ICDP Ukraine, first steps of a new initiative

The ICDP programme will be implemented by teams of professionals working in the area located near the conflict zone. This is a territory with the highest concentration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and their children.

The ICDP plans for Ukraine, which were developed in Chisinau, together with the president of ICDP Nicoletta Armstrong and Marianne Fresjara Abdalla from the Norwegian Peace Association, began to be put into action as soon as the trainers returned from the Chisinau workshop, which was held during the first week of March 2015.

The president of ICDP Ukraine, Anna Truhan (on photo, in the middle) and the President of the "Association of Child and Family Psychologist of Ukraine", Sergey Krasin (on photo, on the left), met in March with Olga Klimovskaya, head of UNICEF for the eastern region. The meeting was held in Kharkiv. They discussed the first steps of cooperation. The ICDP training will begin in the UNICEF centres in Kharkiv, where groups of facilitators will be established over the coming months. In addition, they are currently discussing possibilities for ICDP training to take place in other  cities.

Anna and Sergey also had a meeting with the representatives of the International Charitable Fund "Caritas Ukraine". The meeting was held at the head office of "Caritas Ukraine" in Lviv. They discussed the need for the ICDP programne and a plan was formulated for the training of the psychologists from Caritas in ICDP.
At the end of March, the ICDP training programme  for psychologists begins in Druzhkovka (Donetsk region). The city is near the conflict zone.
In early April,  the training of volunteers-psychologists will start in Slavyansk (Donetsk region).
The traning is also planned  for groups of social workers and psychologists in Kharkiv, Kiev, Zaporozhye, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnitsa and other cities.
 
According to the official data 776, 950 people left the temporarily occupied territories and other regions of military action.
Most of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) moved to Kharkiv (146, 660 people, including 14, 968 children and 88, 901 disabled), Lugansk region (141, 333 people, including 9, 390 children and 99, 224 disabled), Donetsk region (102, 006 people,  including 20, 917 children and 29, 182 disabled), Dnipropetrovsk (80, 879 people,  including 13, 895 children and 36, 710 disabled), Zaporozhye (59, 909 people,  including 14, 589 children and 17, 519 disabled), Kiev (35, 775 people,  including 7, 393 children and 1, 279 disabled)  and Kyiv region (39, 047 people,  including 9, 291 children and 5, 680 disabled). And this is just what has been offiially recorded, the actual number is likely to be much higher, because many people do not receive the status of IDPs.
 
ICDP Ukraine is starting to work in the cities mentioned above. Its partner organization, the "Association of child and family psychologists of Ukraine", was founded with the main objective to give ICDP training  to specialists who work with IDPs and with residents in the cities where military actions took place.
 
Both Anna and Sergey have extensive experience of using the ICDP program in their work with IDPs. Last year they used the program at "Kharkiv Station", the largest reception point for IDPs in Ukraine.
In October 2014, Anna worked  for the International Charitable Fund "Caritas Ukraine". That experience is proving useful for all social workers involved in assisting the IDPs.
In August 2014, Sergey visited Slavyansk where he shared previous ICDP work experience with Slavyansk volunteers. During September he worked with the international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation "Medecins Sans Frontieres" (MSF).
Anna and Sergey also conducted regular ICDP seminars and workshops for psychologists, social workers, teachers and educators in different cities around Ukraine.

There are other ICDP trainers currently active in Ukraine and their work is focused on developing a new ICDP training programme in Antratsit, where ICDP was used extensively during 2013 and 2014.