Category: News

A refresher workshop for ICDP Facilitators took place in Ocotal, Nicaragua. It was organized by the “Instituto De Promocion Humana” (INPRHU) and it was conducted by ICDP trainer, Monica Andersson, over a period of two days on 6th and 7th of November 2023. The workshop was attended by 17 participants, consisting of INPRHU staff, teachers, and community leaders from the neighbourhood.

“This was a workshop full of joy, with good participation from the facilitators. The whole group of new facilitators attended the workshop and received their diplomas, having done their practical tasks prior the workshop. They showed their videos, shared their experiences, enjoyed analysing interactions and learning from each other in a warm and fruitful atmosphere.” – Monica Andersson.

Read a short report. Here are some of the evaluative comments by facilitators, in answer to the question, “What do you take with you from this workshop?”:

• I take with me the 3 dialogues of the ICDP programme, which served to encourage others to grow in their abilities. This is an important programme that can help to live life positively.
• This is going to continue to help me help me to keep improving in my work and life.
• ICDP’s applied methodology is the key for developing happy childhoods …and for adulthood.
• The strategies, techniques, resources, 3 dialogues and 8 guidelines to deconstruct negative and build positive interactive relationships.
• Great empathy and experience that I received, sound advice and good concepts to share in future.
• I’ll take the positive atmosphere and behaviour we all shared and I take all the learning with me.
• This was an opportunity to learn more about the ICDP programme. It will help me to work and share teaching with our families and groups that we work with.
• New knowledge about the ICDP method. Deeper insight about ways of caring for and understanding children and more knowledge about neuroscience in child development. New strategies to put into practice.
• More knowledge about how to apply ICDP in practice.
• I take away the teamwork, the peaceful, and empathic way we all worked with each one.
• I take with me new knowledge of the ICDDP programme. This will help me in my work with children, by implementing the 3 ICDP dialogues in the classroom and also with my family.
• The knowledge of being able to interact more deeply by applying the ICDP processes. This will help me improve more personally and professionally. It will help me personally and  in relation to the people I interact with on a daily basis.
• I have a good experience during this process. New things and good tools to work with. New aspects of interaction and knowledge that I shall use in my work with others.
• A great experience in understanding and learning about the subject and I take away a nice memory of our facilitator Monica.
• The methodology with new insights of the ICDP strategy. I liked the patience of the facilitator, the trust of the group. It will help me for my personal growth to implement it in my family and in my work – to be a better person.
• I take with me new aspects of the ICDP methodology, with a lot of warmth we shared in interaction with participants. The joy of the facilitator and the love with which she works.
• This is going to help me and help those I work with: mothers, fathers, children, adolescents, and young people. The opportunity to grow in love, to practice values, to live together in peace and harmony.

We were delighted to start the process of bringing ICDP to Cote d’Ivoire in 2023. This has been a project that we have long awaited, and we know that many parents and children will benefit from the caregiver course that ICDP has to offer.

In 2023, three employees in Mission Evangelique Lutherienne en Cote d’Ivoire (MELCI) began training to become ICDP facilitators, with the aim of starting ICDP in the Youpogon district of Abidjan.

First part of the training was given online by trainer Gerd Eli Haaland (started in the fall of 2022), and the second part took place in in Kedougou, Senegal, together with the Norwegian mission Normisjon, from February 27^th, 2023, to March 3rd, 2023. The trainer was Lea Aubin Sanou from Burkina Faso, who works with Save the Children in Burkina Faso. The training to become facilitators continued throughout the spring of 2023 where we were able to give the caregiver course to eight other MELCI employees in Abidjan.

We had our third training session from Sept 4^th to Sept 7^th in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, where we received our diplomas as ICDP facilitators alongside the group from Senegal (on photo above).

Click here for full report.

Fron the update by Sergey and Anna Krasin:

Since February 2022, ICDP facilitators’ activities in Ukraine have been different from those in peacetime.

In many cities, such as Kharkiv, Druzhkovka, Dnipo, among others, explosions are heard constantly, affecting the lives of adults and children and causing enormous stress. Adults and children react differently to acute stress. In face of this situaiton, Hanna Krasina, Marina Sklyar, Serhii Krasin, developed a strategy, a model called STEP, in the spring of 2022. STEP was developed specifically to assist parent groups in cities that are constantly under fire. The STEP model is implemented through the use of ICDP principles. STEP stands for:

S – self-help, support, psychological first aid

T – talking, clarification of the situation, facts, thoughts, emotions, experience, task

E – emotions, experience, analysis and study of emotions, the influence of personal factors

P – planning, productive, effective behaviour strategies, expansion of behavioural models, alternative attitudes.

This approach helps stabilize the psycho-emotional state of parents and contributes to the development of their resilience.

Click here to read the full report.

In Mozambique, after one year of operation, the Technical Assistance Programme for the Elimination of Child Marriage is expanding to the province of Sofala, covering two districts. This news is important as using the ICDP Programme we focus on combating both violence against children and early unions, which disrupt the comprehensive development of children, their pursuit of dreams and academic aspirations, and consequently, hinder the country’s overall progress.

The programme is already present in 11 districts spanning the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia, and now, Sofala. This expansion serves as a significant benchmark of our performance. In addition, it is a notable achievement that over the past year, we have exceeded the goal of 37 cases per district, with 500 cases being treated in each district.

Early unions represent a cultural challenge that affects many families. Often, young individuals are pressured to marry early in search of improved living conditions. Our programme aims to break this cycle with the involvement of government institutions, community leaders, traditional and religious leaders. We work not only on prevention but also on treating existing cases, referring them to the justice system and reintegrating young women into their families and communities while providing crucial psychological care and support.

This expansion marks a significant stride in our mission to eliminate early unions and ensure a brighter future for the young women of Mozambique. We extend our gratitude for the continued support from our partners, as together, we are making a difference in the lives of young individuals and communities across the country.

The ICDP training in Tashkent has been gradually expanding in 2023.

ICDP trainer, Magdalena Brannstrom sent this report. From the report:

Some of the feedback from the attending parents:

“Before I participated in the course, I had some difficulties with my sons. During the course I started to understand my sons better and I have also learned how to show in different ways my sons that I love them.”

“After attending one of the meetings and learning the guidelines I saw my neighbour’s child teasing and harassing my daughter. And instead of shouting at the child, which is what I would have done before, I started talking in a nice voice: “Stop. look at my daughter. Can you see that she really does not like it? So, it is important that you stop.”  She stopped, but then she started crying. I hugged her and asked her why she was crying. She told me that she missed her mother very much, who is working in Russia. I comforted her.”

“My husband and I are now raising our son together. We discuss how we should do things and so we are learning together how to raise our son”

“I have become calmer and more confident about what I am doing.”

“My child has become less aggressive.”

“I now avoid responding too quickly to conflicting or stressful situations, I often wait to consult with my husband first, so that we can agree on what to do in this or that situation.“    

 “I observe more and I stopped punishing my child.”

“I began finding a common language with my son. I now know how to find a way out of the situation and as a result I started to react more calmly.”

“I became more patient, and began to practice the principles that we talked about at meetings.”

“I have more constructive dialogues with my children, so the atmosphere in the house has become increasingly calmer. “

The year 2023 has been a great year for ICDP in the Philippines. This year saw the start of the national scale up of the ICDP parenting programme, which is the flagship intervention of the Save the Children’s Child Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) project. The ICDP programme is being rolled out in close cooperation with the government who approved the scale up and the target group in 2023 are the families that belong to the Pantawid Programme in Region 8 of the country. For more details about this development, read the report by ICDP trainers linked to Save the Childen Philippines.

During 2023, there has been a new development for ICDP in Bangladesh. After presenting the ICDP programme and the work that has been done so far with it in the country, UNICEF Bangladesh became very interested in collaborating on a new project. To find out more about the developments of ICDP and plans with UNICEF, read the report from October 2023.

As part of their development activities and to respond to the thorny issue of difficult relationships between children and their parents, the Evangelical and Lutheran Mission in the Ivory Coast and the Norwegian Protestant Mission (MPN) in Senegal, initiated a training of their partners on the International Child Development Program (ICDP) approach.

This training took place, in its first phase, from February 27 to March 3, in Kédougou, in the south-east of Senegal and with participants from both countries.

The second session, which certified participants as ICDP facilitators, took place in Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast, on September 4, 5, 6 and 7, 2023.

Click here to read the full report in English, from the second workshop. Click here to read the report in French.

The ICDP Nordic conference took place on 21st and 22nd of September 2023. Report from Merethe Kvernroed:

There were close to 200 participants – mainly from Norway – but quite a few also from our neighboring countries Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Day one was mandatory for trainers in Norway and day 2 was optional. Still, many joined Day 2 as well.

The theme of the conference, “Building robust and resilient relations”, appeared to be one of great interest to many participants. Interestingly, there is a fair amount of public debate around these questions in Norway at present.

We had two keynote speakers who addressed this theme, also with slightly provocative concepts, such as “helicopter parenting” (term used by Line Warholm, a psychologist and writer) and the role of optimal frustration for healthy development  (discussed by psychologist Zemir Popovac, who came to Norway from Bosnia when he was 18 years old).  The combination of these two speakers was very interesting, because Line Warholm stirred the waters, while Zemir Popovac provided some very interesting tools.

Participants had the opportunity to walk and talk on the same theme, including a fun task of creating a photo to illustrate core discussions. The photos were shown as a movie in the plenary session on the following morning.

There were two discussion panels; one on questions relating to universal preventative programming for parents and on the following day there were lively discussions on implementation. After lunch there were mini-workshops that worked on providing practical examples of implementation by sharing experiences from various settings such as: refugees and integration; ICDP for parents in prisons; ICDP implemented in the care of the elderly in Oslo; ICDP in schools (Denmark) and presentations from ICDP Sweden and Finland.

Participants were very satisfied with the content of the conference and felt the various discussions were useful and inspirational for their future work with ICDP.

Here is the link to some of the photos from the conference:

Nordisk ICDP Konferanse 2023 – Robuste relasjoner – ICDP Norge

As always for me it is my pleasure to share with the ICDP network that this year (2023), together with the Health Secretariat of Boyacá and the ESE Rehabilitation Centre of Boyacá, we completed the training of a new group of professionals.

Twenty-seven psychologists of the Boyacá department received their ICDP certificates as facilitators of the ICDP programme “Tambien soy Persona” (“I am also a person”).

Our enthusiasm for the programme and its implementation all over our department is not waning!

Luis Fernando Lopez Cardozo, Boyacá, July 2023.