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Karl-Peter
Hubbertz is a psychologist and social worker, with 20 years experience
of working in different counselling centres and child-guidance clinics
in Germany. Since 1999, he is teaching Social Work at the University
of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany. He is a member of Indienhilfe
and he is familiar with the partners of Indienhilfe in West-Bengal
where he started developing ICDP in 2004.

In
December 2004 and January 2005 there were two introduction-workshops
in ICDP held in Athgara and Malda, each lasting three days. Participants
were social workers, teachers, health workers, medical doctors and
other professionals working in child development-centres, children’s
homes, schools, health education or with self-help-groups of mothers.
Most of them wanted to continue their learning-process in ICDP.
“After
12 years teaching in school I realized that I can see and understand
every child as a special and particular person!” - This
statement comes from one of the teachers in the Centre for Child
Workers of Rural Health Development Centre (RHDC) in Malda, who
are working with children from poor families. It is one example
of the positive feedback and learning-motivation which was aroused
during an introduction-workshop on ICDP in Malda. People said: This
is really new for us – we never looked at children in this
way.
In
February 2005 an extended seminar on ICDP was held, for professionals
from different NGOs who were sponsored by and are cooperating with
Indienhilfe. The seminar lasted one week. Participants were introduced
to the structured ICDP-programme for working with groups of parents
and other caregivers. In September 2005 there was a follow-up seminar
for the same group, supervising the work of the participants and
reflecting their practical experiences with ICDP.
During
2006 Professor Karl-Peter Hubbertz held 2 ICDP courses,
in Athgara and Malda and in West Bengal. Due to very good response
during 2006 field workers from six participant organisations implemented
the programme in practice with different groups of families and
children. Their work was evaluated at a subsequent training seminar.
Two
regional ICDP-groups of promoters were established who meet on regular
basis: the "north-group" and the "south-group".
German organisation "Indienhilfe" is sponsoring each ICDP
group with small funds covering the costs of materials and other
expenses.
In 2007 several ICDP
teams belonging to local organisations were trained to lead
parent-groups independently. Good results with families and children
were reported at the evaluation
sessions.
In 2008 a new
group of 16 social workers received ICDP training in Seva Kendra
Kharagpur. They developed several ICDP projects with groups of
parents and other caregivers in the region of Kharagpur and Midnapur.
In Seva Kendra Culcatta there were refresher workshops for
participants who received ICDP training during 2006 and 2007. At
this workshop interesting sharing of practical experiences with the
ICDP methodology took place; participants gave each other very
supportive feedback, developing new ideas and establishing future
plans. Bablu Sarkar’s idea to produce a film about ICDP was greeted
enthusiastically. The plan is to record interactions between Bengali
parents and their children and also to film interactions in tribal
families. It was decided to continue with the translation of the
ICDP programme into Bengali which had been initiated earlier by
Debashish and Aparna. Mrs. Maria Chatterjee will translate the
booklet “I’m a person too!” for direct use by parents. All
participants expressed their wishes and intentions to continue with
the ICDP work in the future.
During 2009 the
focus was on consolidating and evaluating. The following
organizations that apply ICDP in different locations were involved
in the evaluation: Manab Jamin (SEVA); Vikas Kendra (SEVA); Bikash/
Bankura; Seva Kendra Kharagpur; Namasole Palli Mangal Samity; Lake
Gardens/ Kolkata. Evaluation discussions took place with ICDP
facilitators, with individual mothers and with different parent
groups, which revealed that parents who attend ICDP meetings show
more loving attention, empathy and sensitivity for their children.
They are more patient, considerate and more aware of the way they
bring up their children. Physical punishment of children has
considerably been reduced or stopped altogether and as result
children have become more cooperative, emotionally more balanced and
happier.
Professor Karl-Peter Hubbertz's 2010 update:
“My colleague Maria Chatterjee is coordinating the work of ICDP on the
ground. In 2010 she went on several field visits, including to
Kharagpur. Kharagpur is one of the more distant regions of West
Bengal where last year Maria and I conducted together an ICDP
workshop. Maria continued supervising the process of training of the
workshop participants who came from many different villages;
eventually they started to implement ICDP in practice by running their
own ICDP groups with local caregivers.

Their
ICDP work with caregivers and families has demonstrated very
good results. I am very happy that ICDP managed to develop even in
this very remote and difficult area. Maria will conduct new
ICDP-courses in West Bengal over the next few months and I will join
her later on.”
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