The Child and Youth Care worker in family work

We appear to have some assumptions about the core reasons for relational, marriage , partnership  or family problems:  lack of income, unemployment, that the partners are from different cultures, race or religions, that there is alcohol abuse in the family , that it is a marriage or relationship where they are too young ......or  'family disorganisation'

Family disorganisation includes these possibilities:  the incomplete family unit, normally it is the father who is missing;  members who continue to live together but with no meaningful communication or interaction;  a member dies, is in jail,at war or suffers from depression.- there may be some tragic loss of a family member; one person may have a mental pathology. (adapted from Goode 1964)

The research shows that there may be some cases of family breakdown because of these factors, but the number which are DIRECTLY caused by these factors is few.. Tiny percentages.

 What the research is saying is that there is another core, or central reason why families become disorganised. In fact a 'good-enough' family system may survive poverty, unemployment, migrant labour separations and other stressors. The research shows that the central factor seems to be the loss of the expectations that each person has of the other in a relationship or a family.

 To understand this we first have to understand something about how people choose a partner.

 Often each partner believes that they see in the other, at least the potential , the possibility to continue some of the ways they believe relationships work as experienced in their own upbringing; in values, in the role that each family member plays in the family or relationship, in communication styles, in problem solving, i patterns of interdependence, in the way they believe children are supposed to be raised and behave. They both often expect the the relationship and the family will meet certain very deep learned expectations.

Drawing on the responses of couples during pre-marriage counselling, a pattern of expectations emerge around such issues as, money-management, domestic responsibilities, decision-making, family systems ( patriarchal, co-leadership,democratic, mutual submission),  problem solving practices, cultural practices, sexual behaviours, values, child rearing.... the list goes on. It is seemingly very complicated and inter-related.

When these expectations are not or cannot be met, then what Goode calls 'role failure' is blamed for relational  tensions and possibly even disintegration.(van Pelt 1980).

The issue is often explained as  a need for members to either make some agreed adjustments to their roles or to re-contract their expectations by mutual agreement. But most frequently they need to be helped with communication skills that will allow them to 'tell each other the truth in love' ( Backus 1991) The thing is that its not just a matter of who does what, but how each does what in a complex pattern of the others anticipations .responses and reactions Anger, frustration, infidelity ( cheating )and even violence or withdrawal can result

 Now this is where child and youth care workers can play their part in preserving  family life as there are invariably children in the system, often victims of the tensions and sometimes they too need to learn the skills to "tell in love" or themselves be influenced and supported in adjusting to healthy family expectations.

The child care worker has a unique part to play . They work in the life-space of the and it has become very clear that some skills are best facilitated and practised in the family life-space, with perhaps only some practised in the safety of the agency facility. What the child care worker does is to facilitate that members articulate the issues in the family conference and to assist in the process of re-defining and re-contracting role expectations and behaviours. They support family members as they make adaptations and re-learn the habits that can preserve family life.  They provide and rehearse skills, relationship and negotiation skills. They help learn communication skills .... how to tell each other the truth in love. Child care workers help families practically with the everyday events of their lives.They support members to cope with the endings of old habits, styles behaviour patterns and expectations and how to deal with the wilderness and confusion that goes with learning new ways of behaving with each other.

Child and youth care workers model and influence, build on the strengths of the members within the family system and on what happens in the moment to moment living space of the child and the family. They work practically to build a climate of acceptance and growth for children and youth. They provide opportunities to break old cycles of developmentally destructive or distorted experiences and they help to build a new vocabulary of good-enough life experiences in the important and significant areas of life.... belonging, competence through Mastery, Independence and virtue through generosity. (Brokenleg, Brentro and Van Bockern 1990)

The child and youth care worker in facilitating family preservation, is a key professional in reclaiming children and youth at risk and so in nation-building in this country.

Goode., William J: The Family. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series 1964
vav Pelt., Nancy:  To Have and to Hold . Southern Publishing Company 1980
Backus., William: Telling Each Other The Truth . Struik Christian Books 1001
Brentro., L.K, Brokenleg.,M, Van Bockern.,S: Reclaiming Youth At Risk. Natioal Education Service 1990