National consultation on innovative approaches to ICDS training, NIPCCD Banglore, Sept 10-12, 1996: a report

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), launched in 1975 by the the Government of India (GOI), is one of the world's largest outreach programmes for early childhood care and development. A comprehensive development programme, ICDS aims to meet the holistic needs of children below six years of age, to create a healthy environment for their mental and physical development. The programme draws on the resources of the Centre, states, voluntary organisations and the communities to meet its objectives of: reduction in mortality. morbidity and malnutrition among children, by improving their nutritional and health status; reduction in school drop-out rates; enhancement of mothers' capability to look after the developmental needs of their children; and effective policy implementation and coordination.

In the last 22 years, ICDS has expanded from the initial 33 projects to 5416 projects. Covering 32 states/UTs presently, the programme's objective of universalisation has thrown open the challenge for the programme planners and implementors to doubly enhance the capability and resources of ICDS to cater to a diversity and spectrum of community settings.

A very significant resource component fICDS is the training of its workers, functionaries and partners at various levels, including community/women's groups. It is through these human resources that the programme vision is realised and strategies implemented. In the face of universalisation of ICDS and its emerging community-based approaches, it has become necessary for ICDS training to correspondingly move towards enhancing the skills of its frontline workers. This would involve playing the role of not only service providers, but also of mobilisers of community support. The community is increasingly recognised as the ultimate link in the training chain.

It was within this context, that a three-day national consultation on 'Innovative Approaches to ICDS Training' was organised by the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), GOI, and the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), from September 10-12, 1996. The venue was NIPCCD, Bangalore. The consultation was also organised to review previous recommendations delineated for ICDS training in an earlier meet in 1995 at NIPCCD, New Delhi.

The primary objective of the consultation was to develop a common operational framework for the formulation of state-specific ICDS training plans. The framework would be evolved through a sharing of experiences between various states of the country, with regard to their respective innovative strategies, and through exposure to new participatory training approaches.

The national consultation was chaired by Ms. Rina Ray, Deputy Secretary, DWCD, GOI, and comprised 76 participants, including state directors of ICDS, deputy directors in charge of training in 19 states and UTS, and GOI officials from DWCD. Trainers, from across various institutes and organisations, included specialists and national core trainers from the NIPCCD headquarters and regional centres, key trainers from selected state training institutions, MLTCS, AWTCS, NGOs and training partners including UNICEF.

The three-day national consultation was divided into eight sessions, which followed a participatory methodology. This meant building upon the rich knowledge base of the participants, an opportunity for experiential learning and action/reflection, and the use of a variety of learning methods and tools.