Father Lucian from FUP explains about the situation in 2021: “After the project funding finished FUP facilitators continued applying the ICDP programme in parents’ meetings that are held for the parents of the children that attend FUP’s educational programme. Unfortunately, during 2021 there was a lot less activity due to the pandemic situation. In addition, I tried to propose the ICDP programme to the regional department for education, thinking that it could be implemented for teachers from kindergarten and primary schools, but until now, this has not happened. I hope that the situation will change in the near future!”
2018 – Four new trainers in Bacau
2016 – First facilitators trained
CHRONOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENTS:
In May 2014 SOS Children’s Villages Romania has become a new cooperating partner of ICDP in order to introduce the ICDP method to Romania.
SOS Children’s Villages Romania has over the last seven years been working with children and families at risk in the rural communities in Bacau (Bacau county – http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bac%C4%83u), through SOS counseling and support centers for children and parents. They felt that ICDP is adding a new innovative component to their work with disadvantaged communities.
ICDP, as a new model focused on child-parent interaction, was introduced through the project called “International Child Development Programme – strategy to prevent inequalities, social and family violence”, sponsored by the EEA grants, in 2014 and 2015.
The project was implemented in eight villages of the Bacau county, characterized by poverty, lack of job opportunities, family violence, and inadequate parenting attitudes and practices.
The project aimed to increase the level of response and mobilize community members and public authorities towards actions that will reduce inequalities and violence against children. Project activities targeted specialists working with children and parents, with the intention of enriching their knowledge and enhancing their care-giving skills.
Activities included:
– Implementing a training program based on the ICDP model
– Elaborating an intervention plan for children and their families, beneficiaries of Counselling and Support Center for – Children and Parents Bacau, based on the ICDP model
– Organizing events, informing and promoting project activities and the innovative approach of the ICDP model
– Organizing training sessions for the comunity consultatives structures in 8 communities from Bacau County
– Providing technical assistance to community consultative structures to enable them to introduce the ICDP model in the best possible way
– Developing local work plans for the 8 communities from Bacau County
In 2015, SOS Children’s Villages Romania celebrated the end of their training programme,which culminated in the graduation of its first group of ICDP trainers.
“We are very proud of our ICDP achievements. Through this project we have become more visible in the community and because of that we have a few proposals for partnership regarding the ICDP method. We are very glad that many specialists from the social field are showing interest to learn the ICDP method. We plan to provide them with ICDP theoretical and practical information and training in order to improve their relation with children and parents. SOS is signing new partnerships with schools and day care centers, where the training in ICDP will be given free of charge. We will be monitoring the training through face to face meetings between the participants and the ICDP trainer from SOS. The number of facilitators will gradually be increased in the future. SOS will continue to use the ICDP method in the future and we will monitor very closely its impact on parents – and based on these results we will prepare a new application to expand the use of the ICDP programme to more regions in Romania. This expansion will take place through our partnership with the National Authority for the Protection of Children’s Rights and the Ministry of Education.” – Nikoleta Preda, National Programme Development Director and Adriana Birloi, Programme Development Expert, SOS Children’s Villages Romania.
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Since 2015, ICDP has been cooperating on a project in Bacau. This project represents cooperation between ICDP, the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and Fundatia Umanitara Pacea (FUP), (Humanitarian Foundation for Peace). The goal is to increase the psycho-social wellbeing for children in the Bacau region, through improved parent-child communication. FUP is a non-political, non-governmental organization founded in 2000 by the Franciscan order with the purpose of assisting poor and marginalized people with a special focus on children’s and young people’s education.
In early February 2017, five trainees attended an ICDP workshop as part of their training to become qualified ICDP trainers. The February workshop was the second ICDP workshop at trainer level attended by this group of professionals from FUP. As a result they are now ready to start training new people to become ICDP facilitators. They are expected to complete their training projects by September 2017. This group will become the second group of ICDP qualified trainers operating in the region of Bacau, Romania.