as always, to find the right answers for them.
An expression of the parents-team-community attachment is the mother's volunteering for our cause - as a translator, she presents children's books on our Facebook and donates some of them to our children's library. She'll soon translate a children's book about multicultural diversity, which the university publishing house will publish and we'll give as a gift to every child visiting the space. In this way, she supports and encourages other parents to seek and find ideas for communication and early childhood education, as she herself does with Theo.
For us, this story is a true testament to the emotional, intellectual or spiritual interdependence that exists between people and is inherent in the human being that Françoise Dolto spoke of. It’s the modern symbol of love and responsibility, developing dynamically, of communication and acceptance, of trust and continuity, of the circulation of knowledge and good deeds, of the extended friendly hand and shared values and ideas, of desire and respect for the individual, of human growth, of the multi-layered and continuous resonance of child-parent-specialist relations in space.
LEARNINGS
Lessons learned
Our team advises everyone to remember that early childhood development and care for/through it are the basis of society's flourishing. The first 1000 days determine the future of every child and encouraging parents to seek out and choose different and appropriate stimulating environments for their child is one of our best practices as professionals. Only face-to-face meetings and communication have true sharing, joy of communication, fulfillment and meaning. It is precisely through them that the true potential of the child, the parents and the specialists is developed - we get to know each other, share, open up to each other and create a community. Very often, this helps not only the children, but also the parents to socialize, to find new friendships, social roles and functions other than parenting.
Our team is made up of experts of different specialties, ages and experience. We all find the intersection in Dolto's ideas and her theses that "the child is a person" and "anyone who looks into the reactions of children has revolutionary thinking." In order to be adequate to the time in which we live, we delve into the global and characteristic features of the modern generations of parents - Y and Z, of their children α and the soon-to-be-expected β. At the same time, we don't forget our ethnopsychology and the individual approach to each child and parent. Our specific approach to combining knowledge and experience, reading past, present and future and adapting, applying and developing Dolto's ideas makes us unique to our community.
FUTURE PLANS
What's coming?
In future, we highlight 2 main groups of ideas: foundational and adaptive.
The first are about establishing us as a place of public importance, influencing attitudes and parental responsibility for the period of early childhood development and health promotion. We seek and work for collaborations at various levels, organizations and institutions - national and international, public-private, municipalities – supportive and experienced in adapting and developing the principles and model of Françoise Dolto. The space stimulates all its participants to lifelong learning, guarantees professional and personnel development of experts, academic staff and students involved in its work and life. The team is ready to share its experience and support the creation of other similar spaces in the country.
The second group of ideas includes enriching the activity in the space through consultations with new specialists; publication of a new collection of texts for the community; a photo exhibition and two short films; organizing and conducting post-graduate training for specialists; promotion through the space among the parenting community of a newly created national tool for parental competence, on which part of the team is working; establishing joint initiatives with parent volunteers in the context of early childhood education; supervision and training of the team; scientific-practical conference for specialists and parents with international participation.
This is the way to establish ourselves as an irreplaceable and incomparable space for the smallest and the fulfillment of one of the most inspiring wishes from a parent that we have received: "One day, I want to bring my grandchildren here too".
