Category: News

2022 has been a year when the board in ICDP Sweden has changed chair, and Annelie Waldau Bergman, who has done such a competent and brilliant job as chair for more than 20 years, since the start in Sweden, has given that place to Veronica Kindbom who took over in June 2002.  We are all so thankful to Annelie for her most competent, sensitive and dedicated work for ICDP and for children for so many years!

The ICDP work in Sweden has during 2022 slowly picked up from where it was before the pandemic. The trainings have started up with physical presence again, though the trainer level education is still using both digital and physical meetings with good results. In November we arranged the yearly meeting with our facilitators digitally , so as many as possible could participate.  Our trainers all over Sweden have been very active and done a great job in educating over 100 new facilitators and over 300 caregivers. During the spring 12 new facilitators finished their education and another 17 started their facilitator education during 2022.

The work on our homepage has been progressing, and the board decided to invest in a completely new homepage that hopefully will be ready during the spring 2023. The work on closer cooperation with our facilitators is still going on.

Together with a facilitator in the city of Jönköping, and of course inspired by the work in Norway., Stiftelsen ICDP Sweden adapted the programme to better fit in with our new inhabitants, parents from other countries. A fifth day of education for our trainers will be offered during spring 2023. The education will give some extra tools to our trainers to meet the parents arriving to a new country in a sensitive and more profound way. We are really looking forward to this!

During 2022 we have also invested a great deal of effort in making new booklets. The work with the new booklet ”Praktisk tillämpning av barnkonventionen” (”Practical application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child”) was finished during the autumn of 2022 and it was presented at our yearly meeting with facilitators in November. The booklet is now used in all our trainings. In 2022 the process of making a couple of more booklets had started and these will hopefully be ready in 2023.

ICDP Sweden is in an inspiring and developing phase, and we are really looking forward to 2023!

Veronica Kindbom

Sergey and Anna Krasin wrote in February 2023:

2022 was very difficult year for Ukraine and very difficult for ICDP Ukraine.
Trainers and facilitators found themselves working under constant stress, with many being forced to leave their homes, and some had little option but to leave the country. Nevertheless, ICDP trainers and facilitators continued conducting sessions for parents whenever it was possible for them to do so.

A new challenge for us was the need to support parents who experienced traumatic situations with serious emotional consequences. At the same time, the facilitators had to cope with traumas they themselves lived through.

On 23-24^th of July, together with the Changing Children’s Worlds Foundation (ICDP USA) we conducted a shared Ukrainian-American conference called “Practical aspects of providing psycho-social support to parents and children using ICDP methods: the experience of America and Ukraine” bit.ly/us-ua-icdp
More than 70 participants took part in master classes prepared by specialists from America and Ukraine (Kimberly Svevo-Ciancsi, Diana McFarlin, Ksenia Kozlova, Anna Krasina, Sergey Krasin, Natalia Fedak).

In November and December, trainers Anna and Sergey Krasin conducted a training module for 30 specialists from Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) run by the Caritas Ukraine Charitable Foundation.

CFS represent a safe place where children can meet other children to play, learn to cope with the risks they must face on daily basis, participate in some educational activities and relax. They are located on the premises of Caritas in different Ukrainian cities. In addition, mobile child friendly spaces are organized in areas with large numbers of newly displaced population, including internally displaced persons, especially children in need of assistance (children in shelters, community centres, tents or in open spaces in a camp or community).

Nine participants of the training project for specialist working in CFS became facilitators.

Zotina Sofiia, who conducts parent groups in Lviv, notes that during the war, adults became more closed, it was difficult for them to open up and talk about their feelings. In groups, parents willingly share memories of their childhood and their positive parental experience.

Demkovich Zoryana, who runs groups in Zhovkva, Lviv region, says that adults attending groups have been learning to feel happy again.

Story from Zoryana: “During our meeting, some parents sincerely shared their experiences and anxieties. Such stories left everyone touched and in tears. Others also started sharing their thoughts about very personal experiences. For example, one mother told us about her lack of knowledge and skills in raising her son, which led to their misunderstanding each other. She shared that she now understood her own misconceptions, imagining that her son was the way she wanted him to be. She rarely listened to his opinion, which, as a result, led him to rebel and decreased his willingness to study.”

Elena Kubik from Nikolaev said that the parent groups are very emotional. Closed adults begin to open up and openly talk about their memories from their own childhood. They feel much better afterwards and start to change their attitude towards their children. They are very grateful for the ICDP groups and as a result they tend to offer more reliable support to their children during these difficult times.

Lesya Kupchik from Khmelnitsky notes that the war created more conflicts between children and parents. In groups, based on the ICDP principles, together they are looking for ways out of different conflicting situations.

In Kyiv, Diana Diatchenko, conducted parents’ groups and also groups for parents together with their children. She noted that at the first meetings, the parents were very constrained and did not show emotions. Then, adults became friends, and at the end, they did not want to leave. Children and adults enjoyed working together very much.

In the village of Oleksandrivka, in the Dnepropetrovsk region, Nesvitskaya Julia and Kravchenko Alena noticed that conducting parent-child and parent groups help adults look at their children differently, change their attitude towards their children and reduce conflicts in the family.

Parent groups, conducted by ICDP facilitators at the locations of the CFS Caritas of Ukraine, were visited by more than 70 parents who suffered from the war in Ukraine.

In February 2023, three face-to-face training groups for ICDP facilitators started in Dnipro, Kharkiv and Poltava. 

During the past few years, Save the Children (SC) has been applying the ICDP programme through a parenting package developed for implementation at community level in Napel. In this package, ICDP was added to the Child Sensitive Social Protection (CSSP) project, which untill then had focused mainly on the child grant.

Currently, there are 5 national trainers in the SC organization and their task has been to train and form ICDP facilitators who operate under local governments. During 2022, a group of 99 new facilitators were formed who reached 478 caregivers, mostly mothers.

Key achievements in 2022:

Local governments in the project areas are allocating budgets to implement and collaborate on the parenting programme. Currently, the parenting package is being implemented by nine local governments in four districts. Four local governments out of nine, have allocated budgets already and others are in the process of doing so. This development is resulting from them realizing the importance of the programme.

Policy influence: Department of National ID and Civil Registration under the ministry of Home Affairs in Nepal, formed a committee to prepare draft guideline on the parenting programme operation in all of its 753 local governments. The committee submitted the final draft to the department after a process of consultation through a series of meetings, in which two members of staff from the CSSP project participated and were part of that committee. The guideline was eventually endorsed by the department.

ICDP facilitators conducted training in four districts. All the facilitators were selected from local governments based on the criteria set by the project. SC, considering a sustainable approach, engaged the local governments in the process so that future local governments can take over and run the parenting sessions.

Impact evaluation study of the child grant plus parenting programme: An impact study was carried out in 2021, which was disseminated among the governments and other development stakeholders. The finding showed positive impacts (Impact Evaluation of the Child Grant Parenting Programme in Nepal | Save the Children’s Resource Centre)

Click here to read the ICDP report by Save the Children in Nepal.

Photo: ICDP facilitators in Gabane village

The Ark and Mark Trust has been a beneficiary of the Department of Social Protection (DSP) through the funding received to reach out to more localities in Botswana as parenting continues to be a challenge across the country.

Following the facilitators training in Ramotswa village in February 2022, new facilitators were trained in Gabane and Molepolole villages respectively, through funding from DSP. This brings the implementation of ICDP to a total of 4 villages in Botswana: Ramotswa, Gabane, Molepolole and Thamaga.. There are 50 new ICDP facilitators (40 female and 10 male) and 470 parents and 2012 children were reached with the ICDP programme.

Facilitators appreciated ICDP during training as they experienced their own transformation and witnessed it in their   fellow facilitators and families as well. One facilitator shared how she used to be strict and was known in the neighbourhood for such, and her children even named her “pit bull”. She has changed, and the community and other facilitators attested to it. Some of her neighbours expressed positive shock by the deep transformation they witnessed in her. This facilitator now finds it easy to reach out to difficult children in her neighbourhood, and enjoys imparting knowledge to parents.

To read the ICDP report by the Ark and Mark Trust click here.

Report by Sajeda Boby, ICDP Bangladesh trainer

It has been a joy to run ICDP training in Bangladesh through the Healthy Childhood Development Programme (HCDP), a project of Normisjon Bangladesh. The testimonies of caregivers and facilitators motivate us to work.

Facilitator level training

In 2022, we were able to train 44 new facilitators. Because of COVID-19 we could not start our training in Dhaka on time. However, we were able to complete the training of 4 batches of facilitators in two locations, namely in Dhaka and Dinajpur. In addition, two candidates completed their training and became ICDP trainers. 

Gatherings for facilitators

Another important activity was to organize meetings in different locations: there were 3 regional and 2 annual facilitator gatherings. In these gatherings we gave out updated materials to the facilitators and encouraged them to run caregiver groups. As a result, facilitators became motivated to run new caregiver groups.

Caregiver level training

In total 45 caregiver groups operated in 2022.

Additional four caregiver groups were started in 2022 and will continue in 2023. In addition to the previously trained facilitators, the new facilitators also ran caregiver groups. In total 293 caregivers received ICDP training and 799 children were touched by this training. 

We work with different partner organizations who offer services to low-income families. We frequently meet with the leaders of our partner organizations and we discuss together about the progress of the ICDP training. They give us their valuable suggestions. Currently we have seven partners. All the partner organizations have certified facilitators who run caregiver groups among their beneficiaries. 

New materials

We produced many new photos related to ICDP content and we made short video clips illustrating the eight ICDP guidelines for good interaction. These photos and videos will be used in the communities where people are illiterate. We also made a video in the Bengali language. The video was made to reflect Bengali cultural context and our local Bengali family was cast on the video.

Nasima’s story

Nasima (26) lives and is employed as a seamstress at a women’s centre in Dhaka, Basha. She was rescued from human trafficking. She has two children; a schoolgirl and a baby boy.

Although the three were rescued from the streets, they were still trapped in a cycle of violence. But then Nasima joined an ICDP caregiver group.

Nasima used to beat her children. Beating children came naturally to Nasima. Because she herself grew up like this, like most children in Bangladesh. As an adult, she had lived through many experiences that made it difficult for her act in a positive way towards her children.

“In the past, my children were of no value to me, and I could not take good care of them, says Nasima. Everything changed after this course. I began to see I was wrong and realized that my children’s value. I started helping my daughter with her homework. Now when my daughter wants something, I can’t afford, I explain why I can’t give it to her, instead of hitting her, like I used to do.”

An ICDP course for caregivers took place in Lilongwe, at the Riverside Hotel from 26th – 30th September 2022.

The training targeted 25 (13 female & 12 male) caregivers from kindergartens including nurses and clinicians under Lighthouse. Lighthouse is a registered public trust that exists to contribute to Malawi’s national response to HIV as a model providing a continuum of high-quality care while building capacity in the health sector. 

Lighthouse learnt about ICDP from one ICDP facilitator who briefed them about the programme, and they saw the importance of inviting trainers to conduct the training. 

Through ICDP sessions caregivers were guided to see and understand their children, improve the quality of interaction and the relationship with their children. An important focus was also on raising awareness about the needs of the children in their communities and workplaces. Gertrude Msowoya and Louis Malajira, two of the ICDP trainers in Malawi, conducted the week-long training course.

The International Child Development Programme (ICDP) has been operating for some years now as part as part of the Child Sensitive Social Protection project run by Save the Children Philippines.

Aside from the CSSP project-funded implementing partner, MoLAHUTAY, Inc., there were other partners who were trained in the ICDP parenting programme, such as NACPHIL (National Auxilliary and Chaplaincy of the Philippines), Ormoc City Social Welfare Office, Child Development Workers of Mondragon, Northern Samar and Municipal/City Links and Social Welfare Officers of Region 8 – all have contributed to the significant increase of the CSSP project reach in 2022. A total of 44,255 children and adults were reached directly and indirectly across the region.

228 (F-187; M – 41) individuals in Region 8 were trained as ICDP facilitators

11,502 parents/caregivers (F – 9,276; M – 2,226) across Region 8 have completed the parenting programme

1,494 men/father caregivers were covered by the parenting programme

101 family support groups (FSG) formed during the previous project have been conducting monthly parenting refresher sessions. 32 new FSGs formed by City/Municipal Links (C/M/L) of Leyte have also been meeting regularly.

ICDP expansion to the Samar province:

The ICDP parenting programme is still the flagship intervention of the new CSSP project in Samar which is called, “Advancing Child Sensitive Social Protection in the Philippines”.   The new project is an expanded version of the previous CSSP project in Leyte province, which covered the municipalities of Villaba, Matag-ob, Kananga and Ormoc City. The municipalities of Jiabong and Calbiga in the Samar Province will be added to the project areas. The CSSP Project approaches that include the Barangay Social Protection and Related Initiatives Link (BSPRIL), ICDP parenting programme, Community Clusters for Children (3Cs) and the Youth Resilience Programme (YRP) have yielded substantial results, and therefore the same approaches will be replicated in the Samar project areas.

National scale up:

The key milestone achieved in 2022 is the adoption of ICDP by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). On 1^st of December 2022, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was forged between Save the Children Philippines (SCP) and DSWD for the national scale up of the project.

The ICDP parenting programme will be implemented in 17 regions of the country and the training budget is included in the National Programme Management Office (NPMO) budgeting for 2023 – 2024. The ICDP facilitator level training of 90 people from 17 regions will start in May 2023. Out of this group, 34 people will pursue further training to become ICDP Trainers.

Click here to read full report.

University College Northern Jutland (UCN) –  Annual ICDP report for year 2022

Report based on information from Heidi Trude Holm

In Northern Jutland, during the year, we rediscovered our preferred way of teaching in ICDP – namely physical classroom teaching. Fortunately, Covid 19 barely affected 2022 in terms of our teaching activities.

In 2021, we worked continuously on rewriting and improving our “ICDP tools”.

We have reformulated/rewritten these and have had them printed for use in ICDP- teaching starting from January 2022. Our teachers and trainers use the materials in all ICDP classes.

New posters have also been made for our work in different areas: ICDP daycare, ICDP school and youth, ICDP for adults and people with disabilities, and ICDP in elderly care.

The primary students in our ICDP teaching activities in 2022 has been daycare staff working with children aged 0-6 yrs.

In addition to this, during the year, ICDP has been included in training sessions on parental guidance, and on implementation in institutions and municipalities.

Implementation of ICDP without clear leadership and municipal support, we found to be difficult. Therefore our aim is to help and teach our partners in institutions and municipalities by focusing on knowledge and structures that increase the possibilities for transfer and implementation – based on Hundeide’s framework for implementation in combination with the newest research in organizational development.

We have two annual meetings with the ICDP trainers who are affiliated to UCN.

In 2022, we held both an online and a workshop in person for our ICDP trainers. The days always consist of a mix of experience sharing on ICDP and professional presentations.

In the spring of 2022 at our Trainers’ Day (held online), we discussed the “evidence concept” and “effect studies” in relation to existing ICDP research.

In the autumn of 2022 at our second Trainers’ Day, we had a full day together where we discussed ICDP in relation to low arousal and recognition. We ended the day by discussing the topic of “how to” best carry out the implementation of ICDP.

In 2023, the teachers’ team will be working on designing a new course for school employees.

Podcast: POP is a podcast series developed by act2learn Pedagogy and learning at the University of Applied Sciences UCN. Through its episodes POP shares knowledge and experience gained in daycare, school and education. Heidi Trude Holm and Anne Hejgaard presented ICDP in e podcast Episode 26.

Report by Oksana Isaeva

During 2022 the International Child Development Programme was implemented on the premises of the Lada Family Centre (LFC) in the town of Nizhniy Novgorod.

The parent groups were conducted by specialists from the LFC, together with the certified ICDP facilitators. The training was conducted throughout the calendar year.

There were 8 study groups with 51 parents.

The ICDP programme was presented at the VI Regional Gathering of Young Families. This event was held at the Solovyi Estate, and it took place in August.

Twenty specialists at the Umka Centre in Chkalovsk received training in ICDP during October 2022.

In November 2022, an intensive course called “Optimization of parent-child relations: opportunities and limitations of educational organizations”, took place in the Vetluzhskaya secondary school, situated in the Nizhniy Novgorod region. Oksana Isaeva presented the work of ICDP and the content of its programme to 200 specialists of the Krasny Baki district.

Information about the work of ICDP Russia can be found on the following page: https://vk.com/club117351685

In 2022, ACARI assisted around 290 families in situations of social vulnerability in the city of Juazeiro in Bahia and in Petrolina, Pernambuco, by implementing the Bem Me Quer project (2021-2026).

The objective of the project is for families to experience a positive interaction and relationship with children and adolescents.

For this, ICDP workshops were held with the families and positive interaction kits were delivered to encourage the participation of families in the meetings. Families were invited to participate in the meetings through WhatsApp groups and many exchanges of ideas and experiences were also carried out in this virtual space.

The kits were the great novelty of the year, they were prepared and delivered so that the family could use them at home, to practice the 8 ICDP guidelines for good interaction with their children. A total of 6 kits were delivered.

Kit 1 was called “Sowing love”, it contained coriander seeds, gardening tools and a container for planting.

Kit 2 was called “Assessing self-esteem” and its objective was to provide care for the caregiver, sharing positive experiences with the caregivers of children and adolescents. With this kit, the families made a “mini” beauty salon at home and had a lot of fun.

Kit 3 “Celebrating São João” was designed so that families could cook together and celebrate the typical festival with their family, generating good memories, joy and unity.

Kit 4 was called “Pasta day”, it included tomato sauce, pasta, sardines and soft drinks, through the cooking activities it was possible to reinforce the affective dialogue with the families served.

Kit 5, “Time to play” was designed so that families could create the habit of playing with their children and also teach and reflect on the ICDP guidelines for mediation and regulation dialogues.

Kit 6, “Family reading”, was also designed to reinforce the 3 ICDP dialogues, which contained a children’s book, a packet of popcorn and a soft drink.

All this work was only possible thanks to the support of the Kindernothilfe organization, to which we are very grateful.

Families have learned a lot during this time, but the path of reflection and transformation is a long one.

Comments from ICDP participants:

“Now I am paying more attention to my children, I am taking better care. I am aware what is required to raise a child in the best way, without hitting and assaulting them. Thank you!”

“After this project I understood that to raise my boy, you don’t have to use force, spanking. it’s about talking, giving love and affection. I am calmer and now I talk more, no hitting. Thank you so much”