NEWS FROM STAVANGER, NORWAY

 Marianne Fjetland writes:

Stavanger is located on the south-west coast of Norway and it is the fourth largest city in the country with about 117,000 inhabitants.

 In the spring 2004, Stavanger was invited to participate in a pilot project where ICDP- training was given to parents from different ethnic backgrounds. The project was so successful that the Stavanger community decided to continue implementing the ICDP program also in the future. For this purpose the Stavanger community employed two persons, one on part time and one on full time basis with the tasks of training facilitators, implementing ICDP as part of activities established in the community and running the every day administration.

The Stavanger community supports ICDP facilitators financially when they start an ICDP course with parents. So far the bulk of ICDP training took place in connection with facilitators working directly with parents, in their self training projects. We are now going a step further and establishing trainers who can form new teams of facilitators.

The Public health care authorities decided that all 65 public health nurses must receive ICDP facilitator level training, to be used as a method in their daily meeting with families or as a parental training method.

The Stavanger community requested kindergarten personnel to receive ICDP training and it is now being used as a method for working with children, as well as being taught in kindergarten teacher-training colleges.

Johannes education centre with bilingual education has started a pilot project offering refugees and immigrants ICDP training as a subject included in the introduction program to the Norwegian society, which all refugees and immigrants in Norway have to participate in.  This spring a group of parents from Chechnya will start to receive ICDP.

We have also started establishing district ICDP networks comprised of multidisciplinary professional groups.

Until now the main focus has been on training ICDP facilitators. There are 83 facilitators with competence to implement ICDP with Norwegian parents and 28 are competent to work with parents of other ethnic backgrounds than Norwegian, such as Kurdish, Turkish, Iranian, , Chechen, Tai, Urdu/ Pakistani, Kosovo Albanian, as well as persons from Tigrinya /Eritrea.

All facilitators belong to the ICDP network that meets twice a year.

Most facilitators and parents involved in ICDP have been very enthusiastic and satisfied with the programme. They found that by using ICDP they became more aware of the importance of the topics raised by ICDP. This positive feedback is giving us a good feeling about the work we are doing and we are very happy to have been given the opportunity to be part of the work ICDP is doing.

NEWS FROM SERBIA

Mari Braein, from the Unicef office in Belgrade, contacted ICDP to start discussions on how best to bring ICDP to Serbia. Together with her colleagues, Mari has been preparing the UNICEF early childhood package of materials to be used in the future training of parents, and this package includes the ICDP guidelines. The idea is to later on select a local team of national experts to be trained as ICDP facilitators.

MAY

Click to read the:

ICDP ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2006

NEWS FROM ICDP IN WEST-BENGAL

Follow-up seminar in Calcutta

From the report of the ICDP trainer, Dr. Karl-Peter Hubbertz:

The main purpose of the follow-up seminar was to introduce new tools of the programme, evaluate the quality of the ICDP implementation, help resolve difficulties that occur in daily practice by applying a structured procedure called “collegial counselling” and discuss the future of ICDP in West Bengal.

All the six ICDP teams worked with groups of parents during 2006. The Manab Jamin and Lake Gardens teams were successful in implementing all the 12 meetings of the ICDP-programme, whereas the other groups varied in the number of meetings they managed to carry out in practice. Those teams who held regular sessions every two weeks had the best opportunities to work with the mothers on personal questions, to develop together plans of action and to support them to change child rearing practices systematically according to the guidelines.

Twelve participants received the “ICDP-Promoter” diploma.

Participants of the workshop 2007 with ICDP diplomas

Especially successful was the production of local ICDP materials. Manab Jamin team translated a 27-page “ICDP Training Sheet” into Bengali, which was handed out to the participants of the local parents group. Another example of creativity comes from the SKC-team from Kharagpur, who together with the parents made different collages from magazines and photographs illustrating the three dialogues and corresponding guidelines and produced posters to discuss these messages by finding personal examples from family-life.

There was also a lot of role play during the group-work. People in West Bengal like all sorts of theatre and creative expression – there is no shyness or hesitation. That is why role play is one of the favourite methods to use. During the seminar the participants split into four parallel groups to role-play some of the more difficult situations and to develop solutions which were presented to the plenum. The group-results turned out to be very creative problem-solutions.

Photo of role-play: Home-visit, the ICDP promoter finding a little girl tied to a chair

Participants role-played the situations sometimes up to three times to find out a satisfying way how to deal with the problem. The intensity and engagement of this group-work was impressing!

Puppet-show for illiterate mothers, demonstrating conflict between mother and child

The participants carried out personal evaluations with a rating scale, presenting each other the results in pair-groups. As a second step, the results were discussed in the plenum. The focus was to find out those “crucial points” required in order to achieve sustainability of ICDP work, but which also could endanger the efficiency of the programme if they were not taken care of. There are some NGOs which can guarantee good conditions and strong support for ICDP. The results of the work in these partner-organisation are according to these conditions very good. On the other hand, some of the participants have to struggle with problems and burdens which turn out on two different levels: 1. Not enough time, space and support given by own organisation. 2. Lack of teamwork and collegial network leading to loss of positive motivation.

In general, the motivation to implement ICDP with groups of parents and the identification of the different trainees with the ICDP programme can be estimated as very high. This motivation is expressed in a very strong commitment to organize ICDP-training practically (by finding space and times to do it) in order to help parents apply the basic message of ICDP in their relationships with children in a respectful and empathic way, i.e. to meet them as persons.

The ICDP promoters remarked on the positive effects ICDP had on the parents who participated by saying that “It goes directly into the hearts!” Positive effects were apparent as attitude changes of mothers and fathers who became more sensitive to the emotions and experiences of their children and started to show them more empathy. And at the same time, those mothers and fathers also gained more confidence and self-esteem in matters of child-rearing and education. These new attitudes towards the child led also to some practical changes. Several teams reported enthusiastically that some parents had stopped negative child rearing practices during the group-sessions.

The ICDP-teams experienced that they can touch the participants and that the messages and guidelines of the programme are taken up very positively.  Most of the parents, in most of the cases mothers, are eager to exchange and discuss their experiences and participate actively in the training.

These reactions are motivating the ICDP promoters from our partner-organisations to continue with ICDP-work. But the effects of ICDP-work will only be lasting if the meetings can be secured long term by the local networks. Monitoring, supervising and support for the work of the promoters are essential for the future. An ICDP facilitator is a well-trained and experienced ICDP worker who can function as a counselling and supervising professional for newly trained ICDP promoters. The task of a facilitator is to give regular advice to ICDP promoters. Till now, we are missing such a facilitator in West-Bengal and it is a challenge for the future. As there are no ICDP facilitators yet so called "regional groups" were established instead.

After three years of ICDP training seminars and implementation in 2004 – 2007 we can state that the steps we have done led to a good result. We succeeded to motivate several teams of our partner-organisations in West Bengal to do ICDP work and to enable them to carry out parent-groups independently. These results are encouraging. There is well-founded hope that the initiated parent group-work will develop and become independent.

On the other hand, participants articulated strong wishes to get further training and supervision. Especially the issue “how to deal with youth” as a special focus working with parents and caregivers was often mentioned.

The question is not answered yet how to continue with basic training in ICDP. There are still many interested colleagues from other partner-organisations who would like to participate. On the whole, cooperation with other agencies are interesting if they create synergies and bring advantages for the work.

In 2008, we plan to conduct a new basic training on ICDP in Kharagpur. The local key persons shall be invited for one extra day to give them special information and to get their general support.

Additionally, one supervision-day for the participants of former trainings will be offered in Seva Kendra Kolkata.

JUNE

ICDP GOES NATIONAL IN EL SALVADOR

ICDP has been approved as national programme for El Salvador. The programme is  implemented by ICDP trained facilitators and promoters, chosen from three networks, health, social services and education.  UNICEF El Salvador is also closely cooperating. An evaluation programme will be set up with a local team of experts.

DEVELOPMENTS IN COLOMBIA

NEWS FROM AMANECER

Amata Aristizabal, the ICDP trainer from Amanecer, near La Tebaida, is coordinating a new ICDP project,  which in its second phase will include also a micro credit component. The project aims to assist a group of 12 Embera Chami Indian families and their children, recently moved by the government to a new settlement in the mountains, approximately two hours away from La Tebaida.

Amata Aristizabal, on the left, with one of the mothers

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                                      Embera Chami Children

Some of the members of the community

The 12 families have already received the basic ICDP course at Amanecer, before they were re-located to the new area. The new project will strengthen the practical aspects of the ICDP training, by filming some of the typical everyday interactions between adults and children and afterwards viewing and discussing these interactions, applying the method of self evaluation and group sharing. There is vivid interest for the ICDP work to continue and a number of mothers expressed interest in becoming trained as ICDP promoters.

NEWS FROM MEDELLIN

The organization called FAN that received training and subsequently implemented ICDP in 2006, is now organizing a new phase in which the trained group of ICDP facilitators will start forming new teams of ICDP promoters. FAN runs 8 centres for children and families in the town of Medellin, where ICDP will be inserted as a regular activity carried out by the newly trained promoters.

ICDP facilitator interacting with one of the children

Apart from the project run by FAN, in Medellin there are several other ICDP projects. Luis Amigo University continues to offer ICDP courses to displaced families and children at risk as part of its Acoger project, and staff from the CINDE organization works with groups of families in 3 projects in different parts of Antioquia.

OTHER PROJECTS IN COLOMBIA

ICDP Colombia in cooperation with UNICEF, is continuing to develop large scale projects in the provinces of Huila and Choco. The Choco experience in implementing ICDP is currently being evaluated and systematized and later on this year will be published by UNICEF. The  ICDP project in the capital Bogotá with families of persons who have recently left the guerrilla movement  proved successful and will continue to develop from June onwards. The ex guerrilla persons trained as ICDP promoters will be implementing the programme supported by the ICDP team of trainers.

NEWS FROM NORWAY

Dragana Tosinovic, one of the ICDP trainers in Norway, has recently finished training a group of professionals in Oslo and  has just started another training project for a new group of 30 persons. Once trained this group will implement ICDP with families from different minority backgrounds.

Dragana obtained a psychology degree from Belgrade university, then worked in Bosnia for 3 years and when the war started she emigrated to Norway with her family, her husband and two children. In Oslo she specialized as clinical psychologist and has since been working with youth and children, and more recently with mothers suffering from postnatal depression. It is remarkable that she is finding time in her busy daily schedule to devote to ICDP training.

JULY

SWEDEN MEETS COLOMBIA

ICDP Sweden invited Nicoletta Armstrong to hold an ICDP workshop in their country, and tell them about ICDP developments and ways of working  in South American countries. The event was held in the newly refurbished and beautiful ICDP centre in Vastervik, where participants gathered from different parts of Sweden. It proved to be an enriching experience; trying out some of  style exercises "Colombian style" brought an element of fun. The workshop was crowned by lovely food, great hospitality and wonderful scenery- photo below shows some participants during a walk:

 EVALUATION PROJECT IN NORWAY

A three year evaluation project, assessing the impact of the ICDP work in Norway on a national scale is in the process of being set up. The evaluation project will be led by Professor Lorraine Sherr, the Head of Health Psychology at Royal Free and University College Medical School in London.

Photo: Lorraine (on the left) on her recent visit to Oslo where she worked with the ICDP team and ICDP treasurer Ylva Snekkvik (on the right) who will be also involved in the evaluation project.

PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF ICDP IN PORTUGAL

An ICDP presentation took place at ‘Tuatara Open Studio’, in Lisbon on the 22nd of June. This event sets the first step of the newly established Forum of Cultural Initiatives for Development and was attended by around 50 people, some from Portuguese institutions such as Casa Pia and Misericordia, universities and private social projects. There was great interest from the participants and possibilities of cooperation with ICDP were discussed aiming at establishing joint programmes.
 
The link between ICDP and Portugal is not a new one, as it started
almost 20 years ago, when ICDP future founders became involved with the development of the Alfragide community project that offered assistance to displaced families arriving from the Portuguese ex colonies. The problems arising from dealing with children at risk and the work developed to help them contributed as field experience to what would become the ICDP program.
 

Photo left to right: Pedro Mendes and Karsten Hundeide

Karsten Hundeide, chair of ICDP gave an audio-visual presentation,
introducing the ICDP approach to training and the content of the ICDP
programme. The 3 dialogues of the ICDP programme were presented
with a moving film made with material from the ICDP projects in Africa.

Pedro Mendes, ICDP member, spoke after Karsten giving a more detailed account of the ICDP work carried out in Angola over a period of ten years as well as the more recent project developments in Mozambique and in the region. He also presented some results of a recent research study which revealed positive long term effects of the Alfragide project on the first group of children, after 20 years.

WORK WITH EX GUERRILLA FIGHTERS

In Bogota, Colombia, a pilot project which adapted the ICDP programme for use with 100 families of ex guerrilla fighters, has recently been evaluated as successful. As result ICDP Colombia is currently in process of signing a new contract with the Colombian government for a project which will reach 150 new families with children of young age. An interesting feature of this project is that the ICDP promoters will be persons selected from the families trained during 2006 and the task of ICDP will be to assist them and support their practical work with new groups of families.

An ex guerrilla thanked ICDP:  “It is only recently that I demobilised and I did it primarily because my daughter was suffering abuse by her step father. I was planning to kill him and that was all I could think of until I came to this programme, which changed the way I perceive the world. The mother gave me my daughter and now I look after her; my daughter means everything to me, she is the reason I live. I thank this programme because I did not know how to be a father and now I have received tools; and what I managed to put into practice has already given me results. I now know there is great love I can give.”

AUGUST

ICDP WORKSHOP IN MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

An ICDP workshop for Southern African organizations and NGOs  recently took place in Maputo. The workshop was a continuation of the previous training held in Durban. Both workshops were sponsored by the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

There were 15 participants, most from South Africa, but also from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Most participants gave detailed descriptions of their positive experience and impressions of ICDP and how they felt it could be integrated into their work.

There were also several field visits to ICDP projects in the area, with the purpose of observing ICDP in action.

Photo from one of the field visits: A group of mothers and grandmothers expressing themselves through song and dance. They discussed the meaning of the ICDP emotional expressive dialogue through a lively exchange of experiences and without paying much attention to the workshop participants who were present as observers.

SEPTEMBER

News FROM icdp Norway

From the chair of ICDP Norge, Ingeborg Egebjerg: - We are now busy developing the ICDP Norge organisation, finding ways to work in all the different areas required, hoping to set up a membership organisation this fall.

At the recent meeting of ICDP Norge the following developments were noted:

The ICDP project for parents in prisons has just started working with a new group of parents in Oslo. This time 2 new persons, who are in the process of becoming trainers, will be participating in the delivery of the ICDP programme; this experience will be part of their preparation to take over future trainings in this field in Norway. 

The ICDP project in Bergen has finished as planned but there are new proposals to continue developing ICDP in this area. In Yttrebygda plans are being made to implement ICDP with new groups  of parents of teenagers, as well as parents with children in school and pre-school; they have already started mobilizing parents to form groups. It is also planned to train more facilitators at the beginning of next year.

In Oslo, after a couple of years of rising to the challenge of motivating educational psychologists in kindergartens to understand the importance and usefulness of ICDP, the work is now going very well. Recruitment proved time consuming but gave good results!

In Stavanger, 25 facilitators started to receive training, of which 13 persons are from minority groups. The ICDP staff here put strong emphasis on close follow up of facilitators and note this to be very important  for maintaining facilitators' motivation. Two health clinics in Stavanger are involved in a pilot project in which ICDP will be delivered to mothers and infants over a period of one year; a follow up after 2 years is also planned.

ICDP sweden report about Arkhangelsk, Russia

The following was extracted from the report recently presented by ICDP Sweden about activities they carried out in Russia, during the period between 2005 and 2007. 

ICDP Sweden was invited by the Umeå University, the Department of Social Welfare, and the Northern State Medical University, NSMU, in Arkhangelsk to participate in the project “Enhancing Academic Capacity and Educational Training in Preventive Programs as a Buffering Factor for Familes at Risk”. Financial support was provided by SDIA. The request was about organising theoretical and educational training concerning prevention and social protection of children at risk. The project had following goals:

- Improvement of dialogue quality between the specialist and the client, the parent and the child, the teacher and the student, and between employees and specialists.

-  Contributing to improvement of abilities for positive emotional dialogue between the specialist and the client, the parent and the child, the teacher and student, and between employees and specialists.

-  Formation of positive partner relations between specialists, between the specialist and the parent, and between the parent and the child.

The participants and their colleagues at the institutions showed great interest in the ICDP program. Trained were 10 experts to the level of ICDP Trainers. They used the ICDP program in their daily work, thus gaining practical experience during the period in between the ICDP seminars. Their training was led by Gunilla Niss and Anna-Karin Söderström, trainers from ICDP Sweden. Each participant made a video recording of their own ICDP work illustrating the way they applied the 8 guidelines in practice with different target groups. They all produced progress reports.

Trainers from ICDP Sweden: Gunilla Niss and Anna-Karin Söderström 

The implementation of the programme showed important results in developing positive interactions between children and caregivers. The ICDP training program also changed the attitude of staff towards the parents. 

THE FUTURE: In order to secure the experiences and knowledge already gained an organizational structure is needed. The skills and commitment of the 10 Russian Trainers is of utmost importance for the continuation of ICDP in Archangelsk. An ICDP centre would be an excellent framework in the process of widening and deepening the work with ICDP in Archangelsk. A way of including new groups in the work with ICDP could in the future be done by affiliating additional institutions to the programme. Of special interest is the group of young persons soon  becoming parents. There are four institutions in Archangelsk for young girls. Working with the ICDP programme could be an important preventive effort in these institutions. Other possible target institutions are those working with children’s rights.

Impressions from and opinions on the ICDP program and the seminars:

- This is different from other  projects I took part in. First of all our opinions were taken into account and we are sincerely glad and grateful for this. It is very  important that we had an opportunity not only to listen, but also to express our opinions, communicate, sometimes even to argue and discuss. There was a fruitful, emotional, sincere dialogue between us where everyone had the right to her own point of view. Unfortunately we  missed this in our previous work, when we were just receiving information, and teachers did not know about our techniques of upbringing and in particular about life conditions of children in boarding schools in our country.

- Realization of the program does not require additional time. The program is simple in understanding. This program has no time limits. Work within the framework of the ICDP program is focused on different categories: caregivers, parents, future mothers, candidates for adoption, etc.

- We want to remind caregivers, those people who are in direct close contact with children how important it is to establish good dialogue with the child; to render, the qualified help to candidates for adoption, to trustees, foster parents, biological parents - they should see the positive features and capacities of children. We can do it with the help of the ICDP program.

- The special attention should be paid to the use of video materials that is a very correct tactical approach when the person sees himself from another direction, and this is a very good stimulus for improvement of quality of relations between adults and children.

- Methods of dialogue between adults and children are very well described in 3 books in which any reader can do self assessment and to analyze his activity, both at work and with his own children. For example I have transferred this experience to my family and also shared it with families of my friends and relatives.

- Caregivers, nurses and other staff compensate for the lack of love, understanding, tenderness for our children. Therefore, the problem of dialogue between «caregiver and child» discussed within the program is very urgent for us. 

- The program allowed me to develop my own communicative skills, activity, sensitivity to problems of other people, expanded my knowledge on children with special educational needs.

- Positive view on the person, instead of instructive tone..

- Now when I look through video from my family archive, I automatically start to pay attention to some moments and analyze them, though before I did not think of such things.

- From all the things that we have heard and seen we have understood that we are  like-minded persons.

- Participants of the group have noted, that during the lessons they received satisfaction from dialogue, interactions and exchange of experience with one another, expressed the wish to stay in touch after the lessons were over.

- All participants noticed that they give more value to their actions when interacting with children, pay more attention to feelings and emotions in dialogue with children, analyze the actions and pay attention to other parents addressing their children (by noticing their positive moments as well as drawbacks).

OCTOBER

EVALUATION OF THE WORK IN MOZAMBIQUE

During the second week of October an evaluation visit took place to the project in Mozambique. Click here to read the report.

ICDP VISIT TO GUATEMALA

 

In Guatemala city during the period between the 6th and 13th of October the second phase of the ICDP training programme was started  with a group of 90 facilitators and promoters. The ICDP visit and workshop was sponsored by Plan International in cooperation with UNICEF Guatemala.

The workshop was formally opened by the UNICEF director Manuel Manrique followed by representatives from Plan International, the government's office and Nicoletta Armstrong from ICDP who was accompanied by trainers from Colombia, Claudia Marcela Rojas and Blanca Cecilia Garces.

In addition to the workshop there were field visits to Jalapa and Solola provinces. The ICDP team was able to observe over a period of two days a number of promoters and  facilitators in action in ICDP meetings with families and children.

There were many positive comments from all those involved and the overall evaluation of these first projects to be carried out in Guatemala showed promising results.  A father interviewed in the street on his way to the ICDP gathering said: "I am going to a very important meeting, it is about a programme where I have experienced something I never had as a child-to be appreciated only because I am a person; this is what we need in our community and these guidelines in the booklet I received need to reach not only families and children but also the elderly in our community as they need it just as much. "

TRAINERS MEET IN NORWAY

News from the ICDP head-office in Oslo:

On the 18th and 19th of October 34 ICDP trainers from all over the country got together in Vettre, Asker for a 2 days seminar planned by the ICDP Norway board. The focus was on exchanging experiences and future networking.

On the first day the ICDP International chair, Professor Karsten Hundeide spoke about the theoretical background of the ICDP programme. After that there was group work which allowed participants to share their experiences from implementing ICDP in a variety of different settings; health centres, preschools, schools, minority groups, prisons etc. This was also an opportunity to inform the trainers about recent development in ICDP Norway which included several topics: the idea of becoming a member organization, the need to divide the  responsibilities and the areas of work between the Ministry and ICDP Norway, the development of new projects and news regarding the evaluation of the parental guidance programme.

On the second day Professor Henning Rye presented a chapter from his new book which explains about the caregivers' need to be cared for themselves. Once again there was group work and this time it was on the topics presented by Marianne Fjetland and Tove Jeppsson from the ICDP  Norway board about their experiences with recruitment of caregivers and implementation of ICDP.

We thank all trainers for their participation and constructive feedback.

NOVEMBER

SCANDINAVIAN MEETING IN OSLO

ICDP representatives from Sweden and Denmark meet with the team in Oslo to discuss evaluation procedures for ICDP projects and to exchange experiences concerning organizational matters.

From left to right, photo above: Anette (Denmark), Annelie (Sweden), Karin (Sweden), Finn (Denmark), Mogens (Denmark) and the Norwegian team: Karsten, Ingeborg, Tove, Trine and Ylva

DEVELOPMENTS IN EL SALVADOR

ICDP team visits El Salvador for the second time this year to support the developments of a nationwide programme, sponsored by UNICEF. The local institute in charge of social services called ISNA and the Ministry for Education are the two key networks whose agents will continue to spread the ICDP programme through child/family centres and schools during 2008. 

The coordinator for ICDP in the Ministry of Education, Edith Vasquez said: "The trained teachers are very enthusiastic about the impact of the ICDP programme in schools.  They noticed positive changes in the behaviour of children and an improvement in their academic achievement; they also noted more commitment from parents for cooperation with the teachers. Next year they want to reach out with ICDP to 125 schools."

Carolina de Guevarra, ISNA (on the left) and Marina Morales, Unicef (on the right) are cooperating closely with ICDP

There were 93 participants at the workshop. The emphasis was placed on strategies that would sustain ICDP long term, such as establishment of local community networks of parents and regular follow up meetings between promoters and parents who coordinate such networks.

One of the tasks at the workshop was for participants to take photos of adult-child interactions to be put in the ICDP manuals as illustrations for the 8 guidelines for good interaction.

In the photo above one of the participants is taking a photo of an interaction to illustrate guideline number 6 (giving explanations about things in the environment).

NEWS FROM COLOMBIA

Province of Boyaca: four years ago the ICDP implementation took place in 124 towns and the programme has continued to be implemented ever since. A new governor for the province has been recently elected. Plans have been set to continue spreading of ICDP in 2008.

Province of Nariño: in this area ICDP has been spreading since 2002 through the Health Ministry and ICBF. In 2007 51 towns were involved in ICDP work through the health sector. New plans are currently being made to start involving the Education sector in 2008.

Huila and Choco: After two years of working all over the provinces of Choco and Huila, ICDP is making plans with Unicef for further developments in 2008.

Bucaramanga: An ICDP training workshop was held in Bucaramanga earlier this year, which is now followed up with plans to implement ICDP in 16 different areas of the province during 2008.

Town of La Tebaida: the ICDP pilot project using a new model of implementation specifically adapted for use in schools has proven to be very successful and currently plans are being made for a follow up in 2008. Sponsor yet to be found.

DECEMBER

NEWS FROM BOYACA, COLOMBIA

The ICDP trainer for the province of Boyaca, Luis Fernando Lopez Cardozo writes:

Our work with ICDP during 2007 focused on the 20 most remote towns of the province, including indigenous communities and those that suffered from violence due to armed conflicts. In addition, we trained psychologists who work with ICDP as a mental health programme. We established technical committees to sustain the expansion of the ICDP programme "I am a person too". The main ICDP messages were also spread through radio programmes, including radio dramas. Trained were 2100 promoters and each promoter implemented ICDP with about 10 families. Our work is supported through the municipal councils (Consejo de Politica Social).

ICDP SUCCESSFULLY SUSTAINED IN NARIñO, COLOMBIA

Dr Elizabeth Trujillo, the director of the Nariño Health Institute  continues to sustain and expand ICDP with a wide strategy of implementation which encompasses 51 of the 64 towns of the province. She participated together with representatives of ICDP Colombia  in a meeting organized by UNICEF in Bogotá, on the 28th November which gathered organizations allied to UNICEF to share aims and discuss targets for action for 2008. One of the targets for 2008 is for ICDP projects to be evaluated in 3 provinces: Choco, Nariño and Huila.

NEW LINKS WITH SOUTH AFRICA

ICDP has been promoted and implemented in South Africa by Professor Linda Richter and Andy Dewes, who recently presented their work at a conference in Oslo, Norway. One of the outcomes of the visit to Oslo has been the decision to start cooperation between South Africa and the ICDP project in Mozambique.

ICDP IN REFUGEE CENTERS

At the recent conference in Tromsø, the relevance of the ICDP programme for caregivers in refugee centres in Norway became evident. This is a very important new field for ICDP and a new manual is currently under preparation specifically adapted for this target group.

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