Children’s Services and Intergenerational Relationships

Dear Colleagues,

Intergenerational programs are becoming increasingly important sites of interactions for children, young people and older adults. Intergenerational programs provide learning opportunities, care and social support for children and older adults in the same setting, at the same time. These opportunities sustain relationships with an increase in interactions, and exchange of knowledge and skills to benefit wellbeing across generations.

There are a number of different approaches to configure intergenerational programs and practices in children’s services. Intergenerational initiatives are organised by early childhood services, schools, community-based organisations and services for older adults. The impact of nurturing intergenerational relationships in these services has positive effects for children, young people, older people and their families. These impacts are being examined from social, ecological and economic perspectives. Intergenerational initiatives may be guided by management and workforce capabilities as well as policy and regulatory mandates. These structures have the potential to enhance or provide barriers for children’s services promoting intergenerational relationships. For example, building regulations for physical resources for child care services and aged care services can be a barrier for the flow of individuals when services are co-located. The physical environment is as significant as the social and emotional environment. The execution of intergenerational programs that build relationships is receiving attention from a number of perspectives, particularly in relation to the benefits for older people; the benefits for children and children’s services are less well known.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to invite papers that explore and investigate the idea of children’s services and intergenerational relationships in different contexts and from various perspectives. We welcome contributions from all the social sciences including social work, social policy, sociology, anthropology, pedagogy, psychology, history, philosophy, and law, together with interdisciplinary papers. Articles might have theoretically and methodologically diverse approaches, and can cover the idea of intergenerational relationships in children’s services from conceptual, empirical, policy and/or practice perspectives.

Dr. Jennifer Cartmel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Intergenerational practice
• older persons
• children
• reminiscing
• pedagogy
• workforce
• intergenerational policies
• intergenerational programs
• intergenerational environments