Author: Nicoletta Armstrong

ICDP trainer Sergey Krasin informs:

On 12-13^th  of February 2020, Anna Trukhan, ICDP Ukraine chair, conducted the workshop “Effective ways to support parents of pupils” at the Kharkov Humanitarian Pedagogical Academy.  The workshop was for senior methodologists from different kindergartens in Kharkov. The participants became acquainted with the history of ICDP, its basic principles, criteria and main features.

Apart from this, in the period up to March 2020, there were a lot of facilitators who continued to work in different organizations in Kharkov. They are conducting the ICDP trainings for parents and Anna and I provide supervisory assistance to them.

ICDP training was rolled out to parents through cooperation with the NGO “You Too”; facilitators Victoria Lepyokha, Elena Bondar and Elena Martynyuk conducted ICDP courses for 4 parent groups. The participants of these groups were parents who are faced with difficult life circumstances (such as having seriously ill relatives, or suffering due to death of a close relative, or struggling to cope being single mothers, or grandmothers who took grandchildren under their guardianship) as well as families who want to improve relationships with their children.

“We have three couples in one of these groups, which is very pleasing, as it is very good when both parents are interested in developing a good relationship with their child and are willing to take responsibility for it” – says facilitator Victoria Lepeha.

A very interesting team of facilitators works in the Kidsdream Private Kindergarten. The team consists of a mother and her son: Natalia Novachenko and Evgeny Fedak. They conduct ICDP trainings for parents of children with disabilities.

Anna and I plan to start training new groups of facilitators in Kharkiv and Odesa, as soon as the corona virus situation abates.  In that training we will apply our new programme including the PSEA training. So, in our organization, we are already preparing to implement the ICDP Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) policies and we will apply it to all our partners. We will also organize the same training for all facilitators, including those who have already been trained in the past. In the future, PSEA training will be integrated in the general ICDP training courses as mandatory. We are currently designing a new training programme at three levels:

1st level – Basic training in the eight ICDP guidelines.; 2nd level – ICDP Facilitator level; 3rd level – Regional trainer for regional work. This level will for very experienced facilitators. In this programme we plan to conduct PSEA training after the first level.

VIRTUAL CONFERENCE IN UKRAINE

ICDP trainer, Maria Gorskova was the key organiser of a conference for ICDP facilitators, which was conducted on Zoom, on the 17^th of October 2020.

The aim of the conference was to share and motivate the ICDP facilitators at this time, when due to Covid-19 there are many difficulties and obstacles in their work. The conference proved to be a success, although the participation was smaller than planned.

The ICDP team of trainers, led by Zenona Gread, made good progress throughout 2020. 

The ICDP programme is being rolled out by Save the Children as part of their parenting package, which combines ICDP with cash transfer and budgeting schemes. This is facilitated through positive cooperation with the government. Seventy new facilitators and over 1500 families received ICDP training.

At a recent network meeting, parents talked about the positive changes in their lives as a result of their participation in the parenting programme, emphasizing better and warmer interactions with their children. The event was filmed and the footage included a song celebrating symbolically the importance of the ICDP interactive topics.

Read a short report from the ICDP trainers

The new research article about the Wawa Illari project in Peru is now freely available online.

It was published by Frontiers in Public Health, a multidisciplinary open-access journal which publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research and is at the forefront of disseminating scientific knowledge to researchers, academics, clinicians, policy makers and the public worldwide.

Follow the link below to find the published article: 

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.567900

The local team continued to train in the ICDP programme throughout 2020.

In the Nizhny Novgorod City and the Nizhny Novgorod region, the ICDP programme was introduced in schools and preschools, as well as to university students. 

ICDP training was given to ten groups, which included psychologists, teachers and specialists of non-profit organizations. In total 128 participants attended the workshops.

Read a short report from Oksana Isaeva.

On photo above: the 14 newly certified ICDP facilitators after receiving their certificates. 

Fourteen ICDP facilitators from Manyara region completed ICDP training in the autumn of 2020 by attending the final training from 17th to 19th of September. Their trainers were Verynice Frederick and Egla Matechi.

All fourteen facilitators held eight ICDP meetings with their respective groups of parents/caregivers and they all attended the final training workshop. At the workshop, they shared about their different experiences of working with parents, including any encountered difficulties. Some common challenges were identified, such as low participation of men and the participant parents’ difficulties in reaching the place of the meetings due to long distances.

Among other activities at the workshop, the sensitization principles were revised through role play. Some facilitators acted in role plays as parents and others as facilitators; it was an effective way of reviewing facilitators’ practical work.

The facilitators reported that they had observed positive changes in the parents’ relationship with their children and they showed a lot of interest and commitment to take ICDP to more parents/caregivers in their respective communities and at their working place. 

Two new parent groups have already started to receive ICDP.

There have been some important developments by ICDP in Bangladesh.

The year 2020 was a challenging year for ICDP in Bangladesh, as it was in many countries all over the world.

Read more in their report.

Two facilitators are now starting to implement the ICDP programme for the first time in Uzbekistan.

ICDP has established an agreement for training and cooperation with the Happy Start preschool in Tashkent. 

Happy Start is a learning centre for 2 to10 years old children and they offer pre-school education and after school activities. This is the link to their website: https://happystart.uz/. 

Since the summer of 2020, as part of the new developments at Happy Start, Shincon Uzbekistan is funding the introduction and implementation of the ICDP programme.

Magdalena Brännström and Valentina Ten have been receiving training online, through webinars with Nicoletta Armstrong and on the 14th of October 2020, they have started their ICDP practical task. The task consists of implementing the ICDP programme with the caregivers that are working at Happy Start. They will be holding weekly meetings together over several months in order to complete the full ICDP programme.

We wish you all the success!

The chair of the ICDP Finland Association describes the recent meeting.

“Our association hosted a zoom event for ICDP facilitators in Finland, on Tuesday, the 24^th of November. There are one hundred and forty-four facilitators in Finland, and twenty-nine facilitators from many corners of the country participated eagerly (plus a few cats and a dog) at the zoom event, sharing their ICDP experiences and inspiring each other.

We spoke of ways to practice sensitivity, playfulness and empathy with children, caregivers, differently abled people, colleagues and others, both when physically present and in remote setting.

Even though we would rather have met each other in real life, the ICDP magic was still tangible in this virtual meeting space”. – Pamela Antila.