ICDP has an agreement for cooperation with the non-profit organization Ububele (https://ububele.org/about-us/), with the aim of integrating ICDP as one of their activities to strengthen child and family mental health in the township of Alexandra.
The ICDP developments and training that have taken place in Johannesburg are explained by Silje Holter, voluntary trainer:
At the start of 2020, we carried out the first round of workshops for new facilitators over a period of two weeks. Facilitators were divided into pairs and each pair made plans for their practical work with groups of caregivers (their self-training projects).
Before the lockdown I managed to hold one support meeting during which some of the trainee facilitators presented the way they were implementing the ICDP programme with caregivers. We looked at the ICDP material brought to the meeting by some of the facilitators. Then I was forced to leave South Africa due to corona virus related circumstances.
During the period between April and August, South Africa was for the most part in lockdown, so it was not possible for facilitators to run ICDP caregiver groups. However, the country has been slowly reopening since then, and this meant that more self-training projects could be organized and carried out by facilitators. Some facilitators had a long break before re-starting.
During early December, we got together again, but this time the support meeting which lasted one full day, had to be held online. All trainee facilitators that participated in my workshops during January and February were present for the online meeting too. They talked about their self-assessments, their practical experiences, including some of their frustrations. They also had questions which we all discussed together. Due to problems with transportation, technical difficulties and other problems only some but not all participants managed to share their video material from their meetings with caregivers.
We made plans to hold our last support meeting in January 2021 – it will take a full day online. Each pair of trainee facilitators will then provide a logbook from their self-training projects for my approval. Hopefully some more videos will be available by then. The emphasis will be on planning the future work, including planning ahead how to adapt the ICDP material to the South African context.
The leadership of the Ububele organisation hopes that Ubulele may one day become a training site for new ICDP facilitators. In view of this, they are trying to provide as many opportunities as possible for the current facilitators to practice applying the ICDP programme – and not only by working in pairs but also each facilitator running a caregiver group alone. This will create solid ground for trainer level work later on.