Author: Nicoletta Armstrong

Since March 2023, the Norwegian Protestant Mission (MPN) has begun to raise awareness in the community of Kédougou on non-violent education through the application of the International Child Development Programme (ICDP).

The women who met during the various ICDP meetings expressed satisfaction with the content of the programme. The implementation of the 8 guidelines has brought a change in their behaviour towards their children and the atmosphere in the family has changed positively.

Given the enthusiasm of participant women to implement the ICDP program, MPN saw fit to extend the ICDP outreach to other localities. This meant that a new group of facilitators needed to be formed who could provide training to new groups of mothers in different localities.

In order to achieve this objective, they engaged the ICDP trainer, Aubin Sanou, who provided training services covering the following activities:
-Monitoring and evaluation of the current ICDP facilitators
-Refresher course for ICDP facilitators
-Training of new ICDP facilitators
-Exchanges on awareness-raising/sensitization process and monitoring tools

These activities took place from 6th to the 27th of April, 2025 in the community of Kédougou.

Read Aubin’s report that provides an overview of the training. Read the original report in French.

ICDP training of future facilitators started in Baku in October 2024, and it was sponsored by Normisjon. A team from Normisjon had been working on bringing ICDP to the country over several months before the training actually began. The second phase of training took place in December, followed by trainees’ first pilot projects from January to April. The certification workshop was held in early April 2025.

The training of this new group of facilitators was conducted by Magdalena Brännström. Initially there were ten participants, including two psychologists, one doctor, one occupational therapist, and six teachers. At the end, nine became certified as ICDP facilitators at the April workshop.

An important aspect of the ICDP process involves working on the adaptation of the programme and its delivery to the Azerbaijani context. This was tentatively started by local trainee facilitators while they were delivering the programme to local parents/caregivers for the first time. During the period of these first pilot projects groups of parents were invited to join ICDP courses. Most trainee facilitators ran ICDP courses in Azerbaijani, but there were two groups that delivered it in Russian and English respectively.

“In general, the group connected and shared stories all through the training, and everyone related to each other well. It was a really nice experience for me to see how well the facilitators had done their self-training pilot projects with parents/caregivers. This became evident at the final workshop I conducted in Baku, in April 2025. At the end of the training, we also talked about the importance of child protection and that ICDP has zero tolerance when it comes to abuse, so that the ICDP Child Protection Policy will be signed by all facilitators.The future seems very promising for ICDP in Azerbaijan.” – ICDP trainer, Magdalena Brännström. The contact person for ICDP in Azerbaijan is Deborah Williams, from Normisjon.

Rita Crecelius reports:

The year 2024 was dedicated to preparing the first facilitator training in Germany. In January, I received confirmation that the AEWB (Association of Adult Education Centres in Lower Saxony) would organize the first ICDP training leading to the qualification of facilitators in Germany. With my cooperating partners AEWB and Nifbe (Lower Saxony Institute for Early Childhood Education and Development), I held various events to publicize the training, including a nationwide online workshop in March. I also gave workshops at two major daycare conferences, which Nifbe helped organize.

All of these seminars and workshops were centred around the Headline “Emotionally Healthy Daycare with ICDP.” The slogan originated at an event in 2019 when I presented ICDP to a large daycare provider, and a professional said: “Rita—then ICDP is a tool for emotionally healthy daycare!” Nifbe found the term “emotionally healthy daycare” very apt in the context of its initiative on the topic of “Health and Well-being in Daycare Centres.” Thus, it became the motto for our joint initiative to inspire people to participate in Germany’s first facilitator training. Despite all efforts, the required number of participants was not reached, so the start of the training had to be postponed from August 2024 to February 2025. Currently (April 2025), the trainees are in the phase between Module 2 and Module 3 of the training and are about to begin their trial training sessions.

Click here for full report.

During the first quarter of 2025, significant progress was made in the expansion and impact of the International Child Development Program (ICDP) in Ethiopia. The ICDP activities in Ethiopia during this period have shown clear and meaningful impact. New facilitators were trained, and previously certified facilitators have reached hundreds of parents and children. Feedback from parents highlights real change in family dynamics, with increased love, communication, and understanding. The ripple effect of these trainings continues to grow, contributing to healthier child development and stronger family relationships.

Report about activities over three months in 2025, from January to March.

“ICDP has proven to be very suitable for the Thai context. Everyone who has attended the programme has had a better experience in childcare, and felt more comfortable and happier. At the same time, ICDP work has expanded to include the Faculty of Education of a few famous universities, as well as staff from various network foundations. In 2024, we formed twenty five new Facilitators , three of whom are working with Thai population in Norway.” – Savinee Sarakrai, Manager ICDP Thailand manager. Read her full report.

Comment from a pastor: “When learning this ICDP course, I started to change myself first as a father of my children at home; I started to see children as individuals and became more empathetic. I am spending more time with my children. The feelings from my own childhood have been revived. I have seen the origin of certain behaviors and have a more positive view of myself now. I talked about this with the church team.”

Comment from a teacher: “This course helps teachers to become more confident in caring for children. They start to cope better in different situations, and as a result the school atmosphere is becoming happy. The children told their parents that they wanted to come to school because the teachers understand and love them. This course has helped me a lot.”

Based on the ICDP report, 2024, by Abdiladif Mohamed Ismail:

The ICDP programme has been incorporated in the Child Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) project in Somaliland, which has been implemented by Save the Children since 2017 in cooperation with the local partner HAVOYOCO and the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family (MOLSAF).

In 2024, four staff members of the project based in Hargeisa, Somaliland were selected for training at trainer level. They were previously trained as ICDP facilitators by the ICDP international team. The main purpose of the training was to establish the first ICDP trainers in Somaliland, to create competent trainers who can train local facilitators in ICDP programme. The ICDP trainers were trained, guided and supervised by the ICDP chairperson, Nicoletta Armstrong, throughout the process.

The training took place over a four-month period (from August – November 2024) The training consisted of online sessions, followed by practical ICDP work by the team of trainee trainers. There was a significant number of call meetings to discuss progress and address challenges and ways forward. The four ICDP trainers successfully completed the training, having finished their self-training assignments required for certification.

The ICDP trainers established four community-based groups of a total of 16 persons who volunteered to become ICDP facilitators. Three groups were based in the ongoing CSSP project targeted location in Hargeisa and the fourth group was selected from non-project targeted locations in Hargeisa. The selected persons were mostly community champions in the area where the CSSP project was being implemented, and in addition one group was selected from teachers in the city of Hargeisa. The training of new facilitators started with a 5-day workshop. After the workshop facilitators started to implement the ICDP programme by holding sessions with caregivers/parents on a weekly basis.  The ICDP trainers developed their respective plans for supporting facilitators through personal visits to watch facilitators in action, as well as by holding group meetings and communicating through WhatsApp. The facilitators were fully committed and completed the training in a timely manner as agreed with the facilitators and the ICDP international team.

Recommendations by new trainers:

• To continue to implement the ICDP programme and include it in future programming of Save the Children and HAVOYOCO.

• To expand the outreach by forming ICDP facilitators in Magalo Cad in Berbera and other location in Somaliland.

• To receive further training to reach the next level to become Trainers of Trainers.

• To try to establish ICDP Somaliland as an ICDP international partner in Africa; the team is eager to take the lead and make this happen in Somaliland.

ICDP activities reported by the Relational Psychology Institute (www.relationspsykologi.dk):

In 2024 we had a year with many care professionals being trained through our ICDP activities. These activities had a great impact on children at the local children nurseries and in schools, but it also meant a great deal to parents. It also had an impact in the work environment of care professionals. One of the care professionals at a school describes the impact of ICDP likes this:

“I was a little skeptical about what ICDP would change in my pedagogical practice. Would it just be another “fancy model” that would quietly be shelved with many other initiatives. I was very positively surprised by how effective ICDP has been for me and how quickly I cou;d see results from the changes I made. I quickly experienced gains in my relationships with all the children in my class, througth the 8 interaction themes. Small adjustments have a big effect.”

In 2025, we will continue to work with local municipalities and organizations to implement ICDP in schools and childrens nurseries. At the same time we will continue to draw attention to the impact of ICDP across society in Denmark, because we would like to work with ICDP in other areas as well, so more care professionals, volunteers and parents can benefit from ICDP.

Majbritt Bay

ICDP in care for older persons is a multidisciplinary group-based intervention to increase caregivers’ competence within psycho-social and person-centred care. Its content and key components are based on the original version of the ICDP programme, aimed at caregivers of children, which has been used in approximately 70 countries (https://icdp.info/projects/). The 8 guidelines for good interaction as adapted for use in context of care for older persons.

Building a Community Among Multicultural Healthcare Teams in Nursing Homes: A Qualitative Study of the International Caregiver Development Programme (ICDP”.  Published in the International Journal of Older People Nursing

Line Constance Holmsen, Bodil Tveit, Ane-Marthe Solheim Skar, Marit Helene Hem

Link to the research article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/opn.70018

ABSTRACT

Background:

Healthcare workers in nursing homes are an educationally, experientially, culturally and linguistically diverse workforce who face increasing challenges in their working conditions. Studies indicate positive results with regard to coopera-tion and care from experiencing a sense of community in diverse healthcare teams.

Aim:

This qualitative study aimed to explore healthcare workers’ experiences of being part of a team in nursing homes before, during and after their participation in a psychosocial competence building intervention, the International Caregiver Development Programme (ICDP).

Methods:

Fifteen focus group interviews of five ICDP group courses were conducted before, during and after participation in ICDP with 31 cross-cultural healthcare workers in nursing homes. The findings emerged through hermeneutic analysis.The results were compared with the open responses in an anonymous written evaluation. Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) served as a framework for reporting this study.

Results:

Before ICDP, the participants reported a lack of communication regarding priorities, challenges in interactions with the residents and cultural and linguistic diversity among the healthcare workers. During participation in ICDP, they described increased knowledge and understanding of one another in addition to inspiring each other and acknowledging each other’s di-versity as healthcare workers. After completing ICDP, they experienced a sense of relational and practical community, a sense of pride in the team, increased self-confidence related to practice and increased job satisfaction.

Conclusion:

This study indicated that ICDP has the potential to create a community of psychosocial practice in multicultural healthcare teams, which may be strengthened by experiences of mastery, confidence and pride. The participants in this study developed a common conceptual framework for understanding, prioritising and practising psychosocial care. The community seemed to facilitate cooperation between them and increase their job satisfaction.

Implications for Practice:

Healthcare workers in nursing homes need time and space to share experiences to establish relationships that increase the quality of cooperation. While diversity among healthcare workers in nursing homes can pose challenges, participating in psychosocial competence building interventions like the ICDP can help it to be viewed as a valuable source of nspiration and means of preventing discrimination against migrant healthcare workers. More research is needed regarding how the ICDP can prevent discrimination and underestimation of migrant healthcare workers.

February 2025: Oksana Isaeva, ICDP trainer and psychology professor at a university in Nizhniy Novgorod, sent us her new book on the ICDP programme. As it could be of interest to those who speak Russian we bring it for you here! Click to download.