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NEWS

   September 2007:         

 

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).

 

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