Welcome to ICDP

YEAR 2010

DENMARK

From an update by psychologist Anne Linder, founder of “Authenticus” www.authenticus.dk: - For two and a half years now we have run a project using ICDP to assist parents in the Vordingborg commune. It is called "Helping ordinary parents with normal children with common problems" . The project was evaluated by the University of Pedagogues DPU, and supported by the Ministry of Social Affairs. In the period from August to December 2009, another ICDP project took place, where the training involved a group of 44 pedagogues and leaders from a local organization that works for the benefit of children and young people with delayed mental development. The project was financed by the Næstved commune and it was evaluated by the DPU. The DPU evaluation report confirmed that it is possible to sensitize professional caregivers and thus improve the quality of their interactions with children. In the Lolland commune, ICDP training was given to 26 persons, including pedagogues and nurses. This work was financed by the commune itself, with a contribution from the Ministry for Social Affairs who will also evaluate the project. In the Randers commune a pilot project is starting to develop in a public library for children, where 24 staff members will receive ICDP training. This represents a new exciting challenge, but we have already received some positive feedback. The project will be researched by the university and if it proves successful it may lead to ICDP being incorporated as part of the general training for librarians. There are continuous requests for ICDP training from different educational institutions and therefore the current challenge is to form new groups of ICDP qualified trainers who can spread ICDP according to demand. Anne Linder's book "Professional Relationships" will be published in the spring of 2010. The book illustrates how the ideas behind ICDP can be used to increase professionals' focus on relational issues, such as teacher-pupil relationship.

This year Denmark will host the ICDP Nordic conference which will be held on 27th-28 of May 2010.
The theme of the conference "Moments of presence". Anne Linder writes: - This theme reflects the primary concern of ICDP in Denmark to strengthen the relationship between children and professionals. All good moments are precious for such relationships. In order to develop a successful relationship with children adults must take responsibility for timing, controlling their own mental attention and they need to be empathic. But to achieve this they have to be able to create moments of presence. In order to ensure knowledge sharing different Scandinavian countries will be given space to present their latest projects and materials - so please come and share your ICDP experiences with other enthusiasts. The PPR journal of educational psychology, will publish a special issue concerning the conference. We shall be very pleased to welcome everyone in Denmark. Link to the ICDP Nordic Conference www.icdp.dk ICDP Denmark is on Facebook.

FEBRUARY

ICDP INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL BOARD MEETING

The ICDP International annual board meeting took place in Oslo, on the 8th and 9th of February. This year the chairman Karsten Hundeide invited two members of the previous board, as well as representatives from Norway, Sweden and Denmark to join the meeting, with the purpose of increasing our effectiveness as a board and also as part of a more general effort to join forces on the international scene.

The meeting analyzed the nature of ICDP developments in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, the African and the Latin American countries, which pointed towards some common positive traits but also revealed challenges and areas that need to be improved. All present agreed that there is evidence for an overall positive reception of the ICDP program, that its application generally produces positive changes in adult-child relationships and that there is a demand for scaling up action around the world. The chairman invited the board to consider and discuss ways of improving effectiveness in certain areas of our activities, such as fundraising, more consistent application of ICDP policies and procedures for cooperation, better communication and action that would draw on our human resources in a more coherent manner. The meeting concluded that there has been a steady growth of ICDP activities internationally. In order to be able to respond to the growing demand for our program it was felt necessary to increase the number of ICDP International Trainers capable of establishing ICDP in new countries. It was decided to hold in 2010 at least one International training seminar for new persons interested to be trained in ICDP and one training seminar that would upgrade existing trainers to the level of International trainers. The professional committee will continue to meet in Oslo, but it was extended to include two new members with international experience. The executive team will be strengthened by inviting a new person to join in. The members of the international board agreed to hold more regular meetings in the future, either via skype or in person, and dates were set for such meetings. The ICDP International board felt invigorated by this annual meeting as it brought a new course for action and it deepened the human contact between its members.

MOZAMBIQUE

The Pedagogic University in Maputo officially inserted the ICDP program in the curriculum of post-graduate students, as part of Master courses in psychotherapy. As part of this agreement ICDP will develop 2 training modules. The modules will be including field work for students, who will be accompanied by ICDP in their practical application of the ICDP program, whereas their written work will be examined and supported via internet.

Other events that recently took place, include a 2-day ICDP Introduction and Sensitization seminar attended by 15 senior staff from the Directorate of Education and Culture for the Maputo Province (see photos below).

According to the assessment made by the participants, this seminar had a very positive impact . It represents the first step in a strategy that aims to extend the application of the ICDP program for use in schools in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Pedro Mendes informs: "We are in process of negotiating an MoU with the Ministry since the work of ICDP has made a good impression on them and they see that there is an urgent need to engage the teachers in the ICDP sensitization process, in order to promote the concept of Child Friendly School and improve children’s condition in the classroom and in the school. However we are short of funds that could be allocated for this purpose, something we need to overcome."

In addition, this seminar evaluated the local team's knowledge of the ICDP program, their performance and their acquisition of other skills they need to master in order to be able to start an ICDP intervention. As agreed with NORAD, the seminar was also a training in project management for the local team.

JANUARY

START OF A NEW PROJECT IN BRAZIL

ICDP has started cooperation with Dr Guillermo Navas, the director of Save the Children Fund Brazil, and his team in Recife working on a multi-institutional project in the semi-arid region of Pernambuco and Bahia states in North East Brazil, and Acomayo province in the Cusco region of Peru. The project is sponsored mainly by the European Community. Brazil and Peru are countries with huge inequalities linked to race, ethnicity, gender, social class and geographic location. In the North-East of Brazil and the Andean Highlands of Peru there are areas of extreme poverty where many children still die from diarrhoeal diseases and pneumonia, which should have been easy to prevent and treat. The overall objective of the project is to improve the development and survival of children under five in poor and excluded populations. The specific objective is to support Non-State Actors and Local Authorities to provide services which improve the health and wellbeing of children under five, and to increase the responsibility of duty bearers (including community members and parents) to protect children’s rights.

The action will target the most impoverished and excluded populations, that live in difficult to reach areas, out of reach of mainstream services and resources, and that are excluded from policy making processes. The action is aimed at promoting an inclusive and empowered civil society, where people are aware of their rights and familiar with the mechanisms at local level to advocate for the realisation of these rights and influence local planning and funding procedures. The action will facilitate a dialogue between civil society and local authorities on early childhood development, poverty and inequality, which will be taken to an international level. The non-state actors and local authorities from the selected areas in Brazil and Peru will develop new models for integrating basic services for early childhood development that will be implemented and tried in their municipality or district. They will create new concepts for comprehensive day care centres, where children under five receive basic education and get a wholesome meal every day, where hygiene and sanitation measures are respected, and where parents, caregivers and teachers know to refer a sick child, or a child in need of protection. The models will be evaluated by the end of the second year, and best practices will be replicated to expand the action to other municipalities and districts in both countries in the remaining three years. The experiences will be analysed, documented, published and shared among the stakeholders in the selected areas, and in a variety of networks for child survival, education and protection.

Save the Children aims to support this process through the creation of a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) composed of organisations that have technical expertise in education, health, nutrition and protection. In Brazil the TAG will consist of members from Save the Children (for overall guidance and for emphasis on child participation and early childhood development), Centro Luiz Freire (for reaching Indigenous and Quilombola communities, and for developing tools for early childhood education), Centro Nordestino for all health and nutrition aspects, Mae Coruja (for improving the state sponsored Mother and Child Health programme), ICDP (for early childhood development and parenting), and CLADE (for developing tools and standards in early childhood education).

The community groups will receive an initial training from the different partner organisations. The training will cover three thematic areas: a) Care and Psychosocial Development in Early Childhood (ICDP); b) Health and Nutrition in Early Childhood (CNMP); c) Protection of Child Rights and Combating Domestic and Sexual Violence Against Children (CENDHEC).

The action is targeted at the three following groups: 1. 52,400 Children under five from poor and excluded populations, and their caregivers; 2. Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in 36 municipalities in Pernambuco and Bahia states in Brazil and 4 districts in Acomayo province in Peru; 3. National, international -and European- networks and forums on early childhood development, education, child rights and child survival

During the first two and a half years of the action new models for integrated services for early childhood development will be created, implemented, and evaluated. After that, these experiences will be analysed, documented, published and shared in a variety of existing networks for child survival, education and protection, such as: (a) the Global Child Survival Campaign of the Save the Children Alliance; (b) the Global Campaign for Education2, and its Latin American, Brazilian, and Peruvian chapters; (c) The Save the Children Alliance Child Protection Initiative, and the Brazilian and Peruvian networks for human rights and child rights (ANCED and DEMUNAS respectively). Furthermore, the action will create a new network for early childhood development within the Latin American campaign for education.

A group of professionals (educators and social workers) from an NGO called ACARI (photo above) will in the coming months be receiving training from ICDP and their task will later be to coordinate the spreading of the ICDP methodology to others. Polyanna Magalhães from Save the Children office in Recife is coordinating this initiative (far left on photo above). The first ICDP courses will be given to families and children linked to local preschools and to Mãe Coruja. (Mãe Coruja is the Governor of Pernambuco’s initiative for the care of pregnant women through the public health system. The programme aims to reduce maternal and child mortality by improving the coordination of services for pregnant women by the health, education, development and social welfare departments. The programme provides health education, literacy classes and a variety of life skills to pregnant women.)

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