In 2003, the first Centre of Early Intervention (CEI) Services Voinicel https://voinicel.md/ was founded in Chisinau, Moldova, with the help of the Norwegian non-governmental organisation Ahead-Moldova. The need for family-based intervention was identified in order to address the high rate of abandoned children with disabilities in four orphanages, resulting from a lack of services for families with children at risk of developmental disorders, as well as those with identified disabilities. ICDP started to develop in 2012 and the programme has been used on an ongoing basis since then by Marina Kalak (pediatrician), Ala Bendrerchi (speach therapist) and Mariana Jalba (child neurologist) established ICDP through their own work with the parents and children at the Centre. Sylvia Briabin (psychologist) moved in 2018 to Romania.
“In March 2020 we started to train a new group of facilitators from different districts. There were 15 participants from the beginning and 12 finished the ICDP course. We had to reorganize the mode of training to do it in an online format. It was quite challenging but we did it! Furthermore, we succeeded to do it interactively and to make it “lively. One of the adaptations included extending the second module to make sure all the participants internalized the ICDP ideas. Due to pandemic not all participants had possibility to organize meetings with group of parents, however, they managed to perform the necessary number of meetings, either in group or individually. As a result, we now have 12 new ICDP facilitators in different districts and most of them work with less able children.
We continue to implement ICDP at Voinicel Center as well. This programme became extremely important in these very difficult times. We hope to extend our training activities to Transnistria region next year, provided our project application is successful. Despite the pandemic and its many challenges, we had a new great experience in implementing ICDP in Moldova”. – Marina Jalba.