by Petra Zilliacus, October 2025.
(Photo: The September sun shines on ICDP facilitators as they explore Empathy in action.)
As the autumn envelops us in dark evenings, ICDP Finland has many shining memories to look back on from this year.
We would especially like to highlight the international training, where twenty-seven youth workers and teachers from seventeen different European countries participated in a three-day ICDP course in Pargas. The event was organized by Pargas City Youth Department in a successful collaboration with ICDP Finland and the EU SALTO Erasmus+ programme.
At the end of September, 21 ICDP facilitators met in Helsinki to dive into the subject of Empathy in action. We learned about the different meanings and nuances of the words empathy, sympathy, compassion, and empathetic identification. To the delight of the participants, we also got to practice empathy in workshops and role play.
Our third highlight of the year is currently in the making. We are grateful to our extended ICDP-family in Sweden, who have produced an ICDP-booklet for expectant parents and given us permission to translate it into Finnish. This will soon be ready and we are eagerly awaiting to be able to launch the booklet for this important target group.