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.”
ICDP is continuing to be active in Ukraine. This year, training was carried out in several cities, such as: Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv.
Two facilitators, a married couple, Nikolai and Galina Khomchenko, conduct parent groups in the territory close to the front line, as part of a humanitarian project. The participants were not only parents, but also grandparents. The program dialogues were discussed at the meetings. Nikolai notes that this group format is very useful, as it provides an opportunity to expand discussions and exchange experiences. It is especially useful for those families in which not only parents, but also the older generation are involved in raising children.
Galina conducts ICDP courses for parents at the Children’s Center for Mental Health. The participants are the parents of children who attend the center. The facilitator notes that her groups were attended only by women, as there are very few young men left in the city now. Before starting with the ICDP program and its dialogues, there are meetings in which a process of psycho-emotional stabilization takes place.
Active work was also carried out by new facilitators who were trained under war conditions. Natasha Vinichenko and Amelia Khomchenko began their work in the Donetsk region. The new facilitators held their groups in one of the city schools, and the participants were parents of first-grade children. A Parents’ Club was created linked to the school. Familiarization with the program took place throughout the year.
ICDP facilitator Olesya Romancha from Krivoy Rog conducts parent groups as part of the “Conscious Parenting” project. The project was created for young parents and young people who are planning to become parents. Olesya receives a lot of positive feedback from the participants of the meetings,
“It was important for me to talk about and see this or that situation. Theory is one thing. And practice is completely different. Although my son is almost an adult, I found useful recommendations for myself for further reflection”
“It’s never too late to learn! I thought that I knew everything about children and their behavior, but when I took the course, I learned a lot of new things. I thought most deeply assessing my actions in relation to the principles of the program”.
Facilitator Liliya Dolgikh was trained by a married couple from Kharkov: regional trainer Victoria Lepekha and facilitator Alexander Lepekha. Liliya recalls that immediately after the training she began to practice the principles of the program at the Church School. Several parent groups were organized at the same time, one of which was held regularly once a week. Three more groups were organized at different times. This was done so that women – parishioners could attend meetings at a time convenient for them. The group participants speak very positively about the meetings and attend them willingly, saying that “they come for knowledge that leads to good changes.” Over two years, more than 160 parents attended parent meetings with Liliya Dolgikh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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’s 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 sceptical 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 could see results from the changes I made. I quickly experienced gains in my relationships with all the children in my class, through 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 children’s 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.
