Family animation and support activities (AAAF) are intended to ensure the support of children in early childhood education before and/or after the daily period of educational activities and during the period of interruption thereof (Ordinance No. 644- A/2015) . Despite their socio-educational relevance within the scope of a strategy for reconciling family and professional life, as well as with regard to the quality of the child's experience in the preschool context, the attention that these activities have received from research is, in Portugal, almost non-existent. The general objective of this project is to evaluate the perceived impact of a training program aimed at AAAF animators, the LUDI+ program, resulting from a partnership between the Escola Superior de Educação do Porto (ESEP) and the Municipal Council of Maia ( CMM). ). This general objective is broken down into four specific research questions: (i) What is the impact of LUDI+ in terms of professional learning for animators? (ii) What is its impact on the child's level of experience? (iii) What is the impact in terms of families’ experience? (iv) What is the impact in terms of dynamics in the proximal educational community? 45 animators will participate in the study, who benefited from the training program and implemented its proposals in pre-school education contexts, as well as children, parents and coordinators of educational establishments. The impact assessment will be carried out through online research, focus groups and interviews, with a view to describing and understanding the perceived effects of the training program.

Project reference: inED/2019/1