ICDP continues to be applied in the poorest rural communities of the Renacimiento district, province of Chiriqui, Panamá.
Our project with the Ngabe ethnic group has been reaching out to many families. We are focused on creating optimal development in children, adolescents, families, and local educators. And for this purpose, we hold regular workshops and training sessions with parents, children, adolescents and school educators.
Throughout these workshops we have been developing the ICDP principles and promoting good treatment in families and their community.
We are noting significant results of our work, and achieving them has required a joint effort from the entire population involved. We see improvements in communication, application of empathy and the population has been developing a new set of parenting skills.
Photo above: This is the first generation of ICDP facilitators in Germany.
Update by ICDP trainer Rita Crecelius:
Certification took place on the 24th of August, 2025. The final presentations by trainees were exceptionally good, and their answers to the 14 test questions showed that each trainee developed deep and individual understanding of ICDP, some with noticeable passion.
The next Facilitator Training will start in February 2026 – registration is now open. There will be a maximum of 10 participants. 6 women (daycare-experts) are already registered, 4 are strongly interested.
I am working on a booklet (about 40 pages), title “The emotionally healthy daycare with ICDP”, which will be published and distributed by Nifbe-Institute in their Daycares in the Lower Saxony. And I will use it as material for Facilitators.
I am invited to a Conference in Berlin in November, in connection with the BRISE-Project, which is a longitudinal study (more than 10 years) on the effects of support programs in early childhood development. Numerous scientific and neurobiological experts in the field of early childhood education will be attending this event. I will present the ICDP program together with one of the facilitators I trained, the paediatrician Jörn Blume. He will talk about the first ICDP parent training that he conducted in Germany. It is a great opportunity to introduce ICDP to this network. It is an exciting prospect and we want to maintain an open space to allow ICDP to grow and develop.
Since the start of the national scale up in 2022, the certified ICDP facilitators have been creating the multiplier effect on ICDP, which is now called MaPangBata, targetting families involved in the 4Ps government project.
To date there are 6070 facilitators who implemented the ICDP programme with 46 327 parents.
As a way to provide for sustainability and continuity of the ICDP/MaPangBata implementation it was agreed to establish an “in house” of ICDP trainers.
With this aim in mind, 36 staff members of 4Ps (F-28; M-8) were trained as ICDP trainers starting with a workshop in February 17-21, 2025. As part of their practice and in compliance to the ICDP certification process and requirements, they have started the MaPangBata multiplier effect through their “on the job training” activity.
The 36 candidate ICDP trainers have been training social case managers and other staff on MaPangBata in their respective regions. This approach will continue until all 4Ps staff are trained as facilitators. In effect, they will create layers of multiplier effect until all the three million 4Ps families are reached.
1. Overview of activities following facilitator trainings
After completing two ICDP facilitator trainings in 2025—one in Harar (Eastern Ethiopia) and one in Jimma (Western Ethiopia)—the trained facilitators began implementing parent training sessions in their communities:
Eastern Region (Harar):
Number of Parent Groups: 7
Parents Reached: Around 90
Children Impacted: 189
Several facilitators have already started a second round of parent groups within their congregations after completing the first.
Western Region (Jimma):
Number of Parent Groups: 6
Parents Reached: 84
Children Impacted: 216
Similar to Harar, some facilitators have initiated additional parent groups in their local churches.
2. Ongoing engagement and feedback
Facilitators are consistently sending weekly updates, including videos and testimonies from participants (mainly in Amharic). These testimonies express gratitude, personal transformation, and strengthened parent-child relationships.
3. Reflections and challenges
I am personally inspired by the high level of commitment and initiative shown by the facilitators. Their dedication has become a challenge to me—to continue walking alongside them and supporting this vital work.
4. Future plans
Field Visit: I plan to travel to Ethiopia in September 2025 to meet with facilitators, monitor progress, and encourage continued implementation.
New Training: Depending on the economic situation, I aim to conduct four additional facilitator training sessions.
Vision for 2026: Begin training trainers to ensure sustainable growth and wider outreach on the ICDP program across Ethiopia.
Tanda, August 15, 2025 (AIP) – Six social workers and ten community guides from the Gontougo region received their certificates on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, in Tanda, as part of the International Child Development Program (ICDP), implemented in the department as part of the “Child Sensitive Social Protection” (CSSP) project.
The CSSP project, funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is led by Save the Children International, in partnership with the Ivorian NGO Soleil Levant/Éducation. It aims to strengthen positive parenting and access to basic social services for vulnerable families.
The ICDP allows households to express themselves, develop their self-confidence, strengthen family ties, and create a climate of trust with children. Several certified facilitators are now considered local references in positive parenting.
During the ceremony, testimonials highlighted the national and international value of the certificates. “We’ve done the groundwork. Now the hardest part begins: being good facilitators and inspiring other regions,” said Fieni Yao Étienne, a guide in Guiendé.
The director of the Tabagne social center, Bogueu Gnohite, praised the support of the regional director of social protection, Kpla Geores, and the assistance of Save the Children, emphasizing the importance of sustaining the ICDP approach.
For her part, the project coordinator, Boa Syrine, expressed the hope that certified facilitator trainers will emerge in Africa in the coming years to disseminate the approach on a larger scale.
Save the Children’s Advocacy and Behavior Change Technical Advisor Danladi Moussa and the Regional Director of Social Protection praised the motivation of the stakeholders and the positive impact of the CSSP project in the beneficiary communities.
Recommendations for sustainability include expanding the ICDP to other communities, increasing the involvement of community leaders, integrating activities into social centers, creating child protection committees, and organizing community days focused on parenting.
Project coordinator Boa Syrine and her colleague Attoko Ernest were also certified. The ICDP, implemented with the support of administrative, religious, and traditional authorities, aims to be gradually institutionalized at the local and national levels to sustainably strengthen child protection and well-being.
On the way to an emotionally healthy daycare centre: The double power of positive interaction with the ICDP training programme an Online-Talk by Rita Crecelius, ICDP Germany
It was a pleasure for me to present the ICDP program to a large audience (530 participants) on June 4, 2025. The participants included specialists, managers, and specialist advisors from the daycare world, as well as representatives from universities and adult education. They came from all over Germany, but also from Austria and Switzerland.
My presentation was part of a series of lectures put together by NIFBE (Lower Saxony Institute for Early Childhood Education and Development). The reason for this was a survey conducted by NIFBE, in which 1,500 daycare centre managers were questioned about the current stress situation in Lower Saxony daycare centres. The results showed that two-thirds of the managers rate their teams as “highly to very highly stressed.” A significant increase in challenging behaviour among children is cited as the main cause. But daycare professionals also have to cope with other stress factors: staff shortages, increasingly difficult cooperation with parents and inadequate spatial conditions.
In my presentation, I was able to draw attention to the fact that high levels of stress among caregivers cause them to become stuck in “autopilot.” Permanently elevated cortisol levels are detrimental to health. On the other hand, children lack their main (psychological) source of nourishment, namely an emotionally available companion. The result is a gradual attachment deficit. And this, in turn, often leads to behaviour on the part of the children that the caregivers experience as challenging. For professionals, this sets off a vicious circle that leads directly to what the German empathy researcher Tania Singer calls “empathic stress”: They know what the child needs, but are unable to provide it.
My task was to demonstrate that ICDP was created precisely for such stalemate situations, because the training helps us in a very concrete way in everyday life to raise awareness of the dual power of Positive Interaction. By strengthening our attitude through self-awareness and self-regulation, we can use the eight guidelines to safeguard both the foundation of the relationship for the children and the health of the professionals, even under difficult circumstances. As a health psychologist, I was able to demonstrate that positive, co-regulatory interaction is equally important for children and professionals.
The WHO has once stated: “ICDP is food for a healthy brain.” In my presentation, I was able to emphasize that ICDP is food for TWO healthy brains! During my remarks, a positive dialogue developed among the participants in the Zoom chat about the content presented – many now want to learn more about ICDP and contacted me via email. The presentation was recorded and is now available on YouTube at this link: https://youtu.be/9mAN24VYvmo
It can be viewed in any language using YouTube’s subtitle function.
ICDP Ukraine has managed to adapt to the difficult war conditions, and ICDP activities are going on in a number of cities by newly trained facilitators, as well as by some of those previously trained. See more details in the presentation from June 2025.
On photo above: The new group of facilitators with Joyce Larnyoh, their ICDP trainer. Luce Manou, coordinator and future ICDP trainer is in the centre. On the far right is their contact at the town hall of the city of Yopougon, the largest municipality in West Africa.
A group of 16 people linked to the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (MELCI) has completed their training and became certified facilitators of the ICDP programme, in May 2025.
The Lutheran Mission is committed to extending the ICDP approach to more organizations,
“The expansion of ICDP will soon be a reality, thanks to the impact of our graduation ceremony for facilitators. The facilitators come from the Organization of Islamic Confessional Educational Establishments (OEECI), the Ivorian Institute for the Promotion of the Blind (INIPA), the Social Center, the Center for the Protection of Early Childhood (CPPE), the Alliance of Religious for Integral Health and the Promotion of the Human Person (ARSIP), the Pastors of the Council of Religious Guides of Yopougon and the MELCI. The ICDP graduation ceremony took place under the patronage of the 1st Deputy Mayor of the Yopougon municipality where ICDP activities are implemented. The Municipality has contributed significantly to the ICDP activity resulting in many doors now being open to us.” – Luce Manou.
Photo above is showing one of the caregivers who attended the ICDP course, who gave an emotional testimony about the impact of the programme on her family.
From 19 to 21st of May 2025, Saija Westerlund-Cook and Petra Zilliacus conducted an ICDP course in Finland. The course was held in English, using ICDP international standard materials.
Twenty-seven youth workers and teachers from seventeen different countries participated in this three-day ICDP course in Pargas.
The event was organized by Pargas City Youth Department in collaboration with the EU SALTO Erasmus+ programme.
“Such a heartwarming, inspiring and adventurous experience, with lots of emotional and comprehensive dialogues around different cultural practices! Proud trainers Saija and Petra (who have previously only taught ICDP in Swedish and Finnish) are thankful for getting to know such magnificent people – and for getting a crash course in ICDP concepts in English.”
