The work in Macedonia started in September 1999, in cooperation with the ‘Center for Crisis Psychology’ in Bergen and UNICEF in Skopje. ICDP programme implementation became an important component of the post emergency work, as a way of enhancing the psychosocial aspects of the care given to children.
During the first 7 months one ICDP consultant worked fulltime in the project, and there had been regular 3 monthly visits by ICDP consultants. UNICEF made an agreement directly with ICDP in November 2000.
the ICDP programme was implemented throughout Macedonia by training staff in institutions working with children and adolescents, local centres for social work, family centres, refugee centres, and patronage nurses. It was used in sensitising parents in the process of divorce, single mothers, parents of disabled children, parents of juvenile delinquents, foster parents, adoptive parents and scout leaders.
ICDP Macedonia was registered in December 2001 in order to coordinate the work and make it sustainable long term. As result of the training there is a network of over 100 local facilitators using the ICDP program in their work. A conference took place in February 2002 to consolidate the network through sharing and analysing members’ project experiences.
In March 2003, 8 patronage nurses from the health sector and 12 staff from institutions for children and adolescents became qualified trainers, bringing the total number of trainers to 32.
At the end of March, the UNICEF sponsored project ended, and ICDP Macedonia took over the responsibility for implementation and follow up of the country program.