The implementation of ICDP is ongoing, although 3 facilitators have left for new positions. In 2023 plans were agreed for Grete Hydmo and Hege Beate, to go to Estonia in June 2024 for a 5-day visit to meet ICDP facilitators in Tapa and Narva. Hege Beate will share her experiences from running ICDP courses for parents with special needs children. The local team has also asked to discuss how to make progress on implementing ICDP in future.
2021: In 2021, three ICDP groups were trained linked to the kindergarten Pisipõnn in Tapa, from October to November 2021. It was planned for the spring, but due to the pandemic it was postponed to autumn. The two ICDP facilitators who are active in the poor area of Narva, worked hard to provide healthy meals and joyful activities to the kindergarten children during the pandemic. From 2021 onward, three more ICDP groups were trained linked to the kindergarten Pisipõnn in Tapa. Three ICDP facilitators continued their work at the school in Jäneda. The ICDP work is supported by Anne Roos from the Education and Youth Board in Tallin.
EARLIER DEVELOPMENTS
In 2018, the municipalities of Tapa asked the Estonian Association of Central Norway to help them introduce ICDP in Estonia, which resulted in the formulation of this new ICDP project, which is started in October 2019.
The project leader was Grete Hyldmo, headmistress of the Queen Maud Memorial Preschool in Trondheim, Norway. She conducted the training together with Hege Beate Sivertsen – they both have extensive experience as ICDP trainers in Trondheim. They held the first ICDP workshop for the Estonian group in October 2019.
The ICDP training was attended by ten Estonian participants from the municipality of Tapa and three Russian participants from Narva. Translations was provided for both languages. The ICDP workshops took place in Trondheim, but the participants’ self-training practice was in Estonia, where they applied ICDP with groups of parents over a period of 8 weekly meetings.
Grete and Hege organized a lot of interactive exercises, discussions and practice. They also visited Tapa in February and March 2020, to offer guidance to trainee facilitators during their self-training practice.
By the autumn of 2020, ten professionals were ready to receive their ICDP certificates having completed training at facilitator level. Grete Hyldmo explained:
“I am very proud and happy to inform that the six professionals working in the schools in Tapa, Estonia have qualified for certification as ICDP facilitators. They participated actively in two training workshops held in Norway, in October 2019 and in January 2020. After the workshops they carried out their practical tasks conscientiously. They attended six full days of training and spent one day visiting two kindergartens and a primary school. They also had three days off for sightseeing Trondheim and its surroundings.
In January one of the themes was about cultural sensitization, violence and sexual abuse with a focus on the difficulties in their own society. According to ICDP obligations to the UN politics on the matters of sexual abuse and violence, they will arrange a day about these topics in Tapa, by a well-qualified, Estonian lecturer who knows the national legislations on these matters.
At the January workshop each participant presented a video of their own practice with children and analyzed it using the 8 guidelines of the ICDP programme. This was followed by their practical work in rolling out the programme to parent groups, which was successfully completed just before lock down in March. We visited them while they were still applying ICDP with groups of parents; we gathered the whole group in Tapa, for a day of support and reflections in the middle of February. In March, because of the corona virus pandemic, the second support session was held digitally and it was done together with our interpreter by talking to each person individually. To complete their training all participants wrote solid reports that contained reflections on their own practical work with parents, including descriptions of the use of exercises and their own application of the 7 principles of sensitization.
During the last week of August 2020, Tapa municipalities arranged an ICDP day for all the teachers. Many of the teachers had earlier participated as parents themselves in the ICDP parent groups that were conducted by trainee facilitators during the winter months and had thus been introduced to the ICDP programme. As a result of this good strategy quite a few teachers from different schools in Tapa now understand the ICDP programme from personal experience of attending parent groups.
The ICDP facilitators looked forward to receiving their certification at the graduation ceremony in Tapa. The director of Education in Tapa, Anne Roos, participated in the training and has also become an ICDP certified facilitator.
The Tapa city council adopted the project and was kept informed all the way. The interpreter, Piret Purdelo Tomingas has not only helped with translations but has also had a central role in the project preparations and execution and the whole team has already started working on a new application for another training programme. I think they really have a unique possibility to make a difference in Tapa.”