WORKPLACE CHATTER...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

INDISCREET..."Having or showing too great a readiness to reveal things that should be private or secret".

 Walls have ears

In the end, the indiscreet chatter experience was painful, to say the least. It was a camp. We were each responsible for a group to talk about the night time beach experience of making and lighting candles on the shoreline. I was given a group of adolescent girls. For the life of me, I don't know how I got there. In an idle of guard moment, I asked one of the group, " Why is your brother rubbing his child care worker (Name), up the wrong way?" ( OR WORSE in physical bodily terms). 

Well, as you can imagine, it soon got back to the child and youth care worker and to the whole camp. Breakfast next morning, the child and youth care worker told the whole camp, publicly, that she was instituting disciplinary action against me. Based on loyalty, the camp split. Which meant that the Home split. Those for me said "Fire her !". Those for her said  "Fire him !"   

The charge was "Making personal critical insinuations to the young people about her professional practice and breach of confidentiality.

The child care worker let it run for a few days. Then at camp breakfast, as publicly as before, withdrew the threat of charges. This somehow strengthened loyalty groups, which on return from camp, didn't go away.

For me, this was an important lesson in guarding what I said in the workplace in any situation. In that instance, what I said, was said and I couldn't take it back. It was out there.

 Workplace chatter has serious implications in the... who? says to whom? where? and what?.

Let's talk about the who?

Casual talk with colleagues.

Social media issues advice and then a warning. "Keep workplace talk to work. Those you think of as friends "snitch"and then you can get fired". It would seem that colleagues in the workplace who become "friends"  need to have talk boundaries different from personal friends in the  community. I think that the social media comment has some truth in it. Experience shows that indiscreet, no boundary sharing in the workplace can hold employment risks. The sharing, in the workplace of things like relationships ( in and out of marriage), tavern life, drinking episodes... in workplace chatter , all too intimate and risky. All too often, I heard of staff fall outs and management gets an earful. "Do you know that she........Do you know he........ Oops !    Management stereotyping personal belief systems and prejudices can click in

Telephone talk.

There are among us at work, colleagues, some whose lives are hectic, some chaotic,and some deeply romantic. One of the colleagues I remember fell into the hectic, chaotic category. She found it therapeutic to constantly share all her problems with all her outside friends on the phone.Passing colleagues picked up enough to put things together. Then came malicious, harmful gossip. Personal life was getting in the way of effective practice....There's a workplace chatter lesson to be learnt here. 

The there is village gossip spread into the workplace.

We were interviewing for staff.The policy was that we employ 12 learners on stipend and invite 12 to be volunteers with an understanding  that  they are the first to be employed if there occur any vacancies. I said "Employ !'. Management said "Volunteer !". "Why"? "I have heard that she was seen dancing at a tavern in the village". Out of interview, the applicant said, "I was young, we all did that". 

Management.

Don't be influenced by hearsay and gossip. Staff talk to management can be loose talk. When talk with management becomes a moment of idle chatter, it's often what  management is wanting....the off guard moments. "You know, I heard she was struggling with assessments for the Certificate, so she went to two  learners in another project and offered them R300 ZAR each to to do them for her.
.. and they did. It's  difficult to believe Hey! She seems like such an honest person." Danger !!!. 

Advice to child and youth care workers.

Keep workplace talk to workplace talk. Guard the more personal stuff loose chatter and intimacy. Keep it for others. 

Advice to Management.

Avoid chatter, loose talk and gossip. It's only  when formal complaint is lodged that one can take allegations seriously. Otherwise, investigate the chatter. all for the chatterer to tell the story at an investigative consultative interview with both parties present.

INDISCREET " Having or showing too great a readiness to reveal things that should be private or secret." 
Dr Google.

   

LEAVING THE PRGGRAMME...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Robert Stott was easily 72 years of age when he told his story at a Board meeting. He had been in the'" Working Boy's House", so he had been working and earning for the time given. Having to leave, he did have somewhere to go...the parental home. He packed hie suitcase, said his goodbyes. When he got to the gate of the St Goodenough Boy's Home he stopped, stood for a long while. The leaving experience paralysed him with fear overwhelming. He picked up his suitcase and walked back into the Home and into the 'Working Boy's House. "I didn't have the courage to leave", he said. What happened after that he didn't say.

For all, in those early days that might have been done, Robert Stott was totally unprepared for the transition from Boy's Home to out there.
Instituionalisation had robbed him of his confidence to make it independently.

Is Robert Stott's story of roughly 1947 a story of today?

For sure in 1996, St Goodenough Boy's Home had what I called the "silly season". About three weeks before the end of the school year when the boy's had finished writing exams and/ or about to turn 18 and required to leave the Home...all Hell broke loose. Windows broken, graffiti, stones thrown, food riots. Damage to the facility's property was probably the main feature of the "silly season". At first I thought that it had to do with some kind of anger aimed at the Home and it's programme for having to be there institutionally in the first place. Eventually, I got to understand the "silly season" acting out differently. It was driven by the same Robert Stott instituionalisation syndrome of fear and uncertainty at having to leave the safety the "Home". In the "silly season", the thought was t "If I am unmanageable, then the social decision makers will say, "he is not ready to leave. We still have work to do."...and they did.

In the training and education of child and youth care workers today, we learn that at the point of entry, you are planning departure (disengagement and transitioning). Right? The question is: What is the  policy, programme and practice, not only to develop, but also prepare the young person for transitioning? 

There are any number of leaving the programme scenarios. Running down an incomplete list: there are young people who will return to the parents (presumably well- enough reconstructed), there are those who return to the nuclear family (reclaimed) and at 18 years of age there are those who have nowhere to go.

I had pleas from a young person. Her plea was that I take action against a facility which at age 18 applied the so called legal requirement that she be released. Her plan was to stay with her boyfriend, but in a very short period of time he sent her packing. She had nowhere to go, she said. So she bedded down under a bridge. She claimed having to beg and being raped. Her claim was that the facility in the first place should not have released her without a permanency plan and then distanced itself defensively when confronted. 

So, we are back as always to 'What do we do?"and "What are we doing?" There was a saying in the field that young people should be raised to be 100% independent but that young people in need of care  should be developed to be 150% independent as the circumstances when they leave often and most frequently require that. Programmes must then surely address this from the point of entry.

There are policy and programme models to prepare young people for transitioning.

In every-day life-space practice the programme sets out "Never do anything for a young person that they can do themselves and if they can't, then side by side with the young person empower them to do it. One of the policies I remember was that young persons over the age of 14 do their own laundry, including ironing. There are programmes that require young people to budget household expenses and go themselves as an age appropriate group to do the buying. All household expenses were explained in terms of a budget. In the dormitory system this was done as an exercise for breakfast and clothing. The programme also included meal planning and cooking.

Real budgeting is life preparation, so St Goodenough had a project in which young people 16 and over were given a paper budget of R2000. ( in those days...enough) Took public transport and given the names of second hand shops in the town. They were to come back with a list, showing comparisons, of the cost, within budget, of setting up a single room as a living space with the essential items. Using public transport varied. They had to be able to use, with support, as needed, taxi, train, and bus.

In one facility there was a policy, "nothing is given for free...no handouts for personal use" It meant that allowances were adjusted upwards to accomodate the young people's personal expenses. As the programme did get public donations, young people were given a choice of taking value loaded vouchers or cash. They could exchange the vouchers for second hand goods in the stock room. If they chose to buy new at a retail outlet they were required to discuss their purchases with the child and youth care worker and produce receipts.

Phased leaving over time is another model. Phased leaving is usually over three phases, but can be more. The phases are planned  to, over time, allow that the parents, nuclear family or the significant other to whom the young person is to be released to take more and more responsibility and reduce dependency on the programme.

Concern is shown that transitioning through semi-independent and independent living programmes (and living spaces)is a missing programme feature in South African child and youth care. There are some, but it appears that there are either not many or not enough.

In the 1960's Brian Gannon helped young people by giving  financial, social and child care support to transition into their own living places.  He said that he was never disappointed.  At that time 6 months after-care was a legal requirement as a responsibility of the facility. It is no longer legally required of the facility, but the external social service professionals can do it. St Goodenough had a coffee club every two weeks for leavers to attend as a support group if they wanted.

We are told that transitioning practice is thin on the ground. The warning lights are flashing in the social media. It is a call for policy makers, management and practitioners to put heads together for policy and professional implementation. Let not the Robert Stott syndrome prevail.


  









   

SACRIFICES MADE...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

In South Africa, social media abounds with posts and comments which either state outright that child and youth care work involves sacrifice or imply that it does.

 In 1923 The Revd Noel Aldridge recognised that there was a huge need for the care of boys either orphaned, or "pragmatically" orphaned (as he put it), in an area called Wichwood in Johannesburg, as a result of the loss of bread winning fathers in World War 1. At first he took boys into his own home ...the Rectory attached to his church. His pleas convinced the Anglo America Gold Mining Company to donate a flat, disused mine dump . No buildings. Noel Aldridge erected 6 large military tents on the land and took in boys.

 In that same year the great flu epidemic struck South Africa. Boys  had flu. Noel Aldridge gave his blankets to a boy with the flu, got the flu himself and died . It was the ultimate sacrifice.
For St Goodenough Noel Aldridge's ultimate sacrifice became the benchmark. Talk of "what I'm losing by doing this" and the Noel Aldridge story would always be raised to silence complaints. The work of the child and youth care worker was labelled "noble"....a "calling". It was expected . 

 Even now,  The deputy Minister of Social Welfare at the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW) said to child and youth care workers that they should not complain if they don't get paid, or if earn only a stipend.

 Noel Aldridge gave up his life, so what do you give up?..It's an unfair comparison. Organisational management Government policy and good  governance should eliminate at least most of our disadvantages as child and youth care workers
Noel Adridge did have a genuine "calling". But professional specialised knowledge, professionalisation and the career choice to use this, is legitimate reason to do child and youth care work. Being professional is not an add-on to a calling.The calling idea is used as an excuse to justify sacrifices because the calling idea is linked to money.

I was once told by a  Board of Management member "We don't want professionals.- they only want money like soccer players. We just want people who love the children"
But, 'Love is not enough"and professionals should be paid for what they are worth.

It really shouldn't mean sacrifice.

All this goes together with the other sacrifices. TIME... Day shift, night shift, 24/7, long hours - sometimes 12 hour shifts. The effects are not only fatigued brains and bodies, the money and the time issues have an effect on our own family life and our own children. We should never have to sacrifice our own children's parenting and care...but frequently we do. Living -in with our own children has its own particular sacrifices. Seldom, if ever, does management ask about how our own children are.
I once did a workshop presentation, discussion. The responses paralleled the concerns I had about having my own children raised in a residential facility. 

Much of this has, or is, changing as live-out staff and shift systems replace the old "Housemother" thinking. And yet in some places it still lingers on.

Living -in sounds like a bonus, but it has with it, it's own elements of sacrifice, It comes as a realisation , some time later, sometimes too late, that if you have need to change jobs or retire, you have no place to go. Cash salaries are reduced as the live-in accomodation and food are regarded as part of the overall package. This means that pension contributions are low aa are pension pay-outs. 

As I said, all of this can be changed. It doesn't have to be so. 

Now for the unchangeables. These really. I think, go with the territory. Dealing every day with the young people's emotional stress and tensions in the life-space has and does have an effect on our own emotional status This is where proper supervision is essential in child and youth care work. In addition repeated acts of verbal attack take their toll. Its a sacrifice against which employers should build in supportive measures to avoid emotional fatigue otherwise known as burn-out.

There is an up-side to all of this, Somehow the sacrifices can be experienced as worthwhile. Noel Aldridge saved a boy's life with his blankets, We save lives with our knowledge, skills and self - our professionalism.

A young man knocked on my door ,. Tall ...and he said "Mr Lodge. Do you remember me?"  I said "Yes" although I didn't recognise him at all. He came in. "I came to thank you." He said. I'm on my way to the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London to do an internship. I'm becoming a pediatric doctor and then a surgeon. Do you remember one evening you sat on the end of my bed and said "You are one young person I believe can really make it. You can rise above all of this. Well, that was a turning point in my life....from then..... I've come to thank you".

All the sacrifices faded in that moment. Somehow it all seemed worthwhile. Knowing what I know. Given a chance. I would do it all again.





  
  

A NIGHT OF PEER INFLUENCE... CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

It was to do with on-line, life-space development practice with young people. As a start I suggested the Life-space Interview (LSI), Positive Peer Pressure (PPP), Problem Solving, Problem Ownership, I messages ,the assertive communication style, Natural and Logical Consequences.

That night I didn't sleep well. Round and round in my head I relived incidents of peer influence, both negative and positive It probably started with the workshop opening. I said that what the child and youth care workers were doing was  group residential care - better - group residential development. It means that for the child and  youth care worker, the group, in itself, is a tool for development practice. In proceduralising Positive Peer Pressure (PPP), the difference between PPP and Peer Management had to be made. All this overstimulated neuronal energy......insomnia.

Someone once posted on social media, "I don't understand people  who, head on pillow, just fall asleep. Don't they have anything to think about?"

Came to mind arrival at St Goodenough and the programme's system. It was closer to Peer Management than perhaps I first realised. Three models, or systems of "care for boys" were used all at the same time. The private school model, the military model and the boy scout model. Boys managed boys by having Home Prefects, House Prefects, Platoon Leaders, Sargent Majors. Table Monitors, Dormitory Monitors.

When Masud Hoghughi stayed on a visit, he was unimpressed. "Where are the child and youth care workers?" he asked. "This is a formula for abuse. I want to see your Board Chairperson". He was right. Disturbed young people in that system were given authority to manage disturbed young people. "Where are the child and youth care workers?"

Group peer influence was hardly positive. Boys and Girls Town seemed to get it right. I couldn't.

In insomniac moments, moments were relived.

The mantra ...the repeated chorus was "This is the way we do it at St Goodenough". Child and youth care workers fell easily into the refrain.... the culture. "The boys have their own way of sorting things out"tBut the sorting out was hardly developmentally useful. It was the power of the group, but in this setting, it was negative. 

Long story short. Three boys were identified to the police having stolen petrol from the mini-bus and accidentally set fire to the rear of the mini-bust. It was in any case an insurance claim requirement. A very belligerent group delegation  "We don't do it like that at St Goodenough" The threats of assault were aimed at me. Interesting that the protection of the peers was put ahead of the convenience of their own means of transportation . It had nothing to do with the behaviour of the peers. It had everything to do with my response. The peer influence system was powerful enough to pressurise staff and attempt to pressurise the Director. The pattern of this type of incident was ongoing. 

Another image, another place another time.

Ten year old girl on a three story roof threatening to jump. Peer group at ground level chant "Jump ...Jump...Jump"

Then came the positive peer pressure images. Overtime, different setting , different facility culture. The anonymity of hiding in the crowd peer pressure thing changed dramatically when the same young people were shifted into small group residential settings. The child and youth care role become characteristically one of co-regulation and the orchestration of the group toward positive peer pressure.

The "We don't do it this way at St Goodenough "shifted 180 degrees to be supportive of the positive. The group was now fully a tool in itself toward more appropriate, more coping and more developmentally supportive.

In those  sleepless moments many events swirled Thinking back it all had to do with a deliberately designed and created culture. A designed environment if you like. Key words surfaced. Democratic, co-operative ,supportive, social equality. "We have to live together . We don't really have a choice so we have to make it work for all of us," It was not easy. The child and youth care worker was to, and did, call group meetings (called house meetings) at the drop of a hat. At first, unscheduled group discussions were very frequent, but became less and less frequent. Scheduled meetings were a standardised weekly procedure.

The"Ï feel...when you...because..." formula was found to be useful. This was usually the cue for the child and youth care worker to, what I called "orchestrate"the group. "How can we help each other to do this better?" Newcomers into the programme probably experienced the positive peer pressure the most.

Here's an image that surfaced that night.

What I call "food protests".  The "I don't like i, I wont eat it. It's not like my mother does it, It's not my culture"stories. The verbal protest is not the main issue. but the acting out in the group setting. Images surfaced of food throwing, plates overturned. into the mouth then spat out food, aggressive approaches to staff. "How can you eat this crap?" Quick, quick, group meeting.The group became quite good at exploring with the newcomer, and expressing their own, feelings, thoughts, content, alternative behaviours, support and feedback. Usually the group would kick off with "We don't do it like this at St Goodenough.

Those night time images confirmed:

Peer influence, is powerful. Positive Group Peer Pressure, especially, but not limited to, the more more intimate group residential settings is clearly a valuable if not an essential tool in our child and youth care work.









                               

A DISTURBING INCIDENT...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This blog has never deliberately set out to paint pretty pictures of child and youth care issues and incidents simply to make us look good. South African reality has its fair share of incident and situation in need of confrontation and a call for accountability. We have to come out and admit to good and bad. 

An incident of forced removal hit the social media last week.

With a high practical regard for our culture of rights, especially children's rights and our statutory code of professional ethics, children and families are said to be protected.The video on social media showed the forced removal of a child ( it was said to be in Wellington in the Western Cape?). Surely this is an isolated incident but it disturbed me greatly.

The video showed a contingency of what must have been about 6 uniformed armed police forcibly removing a child from off a mothers lap. Bad publicity for Social Service Professional,..bad publicity for South Africa ,or not, this deserves exposure and comment because in my view, this should never happen again. I viewed it twice in quick succession to be sure of what I saw and heard. The third time, access was not accessible "Content unavailable". Must have been somehow blocked. This happens if someone complains or if the content is of a disturbing nature. Below this is perhaps an anxiety that the visual may possibly go viral. Is it possible that there was fear of the South African Police Department and/or Social Services be portrayed in a poor light? 

The reasons for a young crying girl ( I think) to be forcibly removed from her mother's lap by armed police then accompanied away by two uniformed officials are not known. A screaming outraged mother...all of this raises questions.

The first , I guess, is whether there in hard fact, circumstances which would justify such wrenching force and such a large armed police contingent.    

I got a phone call one night from a mother of a 12 year old boy. She was as equally vociferous in her distress, but for a completely different reason."He's sitting on the window ledge of our flat in Hillbrow, It's 6 stories up. He has just again assaulted me. He always assaults me. He says he will jump. Please come now." I knew I would never find the place           ( before GPS!) My reaction "Call the police" But this video didn't indicate risk. This little girl did not appear to be at risk.

Two comments were made. One was not to judge too quickly as there are experienced situations in which Social Service Professional's presence in a possible drug, or violent situation puts the Social Service Professional at high risk of assault. 

Been there, done that, guns and all !! The video didn't suggest anything like that. Just a mother sitting in a chair outside the back door, child on her lap.

I have been accompanied by a single unarmed police officer on occasion, but not for a forced removal . I can however think of situations in which a child would have to be dragged away in what could be construed as a "raid". We used to have a Child Protection Unit  in the South African Police Department .One youngster was abducted by two young men. The unit took 3 months to find him. e was tracked to a child pornography film studio in the garage of some property. A storm in and grab scenario.

What we all want to know the circumstances around this incident. We want to be informed of the reasoning behind so many uniformed armed police using force to remove the child.

So then, if removal,placement and separation is really necessary, how can it be don differently?

First prize obviously is to avoid he removal, placement and separation. The need to do this is determined by what Anna Freud calls "Irretrievable harm"...harm beyond repair.It is an ethical move only if all other possible interventions have been tried and failed. 

This is where child and youth care workers come in. 

Child and youth care workers work alongside the child in its environment. In the living moments of the child's space. A good, tried and tested model of this is the community based programme known in South Africa as the Isibindi Project. I does just that. Trained, registered, supervised and mentored.child and youth care workers work relationally. Generally if placement is needed the child and youth care worker will use orientation and seek consent . One hopes that force then will be avoided especially if Social Service professionals work as a multi disciplinary team to provide a multi faceted integrated programme.... a carefully planned designed strategy to reclaim the life of the child and as far as possible maintain family preservation and restore some level of good enough, safe care 

It all sounds very idealistic but in the community based Isibindi model, it has proved to work.

Let's sum it all up. The visuals and the audio of the facebook video of a forced removal by police, for me, was very distressing, It looked,sounded and felt like secondary abuse.
As Social Service Professionals we are bound to accountability. We need to know the who, what and why of this incident. We really need to be given enough information to know if this was a protective move in the face of great risk or whether it was a violation of the rights of child and family.
We need to be convinced that there was really, really, no other way.
We need to know what was tried and failed. We need to know if any other approach may have been more professional or appropriate in Professional Social Service practice.

. 

HOW BRANDED??.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

On Friday last week I spoke, in my private capacity at an Oath-taking Ceremony at IIEMSA ( Monash University South Africa).  They said dress comfortable but formal, so I needed a tie. At the venue, the Registrations Manager of the South African Council for Social Service Professions fitted me with a green tie embossed with the SACSSP logo. Comment "We didn't invite him as SACSSP but in his private capacity."... Oh Oh  incorrectly identified. Incorrectly branded for the occasion.

This spoke to me of the power of branding and its psychological capacity to market.

I was there as a child and youth care worker. Somehow just to say "I am a registered child and youth care worker and proud of it". doesn't resonate loudly enough to market what I do, what I stand for. I am poorly branded...if at all !   Sought after goods, even at a cost have a brand label, catchy slogan and identifying colours. Think LEVI, its sexy tick and "Just do it". Think our political parties in South Africa...  Yellow T-shirt "together we can do it". Blue T-shirt..."United South Africa", Red beret... "Economic transformation". 

Child and youth care ... jeans and takkies.

Advocacy makes out a case for recognition, a call for a buy-in to the real value of child and youth care work. Maybe if, at a high level advocacy fey slogans like "Nation Building" was coupled with an immediately recognised brand, we would reach our target market psychologically ready to hear 

Let's start with our brand name. Right now we are child and youth care workers. Certainly the child and youth care worker label has spread to be known internationally. But the South African Council for Social Service Professions met with a parliamentary committee for social development and the members didn't know what child and youth care was. Social work...yes.. But what is this?

Our field of study and even our job title does vary. Applied Psychology, Educateurship, Child and Youth Development and even Social Work 

What we are seems also to vary....an occupation, a calling       (rather like a God given ministry), a practitioner, a profession, a craft. In schools I heard "educational assistants", in justice "mediators". These are all better than "house mother, house father, uncle and aunt", as carriers of how we are branded.

Over the years we have thought over our title constantly.We sort of settled on child and youth care worker. When I think of tho concepts  raised in the minds of people with the words "Care" and "Worker" we have chosen, I become a little unsettled 

In an exercise to demonstrate branding , the facilitator said "Think of yourself. What do you do well for which you want to be known." Oh my word ( bad pun), he wanted an obituary key-word !  I wrote  "advocate". Considering that I no longer practice in the life-space of children and young people that seemed to be core for me. Ask me the same question when I was in direct practice and my word/s would have been different. I would not, for example, have said "worker" For me. it conjures up a picture of a trade worker. I would have hesitated to be known as a "carer". For me in the community mind, it talks of wiping of bums and counting underwear, feeding, clothing and keeping children warm -  - the physical aspects .  I would have said "Child and Youth Care Development". 

If then, I was to choose a title for myself it would be "Child and Youth Care Development Professional". (CYDP)"            I choose 'Professional" over "Practitioner. In the thinking of the new Bill for SACSSP there is a distinction made between occupations, emerging professions and professions. We have met all the criteria defining a profession.

Child and youth development professional. ,,,, hmmmm a brand.

Now for the catchy slogan. 

Apart from development, What are our key strengths, our key functions? I can't get away from...
"We reclaim the lives of children and young people at risk"... a bit lengthy. There should be a competition for our slogan .....any ideas?

We need to package ourselves. The Circle of Courage in all its colours appears to be internationally attractive.. I like its world wide appeal and recognition.

If this works then we can craft our branding approach with key-words.These come to mind: Developmental ( obviously), Strength-based, Culture of Child Rights, Participatory, Democratic. Relational, non-discriminatory, Restorative,......and more.

Statinf the positive of what we do and how we work is rather like the branding  "Makes whites whiter, colours brighter" It's the "We do it better" idea...and we do! In fact,...only we can ! 

Given all this, on Friday of last week, well branded ,they would have immediately said "Child and youth development professional ! That's exactly why we asked him to speak" . 



  

A MOMENT HISTORICAL...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This week on Friday 18th October 2019 at the IIE Monash University of South Africa, the first year Bachelor of Child Care students, stood before witnesses to declare the pledge of commitment to uphold the child and youth care code of ethics. The code is embedded in the South African Social Services Professions Act of 1978 as amended. In our long history of professionalisation, this is a first.

This, in my private capacity, is the key-note address I made on this historical occasion.

Today you make history... the first to take the SACSSP oath of professional commitment to the child and youth care code of ethics. Congratulations.You are giants riding on the shoulders of giants.

Don't let anyone tell you that this is an "emerging"profession. It is well established, accepted world wide as a full profession and a field of study with it's own unique body of literature, skills, practice. and code of ethics. The roots of this profession can, for example, be traced as far back as the early Christian church when a special order was established called the Diaconate to do the work of diakonia. The Diaconate people were ordained to focus on identifying and meeting the needs of orphans (and widows). 

Our early pioneers and our earliest contributors to our knowledge were from psychiatry, education, psychology, religion, advocates for children and heroes of child protection. Noticeably in and after the great wars.

In South Africa after the first world war when many servicemen returned and when many did not return, there was an obvious need to build what were called orphanages. Then, in 1923, just at that same time,came the big flu epidemic which claimed the lives of many parent as well as children. Faith-based organisations and government built large dormitory styled buildings to provide 300 beds or more for children and young people. Child and youth care workers were called all manner of names like, house mother, house father, uncle, aunt, sister, nurse, house master, care giver. Whatever the name, what they were doing was child and youth care work. 

An example of this is a faith-based Children's Home in Johannesburg. It had beds for 450 boys. In the early 60's our South African guru, grandfather of child and youth care and pioneer worked there as an "assistant house master". He was doing his Master's degree in Psychology at the time.He, together with the then so called "Headmaster", Father Eric Richardson realised that real child and youth care work was stressful. that an exchange of support and practice was needed. Together they formed what they called The Transvaal Association for Child and Youth Care Workers.  Please note the term "child and youth care workers"  It produced and distributed a regular newsletter. (A journal), and held conferences.

Through the work of Brian Gannon it became the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers..the NACCW. It is from here that many of our giants grew. 

To develop Child and Youth Care as a profession, much had to be done.

It needed Education and Training - especially a degree in Child and Youth Care. It needed recognition as an independent. stand alone (but integrated) social service profession, a code of ethics, international recognition, equality of services for all children.

I came into child and youth care work in 1983 when these were our aspirations. We were in the height of the struggle against apartheid.That in itself was a huge focus and a sapper of energy. We had to struggle for equality of service delivery for all children irrespective of colour. The world , quite rightly regarded South Africa as the pariah, the skunk of the world. We were banned from everything. We couldn't get books. Publishers would not import to South Africa. We couldn't get visiting academics as they put there jobs at risk. We couldn't get international recognition for what we had already achieved. We were banned from the  International Federation of Educative Communities ( FICE) under the auspices of UNESCO. South Africa had not signed the UN Charter of Child Rights. 

These barriers had to be broken. Amazingly but slowly, they were. Barrier breaking in the 80's rested mainly on the shoulders of the NACCW which was organised and had a non racial membership.  Brian Gannon published and advocated. The next NACCW Director was Leslie du Toit who I think is often forgotten  as our hero. She managed to get some literature into the country and to establish early training programmes to the then Basic Qualification in Child Care level. She got some academics to come, address conferences, conduct seminars, run courses and seminars.

The first I remember was F Herbert Barnes who brought with him the concept of the child and youth care worker as educateur and child and youth care work as a craft. In 1992 Martin Brokenleg and Larry Brendtro came. They later introduced the Circle of Courage.  Masud Hoghughi ran courses on the problem Profile Approach ( PPA)and allowed that the NACCW publish his books for South African availability. Prof James Anglin (University of Victoria, Canada) helped With Leslie du Toit to persuade and develop a curriculum at the University of South Africa for the introduction of a University Certificate, then a Diploma and finally a degree in Child and Youth Care.

There were others. Professor Norman Powell in the midst of the struggle introduced us to  cultural competence. Prof Nick Smiar introduced Professional Assault  Response Training    ( PART)

Meantime domestically the leadership and advocates for the field  were able to get, on paper at least, recognition of child and youth care work as a profession in the South African Council for Social Services Professions Act 110 of 1978 as amended. This was in 1998. But the first Board met only in 2004.( why the delay?) The regulations and the code of ethics was drafted 18 times  (Over 10 years !) Finally submitted for approval in 2013 and 14 months later signed into law by the Minister of Social Development in October of 2014. Now it's October of 2019 and you make history by being the first child and youth care group to take the solemn oath of commitment to the code of ethics... Congratulations.

You are entering an exciting and challenging future in child and youth care work. All and everything will be ethically and values driven. There are some early indications of movements in the field that you will carry as giants on your shoulders.The 4th Industrial revolution is apon us with huge implications for you and the young people in programmes. Larry Brendtro is taking a strong interest in neurological aspects as a driver of child and youth development. Rick Kelly is leading child and youth care thinking into Radical and Restitutional child and youth care practice.

Today I have taken glimpses int o the rear view mirror whist still driving forward. You are riding on the shoulders of giants. It's true. Now, I'm looking forward and I see you. Today marks the moment. I is you who become the giants of tomorrow.

Congratulations. 

SMOKING ANOTHER TRIGGER...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

I have a thing about smoking. I met my late wife when she was 18 years old.and cigarette smoking heavily.... I still don't know at what age she started. Issue is that smoking cigarettes contributed to a lung condition which in the end proved fatal. Cigarette packs in South Africa have to carry warning notices, "Smoking is detrimental to health". or "Smoking is .addictive"...and others. Masses of research has found all of this to be true.

Then we came into child and youth care. Young people and even children were smoking cigarettes.

Trigger, Trigger Trigger !!

One of the boys of about 17 had a hole in his heart  Cardiologists refused to operate because he was smoking. "Come back when you have given up" and again "If you don't give up now you can only come back when you are 21 years old". ( The adult  permission thing !)

Many of the young people off the streets had been smoking since as young as 7. Some begging for smokes. Giving up the addiction was far from important for them. Seeing videos of lungs before, during and after tobacco inhalation didn't  scare them at all. They just said "So what". "Stop Smoking " organisations gave presentations, nicotine patches, loads of advice...no good came of that either. Education just didn't work at all. 

A "No Smoking Rule".. " This place is a "No Smoking Facility"  just didn't work. Eventually I had to admit that a rule which cannot be enforced demanded a change of approach. So I adopted the view ..instead of going around and smoking in apparent secret, let's get it all out in the open. Then at least we can see what we are dealing with here.

First step was to allocate a smoking area. The young people chose a tree in the grounds.  Some sat under the tree and others climbed into it. If it was cold or raining there was shelter under the fire escape stairs outside the main building. I called it the "Scientific Society" because they made smoke as I remembered we did in the Chemistry class at school. If I called a meeting of the "Scientific Society" they all knew what I meant. Don't get me wrong. I was not condoning, trivialising or normalising the smoking thing as a practice for young people and children. I was getting young people and children to be open, admit and talk about their smoking so that we could include the smoking thing in their IDP's 

My experience in that facility and the first step we took to address smoking was a lesson for me when visiting Child and Youth Care Centres where the only " Programme" for the reduction or elimination of smoking cigarettes was to have a no smoking rule. I remember particularly a Continuity Assurance visit to a Centre for Young people in trouble with the law in a township outside Pretoria. Smoking cigarettes was strictly prohibited. Any number of procedures were put into place to stop cigarettes entering the facility and to catch smoking offenders. These included body searches,  and locker searches. A child and youth care worker was placed at the door of the parent's visiting room throughout any visit to to watch that cigarettes were not handed over. Television monitoring everywhere. - but not in the 4 bed dormitories as that was regarded as an invasion of privacy.

When the team went there  the very first thing we noticed walking around the facility was the large number of cigarette butts outside the dorm windows. Prohibiting smoking and with child and youth care workers required to spend endless energy on policing the rule simply didn't work. My comment, "If what you are doing doesn't work, why carry on doing it?" You need to try another approach.

Eventually in my learning and in the facility I directed, we established only one rule. This was the non-negotiable. "No-one does harm to anyone or anything ". As smoking is harmful to "self". It had to be professionally developmentally addressed. Also, smoking often stood in the way of family preservation and re-unification. Also, some parents just couldn't and wouldn't tolerate it. The household rule was the prohibition rule of that Pretoria township facility. You smoke, you don't go home ! That was tough. But sometimes a reality. Relationship relied on a smoking thing. ...Trigger, Trigger Trigger !!

I got to understand that the "eliminate" smoking goal was a different priority from one young person to the next. In most cases, building or re=building relationships loomed bigger in developmental importance that many others, Smoking had to be dealt with as a reduction/ elimination goal. The big trigger of smoking just had to be recognised, then put into perspective and evaluated in its developmental importance in the young person's therapeutic priorities.

Most usually, The Individual or Family Development Plan       ( IDP/FDP) for the reduction and elimination of smoking became individualised and phased over an agreed period of time. A signed contract . In many instances the agreement meant that the child and youth care worker held the cigarettes. There were designated smoking times and cigarettes were carefully counted over the reduction period. Pocket money cannot be denied but in an agreed contract, it can and sometimes needed to be co-regulated until hopefully self-regulated. It all mainly had to do.I think with trust building
and an understanding by child and youth care worker that this was not an emotional issue. It is a genuine task driven plan to help the young person to be more coping, more appropriate and less harmful to self 

UPLIFT THE CHILDREN'S VOICE....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

At the end of his key-note presentation at the Capetown NACCW Conference, Lorenzo Davids threw us a parting shot. "You know the "starfish story?" He said,".....It's a delusional social construct....while we pat ourselves on the back". In child and youth care work, we all know the starfish story.... the "saved that one" story. the saving children one at a time story.

Then I found this. "We must stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in" Desmond Tutu.

Our children and young people are growing up in a  country of large scale poverty, unemployment, crime, violence. In all of this, they are the most vulnerable. In fact, we can say that among the oppressed, they are the most oppressed. That's why they land up in our programmes where we pick up the washed up, help them and throw them back into the sea of despair, the valley of tears... maybe better to cope with the tide, backwash and breakers. I've heard it called benign child and youth care. I've heard it called docile child and youth care.

If the state and the times in which we live seem overwhelming to us, imagine how it must be for the children and young people. I fear hopelessness and a cycle of social destruction. 

As child and youth care workers we have to see ourselves very differently from other social service professions - and we are!  It is time that we change our approach. And we must!

The question as always is  - "So what must we do?" How do we approach what is experienced as the unapproachable in the best interests of the children and the young people today for tomorrow.

Minister Frazer- Moleketsi, when she was moved from Welfare to Public Service said she would make sure that every decision  made from a Local, Provincial to National level will be in the best interests of children. We can't say that it happened. Adults it seems, are not always the best people to address the best interests of young people. 

Let me share an experience.

I walked off the street into a Kindersentrum, a Children's Centre in Cologne in Germany just outside the old city. Coming up the stairs there were two large panels - obviously children's art work. I was told it was the result of a children's group art work project. The left side depicted the city as conceived by adults for adults. The right side showed the city as conceived by children for children. I wish our local, Provincial and National decision makers could see this. The contrast. Wealth driven, high density overcrowding, crime ridden retail dominated centres characterised the adult view. All of this was redisigned by the children and young people in their view of a city to create space, play parks, green areas, water, easily accessible colourful stalls, schools painted as attractive places for children.  

Their message was clear. Adult minds are drawn to design for wealth, power, possession with little to no thinking about the children and young people. The children and young people are oppressed and silenced by minds dominated by  many adult's values of personal gain above all else. Truth is Geraldine Frazer- Moloketse's attempt to  put the best  interests of children and young people as central was doomed from the very start.

So again, as child and youth care professionals, what do we do? We do put the children and young people at the very core. I think we must shift, from benign, docile, "saved that one", to a Lorenzo Davids and Tutu way of thinking. I call it "going upstream" Then: Gustavo Gutierrez, He says."The poverty of the poor is not a call for generous relief, but a demand that we go and build a different social order." 

 Going back to the Kindersentrum panels Who better to give voice to a better social order than the ones who suffer most as a result of our present order. Who better than the ones who will inherit the social order for themselves now and their children, Who other that the young people themselves. Thing is.... they can do it.They have innovative solutions that we  lost to the world, long ago. Kiaras Gharabughi, the key-note speaker at the most recent NACCW Conference in Durban will agree. He said, and I'm not quoting, "Young people have innovative solutions to problems that adults do not have."

The shift in the approach is for us first to empower, assist and support young people in our programmes to have an understanding of the social forces which brought them into the programme in the first place. The societal dynamics of    oppression. Then to facilitate a dialogue with the oppressor in order that the politicians and decision makers hear the voice of young people and their struggles and the young people  enter into the mind and strategies of the oppressor. I'm thinking that the areas upstream that young people need to be helped to understand in order better to understand their position are: banking, politics, education, big business, war and peace. As child and youth care workers we are really good at facilitating dialogue and restorative justice. This is exactly what we need to empower children and young people to do in order that they contribute their voice into the development and growth of a better world for themselves and others, both for now and for a future. They need to contribute in the making of the shift from the left panel to the right panel.

What I an saying is not new There are two Child and Youth Care movements of which I am aware. On is called Radical Child and Youth Care, the other, Restitutional Practice. In both it is the child and youth care worker who who connects its practice  to connecting young people and children to the social and economic structures that affect them negatively, to grow their understanding of the mind of the oppressor, to let the leaders in those structures have access to the mind of the young people and children, to facilitate dialogue and to support a process of restorative justice.

I started with Lorenzo Davids. Let me finish with this quotation he posted on Facebook. It spells out much of Radical and Restitutional child and youth care work. The author isn't cited. The bracketed addition is mine. "Peacemaking doesn't mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of discerning evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight, but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love ( lead by children and young people) that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressor free".    
















  

CHILDREN IN CRISIS....OUR CRISIS...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

In one way or another the programmes and settings in which children and young people are placed are either funded or at least partly subsidised by the state. There are reasons for this. The State is the ultimate parent...the final well-being/welfare of the Nation's children is the State's responsibility which in truth it does not have the financial or human resources to provide. Even the so called fully financed Child and Youth Care Centres and the community based services of the Isibindi project are clearly under financed. Just listen to the noise... Vacant posts unfilled or frozen, salaries ceilinged and more and more! We are doing what the State can otherwise not really afford to do.


We keep on saying that Child and Youth Care Work and child and youth care workers in the country right now are in crisis There is no doubt ...we know ...it is so. No need to go over it all again. The question now is whether we are experiencing in South Africa, crises in the well-being and lives of our nation's young people and children.

Let us focus on the state of our children and young people for a moment. Dare I say that the effects of under-service and possibly the standard of service is showing. I think of it as a crisis.    It must be addressed. The signs and the symptoms are there.
Here are but a few:
Gangs, gang violence in some communities;
In Gauteng alone i know of 42 organisations which provide diversion programmes to young people in trouble with the law. Some have residential with terms ranging from 6 months, a year and up to five years. Why are so many needed? ... And it's said that juvenile statistics are under reported.
I saw a comment in social media from a highly respected social service practitioner that our recivisity rate is high. I don't have statistics but I am aware that statistics of the return of children or young people into the same programme from which they were disengaged are not always kept "Oh it's you. You back again!" I used to call them the "many happy returns". Return rates into the system are masked especially when the child or young person was subsequently placed elsewhere. I trust the comment that they are high. If young people return, it's the programme quality and appropriateness which has to interrogated.
Comments are constantly made that children and young people are not showing the benefit of programmes and that young people often have  extended stays in institutions.
We have a very concerning problem of assaultive behaviours in Child and Youth Care Centres .. among young people themselves and toward staff.
Assualtive behaviour in schools.
Major behaviour management issues in schools.

Where is all this going?

Surely as child and youth care practitioners and professionals we have an obligation to voice our concern with the highest possible national welfare authority. I'm thinking of course ideally with the Minister of Social Development. How good it would be if we could capture the ear of the President! 

To get there I'm thinking that if the main players in the child and youth care field in this country were to have a co-ordinated voice, surely, a cry on behalf of the children cannot be ignored....and we do have such child/client focused structures. Let's call it something like National Co-ordinated Body for Children.

There are a number of existing entities which we, and the 
State may have perhaps come to misunderstand as a voice only for the social service professional worker. In this instance obviously..the child and youth care worker. Independently,  individually and with a misinterpretation of their agenda, these just don't seem to have impacted enough on strategy and planning for the countries children and young people.

Let's have a look at them. Their very names I think, mask their  purpose for existence.

The mission statement of the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) reads "to serve the best interests of the Social Service Professions and service users by regulating, leading and promoting the Social Service Professions in an innovative and responsive manner.  ( My italics). 

And the National Association of Child and Youth Car Workers (NACCW) has a vision. "Healthy,development and improved standards of care for vulnerable children" It further describes itself as "an NPO which is "a training provider and an advocacy body for children".

I'm suggestion that, put these bodies together with others into a      co-ordinated voice for the state of our countries children and perhaps we stand a chance of being heard

Here are some ideas for the participants in such a envisioned National  Co-ordinated Body for Children:

The SACSSP, which will include the Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work, the NACCW, the Department of Social Development - especially in it's role as the National Youth Development Plan (NYDP) and the National Development Plan (NDP). Together with Isibindi, the NPO and Community Based Organisations sector, the Human Rights Commission, Child and Family Welfare. The main players in child welfare like The Children's Institute ( University of Capetown ( and others).

The question then is, who or what could co-ordinate such a body. This could be somewhat naughty but how about UNICEF or the SA Community Chest. Right now it seems that I am dreaming dreams - any suggestions?

Now to the child and youth care worker crisis. If the current situation of the children and young people is addressed in a time-framed National strategy The critical role of the child and youth care worker cannot be ignored nor put onto the back burner.  We have to be part of any National solution in the best interests of the child.
   


  

TRAINING PEAKS AND PITFALLS.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

To whom this week's blog is addressed, I'm not sure. On reflection, definitely child and youth care workers who are either in learning   (learners), trainers/facilitators.or especially perhaps intending to become learners.Then possibly child and youth care worker training providers, child and youth care worker learning material developers.

 The Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work (PBCYCW) and the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) are mandated in terms of the SACSSP Act 110 of 1978 to accredit service providers and learning materials. This accreditation is designed to regulate, monitor and ensure the standard of provision of knowledge, content and practical is acceptable for the registration of social service practitioners....that, in Child and Youth Care, they are suitably qualified to give quality service to the children and young people in the system.

The accreditation of service providers depends on having/employing/using qualified child and youth care workers at the appropriate professional level to manage child and youth care educators, and it's service provision. Also to be part of the development of the learning materials, to be there and able to monitor trainers and facilitators, to internally assess and to moderate the assessments of child and youth care workers.

Child and Youth Care learning materials have to be submitted to the SACSSP before they can be used/ and/or distributed for the training of child and youth care workers.

A shift in the educational level for the Child and Youth Care qualification from level 4 to level 5 has brought about a situation in which the service providers have to make submissions to the PBCYCW and to SACSSP. There has been a submission influx. Important to know that the new level 5 qualification allows university entrance.

Some service providers develop there own learning materials, some buy ready made packages, some have been and will no doubt use what is called "generic"learning material available through the Health and Welfare Education and Training Authority (HWSETA). All must be accredited by SACSSP. All must measure up to meet the level 5 curriculum outcomes.

Quality Assurance is a mandated responsibility of the PBCYCW, the SACSSP as well as the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO).

You have the picture. Regulation and monitoring ensures quality education and training and exposes bogus service providers and sub- standard learning materials.

This is what must be. It gives child and youth care workers assurance of a quality accredited recognised qualification. It provides a set of cautions and a guide to avoid financial loss, the disappointment of not being eligible for registration and so, not being employable.

This is a short list of cautions ..a sort of checklist. Is the service provider a registered company, or a registered non- profit Organisation (NPO)? Is it accredited as a service provider with the SACSSP? Is its learning material approved by the PBCYCW and SACSSP? 

There's more to look out for. Are the facilitators qualified and registered with the SACSSP as child and youth care workers? Are they trained trainers? Do the internal assessors and moderators hold the required registration with the HWSETA? 

On completion the statement of competencies should not be delayed.  You can ask past learners about this.

Over the past while some service providers have slipped through the system. Now, more particularly as a new curriculum at level 5 has to go through the accreditation system, this should really not happen, but the cautions are real and need to be thoroughly checked out by learners.

At level 4, learners are talking of a number of disturbing training  experiences. Here are some of the comments: 

There have been instances of delayed or non- forthcoming result schedules. A group of child and youth care workers I know said that the facilitation was done mainly in the old "chalk and talk" style, or that the learning material was used as a textbook....... read it!   It was a complaint that the knowledge component was OK, but the link with real practice situations was thin. Workplace/practice experience examples were limited.

A PBCYCW  concern was instances of learning materials which draw primarily, not on Child and Youth Care literature, nor it's  discipline, nor its recognised  practice, but on other other fields like ECD, Health, Community Nursing, Home Care and Care-giving

Other of my own experience is that facilitators and the developers of learning material sometimes use spoken or written language in English at a level which could not be easily understood or may be misunderstood. Also, that learning materials are not always learner friendly. Also that learners are frequently not challenged to analyse or create. That often they don't get exposed to the full range of  cognitive learning exercise as in Bloom's Taxonomy. Internalisation, and the exploration of shades of grey - the possibles and probables, the nuances and richness of child and youth care work seem often to get lost or misty. In Child and Youth Care practice demands that levels of thinking get stretched. We have to know how to read between the lines.

I do have confidence that the new upgrade to level 5 and the new round of accreditations as well as the upgraded clear and relevant curriculum outcomes and quality assurance will change the landscape where it has to be changed.

Lastly and importantly. There are available, excellent service providers and learning materials with very carefully and trained facilitators and administrative back-up.

Look out for them. 

Ask around.

Be cautious and do your homework.       
    

WHATS THE GAME PLAN?...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Time has come for this to be said straight out...alluding to it, suggesting it, implying it... no longer. There is strong evidence. Child and youth care is under threat. Pointers are that we may possibly be part of a strategy, a plan to reduce us. I don't want to say remove us, but we who remain to be an extension of the arm of other social service professionals. A lesser social service practice or to be replaced.

Let me set out the pattern experienced over time in our journey along in a time-line.which suggests a series of underlying strategies. 

The first professional Board for Child and Youth Care (PBCYCW} in 2005 set it's goal at having Ministerially approved gazetted regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers as professionals. The regulations require that the scope of practice of the professional at each level be very clearly articulated and set out. Every set of draft regulations got no further than the then Council. They were sent back time after time for review and redrafting. The main argument, lead by the then Minister's representative on Council , was that the scope of practice of child and youth care work and social worker overlapped with insufficient differences to allow for the registration of separate professions. I can't say exactly how many scope of practice workshops we attended. It was extensive. And so was the delay.

At the same time the then Minister of Social Development was under pressure to resolve what was called "the social work crisis"- a very real shortage of social workers. The issue was salaries. He had some ideas to resolve this. One of these was to have a generic worker. I can't remember the title given to it. It was then called "The Cuban Model". The Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work rejected it.

Then came bursaries Social Work. Nothing for Child and Youth Care.

There followed a term when no election was organised/held for a Professional Board of Child and Youth Care Work. How and why that could happen can only be assumed. The South Africa Council for Social Service Professions requires it statutorily. On paper statutorily there was Board, but it was said that without warm bodies, the PBCYCW did not exist...non extant. 

The National Department of Social Development came to a form of rescue. It funded the idea of an interim Child and Youth Care Committee to continue the work of the Board unconnected fro Council. Everything needed to register child and youth care workers as professionals at two levels was completed at the time. Uninterrupted  we did our best work. It was at one of those meetings that a tame National Department lawyer said that we had been trapped because the Minister had been saying "No" to child and youth care workers, then "Yes" "You were on, then you were off. He frequently changed his mind". ......the story was out. We were played in a bigger game.

The 2011 term of office elections for a PBCYCW were duly organised and held. A Board was elected. But, the minutes and so the work of the interim Committee were not accepted as it was a disconnected, independent body.  Back to the new Board to have approved .... this time with a headstart. Amongst ourselves we had agreement on what the critical requirements for registration, scope of practice and code of ethics should be, but the backwards and forwards pattern continued. In all this time child and youth care workers were unregistered, unrecognised as professionals.

 At one time the thrust was that child and youth care workers should be registered at the Auxiliary level only. Professional level, it was said should wait an undisclosed period of time in years. This was the historic 16th draft of the regulations. The then Council sent this set of regulations to the Minister for signature unapproved by the Board.  The PBCYCW then demanded an interview with the then Minister.. It was suspended for a year. We met in private board rooms at our own cost,, kept minutes and forwarded them to the then Council. Again unaccepted as discussion or decision as in any way official. Connections of connections were used to halt the 16th draft. A meeting with the Minister was arranged, the 16th draft halted and the suspension lifted.

A bigger game plan over this period was obvious, but held by whom? Academics? or whom?

Now came what looks like a reprieve if seen outside a possible bigger National political plan. But I'll come to that.

The then Minister of Social Development made it very clear that she wanted child and youth care workers to be registered as professionals and that the delays were unacceptable.The 18th set of approved regulations were submitted for Ministerial approval. Done and dusted? Oh no they sat in the National Department without the minister's signature for 14 months. The story we got was....."awaiting the Minister". She later apologised and said directly to us that such a delay was unacceptable. In October of 2014 they were signed and gazetted. At the same time she undertook to train 10,000 child and youth care workers for and in the community based child and youth care setting of the Isibindi project in the more rural, outlying areas. This was rolled out...it happened. The National  Department then adopted the Isibindi project by agreeing inter alia to fund it Nationally and to pay the National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers, who had designed and developed the model, to undertake that training for a period of five years. It was a good growth period for child and youth care in South Africa.There were complaints however that the Department of Social Development were appointing auxiliary social workers in the positions of supervisors and project managers. The reason I heard directly in one Province was "We payed to train them. We must employ them". 

The contract  with the NACCW came to an end in March 2017. The State now owned the model, claimed it as a National model and went to tender for the training.

This was when the cracks started to show. I'll list them           (again)  But first, when the ground opened up and swallowed child and youth care workers many child and youth care workers took a look in the rear-view mirror. They say they saw then a bigger picture. The term of office of that Minister had ended. The glance backward raised concerns that the Isibindi adoption was initiated to meet a bigger National agenda. They feared they had been used again as little pieces (pawns) in a bigger board game. In the same way as the earlier social work crisis put child and youth care in the game, so did the 10,000 story. The speculation was/is that every Ministerial Department was under pressure to meet a job creation target because of the high rate of unemployment country wide.  The Isibindi 10,000 child and youth care workers on learners stipends seemingly did this for the Department of Social Development. There is a new Minister. In fact there have been two since.

This now is the now

There were delays in continuing training. They were told and experience the non availability of funds in what are called "dry seasons". Some have not been paid for 6 months or more. A move was made to get a National data base of unemployed social workers - there are unemployed child and youth care workers.National strategic plans were developed to advance the social work field. There is yet no such plan for child and youth care work. Community development work is being prioritised for professionalisation and funded... no prioritasation of child and youth care work. There are still no child and youth care workers in high level decision making positions at national level. Posts for child and youth care workers have been advertised and then frozen. Child and youth care workers are being paid learner stipends even if qualified. There are behaviour management problems in schools. The main drive is in most provinces to get social workers into schools. Quite right and good, but child and youth care workers are also need in schools right now. - no such impetus... no  political push. Government, even the President mentions Isibindi in high level speeches but do not in any way recognise the role of child and youth care workers in the model. The Deputy Minister angered child and youth care workers in July at the NACCW International Child  and Youth Care Work Conference by referring to them as support workers who should not complain of salaries or no pay.

It's like this. Child and youth care workers in South Africa are reading between the lines... and so, I must say, am I.  It's like this? If we have been played so often because of behind the scenes political agendas, considering the present signs .. is this happening again and what is  the agenda? The suspicion is that a new agenda underlies the current child and youth care situation. This time the excess bursary trained social workers are unemployed. Child and youth care workers in the field suspect that they are again being played to meet two prioritised objectives. One  -to employ social workers . Two - to again absorb ( subsume) them into the fold of a single social work profession. 

They are asking  "Are we again being used as small players in a bigger game? 

What's the game plan?