International Child Development Programmes
Nicoletta Armstrong
2011

International Child Development Programmes
ä ICDP is a competence-building NGO in the field of psychosocial and educational care of children.
ä Our work is directed towards children in general and particularly towards vulnerable children, their caregivers and families.

International Child Development Programmes
ä ICDP developed a simple programme tested out in different societies all over the world from Indonesia to Latin American, from South Africa and Angola to Scandinavian countries and
West-Russia.
ä There is evidence that the programme works in many different societies and with caregivers with very different educational background. It is culturally adaptable .

International Child Development Programmes
ä The ICDP Program is based on well-documented research in developmental psychology:
ä The Vygotsky-tradition = emphasis on adult guidance inside the zone of proximal development
ä New research on infant-caregiver communication,
ä Cultural and dialogical psychology, Rogoff, Schaffer,
Tomasello

International Child Development Programmes
Scientific background
8 guidelines for good interaction of ICDP are based on well documented research in developmental psychology.
D. Stern, C.Trevarthen, researchers in early communication.
Adult guidance and support to the child’s exploratory initiatives and activities:
“the zone of proximal development” L. Vygotsky
“joint attention and joint involvement episodes” R.
Shaffer, “guided participation” B.Rogoff
“scaffolding” Bruner and Wood
“mediation” R. Feuerstein, P. Klein.

International Child Development Programmes
ä Our work is competence building and training
ä We are working in a community based way by mobilising local resource persons in networks and organisations we train to spread our program further to local caregivers.
ä Through this approach we are able to reach more caregivers, families and children at risk than we would if we used the traditional clinical or institutional approach. Our aim is large scale implementation .

International Child Development Programmes
Caregivers, children and families
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ä poverty after-effects of war and uprooting family-conflicts and violence children in camps children in institutions preschools and schools
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ä child protection services adoption, foster carers prisons minority groups health visitors and clinics in combination with other community development programs

International Child Development Programmes
ä Sensitization, not intervention
ä Although we actively encourage the participation of men, in practice we mostly work with groups of women and networks in which women are strongly involved. This is so because children’s caregivers in most traditional societies are still women.
ä Empowerment of women is therefore implicit in our programme.
ä ICDP for fathers

International Child Development Programmes
ä We aim to strengthen caregiver’s involvement with their children in a positive way, to give them confidence in their own capacity as carers, to facilitate relationships that support children’s development and to prevent those relationships and conditions that may lead to neglect and abuse of children.
ä In this way our program is closely linked to the work of promoting children’s rights and it contributes towards building peace from the very base of society.

International Child Development Programmes
ä When the training is over and quality work established, we withdraw, having prepared local trainers to take over the organisation and further training of new groups of caregivers.
ä In order to ensure sustainability we follow up the work of local teams over some time, and, whenever possible, we insert the
ICDP Program into existing educational structure, such as highschools and universities, so it becomes an established part of the local educational system that graduates future leaders and resource-persons in this field.

International Child Development Programmes
1.
As an effective parenting programme, in home based or group meetings.
2. Directly in combination with any content oriented pre-school program, thus serving to enrich and increase the quality of interaction that is needed both for children’s emotional stability and attachment and for their psycho-social development.
3. As an integral part of any primary health care programme where preventive information and consciousness-raising of caregivers is considered important.

International Child Development Programmes
3. To train caregivers in a child care institution sensitising them for the specific psycho-social needs of disadvantaged or disabled children.
4. To develop minimal standards for human care within a setting of child care when emergency situations arise: young children who are placed in camps or institutions due to war, migration, catastrophes, abuse and trauma, or abandoned street children.
5. In schools, to make the inter-subjective space in the classroom more conducive to learning.
6. In combination with other programs promoting health, nutrition, children’s rights, democratic dialogue etc.

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