Strengthens parents to give children and young people a good childhood

The best way to strengthen children’s and young people’s upbringing conditions is by strengthening parents in their parenting role. This is the philosophy behind the International Child Development Programme (ICDP), which is now becoming available to more people with support from the Kavli Trust.

The Kavli Trust has awarded NOK 1.4 million to ICDP Norway’s work to make the programme accessible to parents and other caregivers in more countries.

“We are delighted to enter into a new and exciting collaboration within one of the Kavli Trust’s highest priority areas – the mental health of children and young people,” says Ingrid Paasche, Managing Director of the Kavli Trust.

“ICDP is a knowledge-based, low-threshold programme designed to strengthen quality of life and well-being and to prevent mental health problems among children and young people. We strongly believe that expanding this programme can contribute to a better everyday life for children around the world,” Paasche says.

Simple and preventive

ICDP is a simple, health-promoting and preventive guidance programme designed to support a good upbringing for children and young people. It targets parents and other caregivers and aims to strengthen their caregiving competence.

The programme consists of group sessions with dialogue and knowledge-sharing, where parents explore and become more aware of their role through guidance from certified ICDP facilitators.

A key principle is that parents are not instructed, but rather helped to become aware of what they already do well and encouraged to find solutions that address the challenges they experience.

“At ICDP, we believe in parents’ own capacity for caregiving. By providing knowledge and time for reflection together, we strengthen parents’ sense of mastery so they become more confident and attentive caregivers for their children,” says Heidi Westborg Steel, Managing Director of ICDP Norway.

“The support from the Kavli Trust is invaluable because it gives us the opportunity to develop a real ICDP Sharing Community. In the same way, we will continue to share knowledge about ICDP and child development, which is limited in many countries, and provide time for joint reflection in light of each country’s cultural context. Over time, this will increase locally rooted knowledge about child development within each culture,” Westborg Steel adds.

One key element is helping parents become more sensitive to their children. This requires that parents themselves build confidence in their caregiving role.

Facilitators are certified through dedicated ICDP courses, either locally or internationally.

“I hadn’t really thought much about the father role before, but now I understand that it’s important to reflect on it so I can be a good role model for my son.”
– Father of a young child who has participated in ICDP

Collaboration with multiple stakeholders

With support from the Kavli Trust, ICDP Norway will collaborate with Norwegian development organisations and local partners to make ICDP available in Nepal, Tanzania and Uganda.

ICDP has already been introduced in these countries, but the work is at different stages in each of them.

ICDP Norway will help strengthen cooperation between national units, increase capacity, and ensure the quality of the programme in all three countries.

“The work will include several concrete measures,” says Rune Mørland, Head of International Grants at the Kavli Trust.

In each country, the national ICDP network will be established or strengthened with certified facilitators and trainers who will themselves provide training and further certification in the method.

“Digital platforms for collaboration, knowledge-sharing and training will be created under the name ICDP Sharing Community. In addition, the work in the three countries will be followed up to ensure that this understanding is disseminated and reaches as many people as possible,” Mørland explains.

Broad collaboration

The project is a major collaborative effort involving multiple contributors. ICDP Norway will lead the project in close cooperation with a working group consisting of representatives from partners in the three countries, as well as ICDP International.

Other Norwegian partners involved include Strømmestiftelsen, HimalPartner, Digni, Norwegian Church Aid, GlobalY, the Norwegian Union of Social Educators and Social Workers (FO), and the Grieg Foundation.

Facts

• Recipient: ICDP Norway
• Grant amount: NOK 1.4 million
• Project period: 2024–2026

About ICDP

• The International Child Development Programme (ICDP) was developed in Norway in the 1990s by Professor Karsten Hundeide and Professor Henning Rye at the University of Oslo, in collaboration with an international team.
• The programme is one of the most widely used parenting support programmes in Norway and is particularly preferred in work with refugees.
• Today, ICDP is used in more than 50 countries and is adapted for both high-income and low-income settings.
• In Norway, ICDP Norway has two employees and a team of 300 certified trainers, as well as 10 senior trainers with extensive international experience.
• ICDP Norway is an active partner in ICDP International, especially in Africa and Asia. ICDP Norway also shares leadership of the Norwegian Network for Global Mental Health, which works with authorities to promote knowledge about and funding for mental health in development cooperation.