June 2022 summary of activities in Stafford
ICDP OFFICE AND CHAIR
The first ICDP office was set up in England in 1991 and it was run by Wilbert Verheyen and Nicoletta Armstrong. From late 1980s and untill the official registration of ICDP in 1992, Nicoletta was involved in the preparatory work on ICDP, including the production of ICDP didactic materials. In 1993, the headoffice was established in Norway, while the office in England shared tasks and closely cooperated with it. Nicoletta is one of the founders of ICDP and she became its chairperson in 2011 and is still in this role. She coordinates ICDP from England.
Over the years, almost all ICDP activities in England were initiated by Nicoletta. In more recent years, there have been regular ICDP workshops for students at the University of Bath. Professor Rita Chawla-Duggan and educator Michelle MacDonald received ICDP training from Nicoletta; Rita is now using ICDP with her students and Michelle has been working with Syrian refugees in England and Lebanon.
Most years, Nicoletta conducts workshops and meetings for international groups in England. From her UK office she has also been organizing trainings abroad over a period of more than thirty years. As a result, to date, she trained local teams in 27 countries, outside England: Sweden, Finland, Norway, Bosnia, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Kyrgizstan, Uzbekistan, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Australia, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico, Nicaragua, Burkina Faso and Zambia.
Nicoletta’s ICDP activities in cooperation with English organizations:
1991 – 1993, training courses for parents linked to Waldorf school in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire
1992 – training of preschool teachers from the London League of Preschools
1994 – work with the British Council for Refugees on a psychosocial recuperation project for Bosnian refugee parents and children
1994 – 1996, seminars and training in London for professionals from Nizhnevartovsk, Siberia, Russia, linked to the International University in Bushey
1996 – work for the Institute of Psychiatry, London University, on a UNICEF sponsored, psychosocial intervention programme in Bosnia
1996 – cooperation with the British Consortium for Street Children, on projects in Indonesia and Colombia
1996 – 1997, work with Worldview International’s UK office on training projects in Armenia, Colombia
1997 – 1998, courses for parents in Buckinghamshire, facilitated by the Catholic Church in Great Missenden
1998 – 2000, cooperation with SD Britain on training professionals in Ukraine
1999 – ICDP, workshops for English educators and social workers, linked to SD Britain
2002 – cooperation with Everychild UK and the Pertinox group, on training staff at the Centre for Children’s Social Adaptation, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
ICDP AND WHO
1993 – 1995, Nicoletta was part of the working group led by Karsten Hundeide that established ICDP cooperation with WHO. WHO eventually adopted ICDP as their mental health progamme and published the first ICDP handbook. 2014 – Nicoletta was invited to attend and contributed to the Technical Working Group Meeting on Parent Skills Training for Developmental Disorders that took place at WHO headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland.
2012 – CONFERENCE CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF ICDP WORLDWIDE
The conference was held at Loudwater farm venue, near Rickmansworth, on 14 – 16th of September 2012. It was attended by representatives from 14 countries, from more than half of the countries where ICDP had an active programme. Nicoletta Armstrong and all the international network participants paid tribute to the ICDP chair, Karsten Hundeide who had passed away in September 2011, after leading ICDP for 19 years. Participants discussed ways to unite the network, using strategic planning sessions in between the country presentations. An impressive multicultural and diverse picture of ICDP worldwide was built up over the three days by sharing experiences from all over the world. Most experienced a shared feeling of inter-connectedness and certain “family like” closeness characteristic of the ICDP spirit of “empathy in action”. The board had the opportunity to come together and reinforce its resolve to coordinate the expansion of ICDP taking forward the ICDP messages of human compassion.
ICDP AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
2011: ICDP approach to children’s rights was described in this published article by Karsten Hundeide and Nicoletta Armstrong
2016: Nicoletta Armstrong attended the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland and presented the work and content of the ICDP programme. Human rights and ICDP article by Nicoletta Armstrong