AN ENDANGERED PROFESSION? CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

A question was posed on social media this week. "Are we losing child and youth care workers?". It was unanswered. But other posts when put together provided some answers....

YES!!!

Some child and youth care workers posted that they will leave the profession to go back to their previous field of employment; "I'm going to "give up"and go back to ...... whatever". In a telephone call I made to the Isibindi project that I initiated, I was told, "It's not the project you started. There only a few child and youth care workers left."
  
Others say "God is good,... I got employed .......new job" Others are all but lost to the profession but hanging in ......lost income, losing hope, losing enthusiasm, losing loyalties. Some are considering immigration.

There were also posts from child and youth care workers employed in the non-governmental sector (NGO's) who said that funds/ subsidies/ grants from government have not been payed and that business plans submitted to government in good time have not resulted in service level agreements (SLA's) being finalised or signed. Recently SLA's have been a three year contract. This year funds have not been forthcoming. At least three Child and Family Welfare facilities in two provinces and so their programs, have closed as a result.In one  Child and Family Welfare facility, at least, there was a children's home. The state is the ultimate parent. The  NGO sector does the work of state. 

Social media posts from child and youth care workers in the NGO sector were " Every year we don't know if we have a job, we have to wait to see if the funds arrive." For this reason many NGO's will employ child and youth care workers on a fixed term contract that expires at the end of each financial year waiting to renew the contract if funds are available. This year has been a year of particular uncertainty with some child and youth care workers in some facilities  holding on without pay hoping for pay with back pay.

I don't know whether delays can be explained by the Department of Social Development new Minister's refusal to sign her Department's Annual Performance Plan (APP) saying that her Department was in a "shambles". She could not present her budget to parliament for the current financial year.

All this is reminiscent of the Social Work crisis of 2008 when though poor salaries and conditions of employment,social workers were leaving  government positions to find jobs in the private business sector or immigrating, mainly to the UK. The shortage of social workers in South Africa resulted in Social Work being declared a "scarce skill". Now sometimes in the social media referred to as a "Critical and scarce profession". 

Child and youth care workers in South Africa are voicing the same grievances.I believe that now we either face, or are in, a child and youth care workers crisis.

Let us all hope that something was learnt from the Department of Social Development's response to the 2008 Social Work crisis. The intention was good, but the long term effects are haunting us today.

Firstly, bursaries were made available to students gaining entry into Schools of Social Work at universities nationally. So many students were attracted into Social Work studies as a result of the funding that emerging graduates flooded the market and became unemployable. Today that situation still prevails Yet, the bursaries remain on offer..... No bursaries for child and youth care workers. This year I am told, with the financial crunch, so far, bursaries remain unpaid. Imagine !!

Secondly, there was a move to train and employ a "general worker". We were told that parliament believed that a multi-disciplinary team approach would confuse families. The "do all" worker concept was based on a model in Cuba. Funds were made available for delegations to visit Cuba and then to train these general workers. Fortunately for the social service profession field pressure from the Social Work and Child and Youth Care Professional Boards and the voice of professionals squashed this initiative.

A new Child Care Act was introduced and costed. The costing model took into consideration that 110,000 social service practitioners would be needed to operationalise the Act. Three  funding models were prepared...... an ideal model, a medium model and a basic model. Today the basic funding model is not operationalised and the Act is undergoing revision to further improve service delivery to children.

In this time of crisis the NGO sector was expanded. It was a structure that employed social workers. Today the NGO sector is shrinking noticeably nationally as a result of lack of funds.

Back to square one. 

Unsustainability of projects initiated by the Department of Social Development is clearly an issue this  We are not spared this pattern. Unsustainability is again affecting the field. This time child and youth care workers are affected in numbers. 

It is obvious that the availability or rather the unavailability of funds or maladministration is behind this pending crisis. 

Surely a substantial Department of Social Development budget has now to be tabled and approved .If then there is a problem  National Treasury must  release funds to avert a national welfare disaster. We cant afford a crisis in the professional care of the children and young persons at risk in South Africa.

A CRY FROM THE HEART OF A SOUTH AFRICAN CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORKER

There was a very moving cry on social media this last week. A child and youth care worker expressed anger with herself, with God and with her unpreparedness despite her education, theory and training to effectively deal with a crisis in the life-space of a child. The emotion of anger was clearly a composite of feelings....empathy, confusion, guilt, helplessness, inadequacy,....trapped in "not knowing", and I'm afraid to say, possibly a level of fear that she will be held personally responsible by the organisation, for the child's acting-out

Her pain, her cry, her self blame , I thought, was precipitated if not exacerbated by three contributing issues.

The first is the shock when it becomes evident in the actual working situation that child and youth care is not what you thought it is. The impact on the child and the child and youth care worker of the effect of trauma in the lives and so on the behaviour of traumatised children is scary. To live, work and to be a supportive help in a climate of pain and crying out is not easy.

It frequently becomes complicated because of the reasons we have for coming into the profession and the work from that first decision. We can be enticed into the work because of the idea that it is "noble" to be a helper of neglected, abandoned and abused children at risk. If we have an expectation that it will feel good  DOING good - it frequently doesn't turn out like that until we make the shift to feeling good about our good professional practice. Our expectations and reasons for becoming a child and youth care worker have to be a matter of very careful reflection and intro-spection. The good news is the the qualities of the therapeutic personality and character CAN BE LEARNT ... and this is where training and education come in. I tried to find out as much as I could about what to expect  I'll never forget Ernie Nightingale ,a South African doyen in the field. "I cant tell you what it's like  until you experience it. It's not a Sunday School picnic". He was of course right. Trauma, theory has it, establishes neuronal pathways that drive feelings in traumatised children. Feelings drive thinking. Thinking drives behaviour. It takes considerable professional knowledge and skill to rebuild neuronal pathways that result in more positive feelings, and so a more positive world view.

So its easy to feel inadequate even if we do have qualifications and training in child and youth care work. It is the age old story of the application of theory into practice. And I must add..... especially if the lecturing /training staff don't have considerable first hand experience of the realities of child and youth care work. Book learning is useful but simply not enough.

There has been research in child and youth care work ( I confess to not remembering when nor by whom!) which showed that a person with no training takes 5 years to reach an acceptable level of practical competence. A person with training takes 3-5 years, and a person with a university degree takes 2-3 years. 

So, there is inevitably a gap between training, education and competent practical handling of the more critical incidents in the realities and situations that can arise in the life-space of traumatised children and young people.

This brings me to the second issue.

Organisations have to understand this. Firstly because of the tension that it creates between more experienced , possibly lessor qualified staff and the fresh graduate. But because organisations should be providing supportive help. There is this concept called "what works" otherwise known as praxis. Good theory informs good practice , but, equally, good practice informs  good theory. The better child and youth care organisations work to develop procedure manuals based on the combined wisdom and experience of child and youth care workers on what practically has been found to work within the theoretical and ethical models they adopt. Some organisations call this their protocols and some their guides. Essentially it sets out what can and what has been found to work when dealing with any number of predictable circumstances in the life-space.  It is constantly reviewed and updated. The procedure manual provides at least a first line of approach to fresh appointees. But it must be accompanied be regular in-house training and good regular supervision.

This is what, for me, appeared to be missing and needed as an essential for the child and youth care worker who cried out last week. I don't particularly like the term supervision but I guess we are stuck with it. It sounds like a top down process and this can easily, in a hierarchical system become "snoopervision". I prefer "intervision" Supportive personal intervision. I do hope that she was given that.

Then the third issue. What she faced was point blank school refusal. We have to expect as child and youth care workers that we are going to experience school refusal in the same way as we must expect many other somewhat predictable acting out behaviours. This is not the place to give guide-lines on specific behaviours .... these should be discussed as a full team and set out as a guide in the procedure manual, but enough to say that school refusal is a psychological crisis and has to be handled as such . But in the experience of a starting out child and youth care workers can very easily be interpreted as an act of defiance, confrontation and rebellion. The setting-out child and youth care worker without professional team support may well feel powerless and inadequate. I read into that emotional cry a fear of having to face ridicule, a possible dressing down and at worst having to face disciplinary action and possible sanctions..... it happens. !!!  

The cry of that child and youth care worker was a cry of  her growing pains, a cry for informed help and support and a preparedness to put out there her personal, raw vulnerability. It is to be admired. It is a cry for us to organisationally critically assess the value we place on the inner being of child and youth care workers and their practice in the forefront of healing interactions with traumatised children    .

THE GLASS CEILING .. MANAGERIAL APPOINTMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICAN CHILD AND YOUTH CARE

This week on social media was a question. Who best to manage a child and youth care facility/project?

Very soon after my first appointment as Director of a childrens' home, a 12year old boy gave me my first aha experience and my first lesson in what makes a manager in a child and youth care programme DIFFERENT. I came into the position from teacher training . He said "Don't bring your teacher/ headmaster thing here!     We LIVE here!"

The AHA moment was a life-changer.It meant a start towards understanding what it meant to be active in the field of child and youth care. The first step was to attempt a grasp of what child and youth care was NOT.

It is NOT Pedagogy as in teaching; it is NOT Psychology as in Psychological therapy; it is NOT parenting; it is NOT classic Counselling, it is NOT Social Work and its NOT Management as in any other type of business. It is unique. It has elements of all these, but in its uniqueness, it has a world view, a style, an approach, a philosophy and a body of knowledge and a set of skills that is all its own.

What that 12year old taught me was that I was perceiving, experiencing and responding to situations through the lens of my world, my training, education  approach and past experience. Totally not withing the "fit"of the child and youth care world.

I think it took at least two years before I more intimately connected with what was really needed of me.... and that involved at least two to three years additional intensive training and education IN THE FIELD.

The world view thing is an essential part of who we are .Its normal It is deep within our psyche. When a tailor sees you, he sees your body shape , your stature and your probable best clothing size and style. When a hairdresser sees you, she sees the condition of your hair and the shape of your face. When a doctor sees you , she sees f your pallor, your eyes and if she can, your finger nails. So with me it was the child and youth care system as a school and the children as pupils.

It wasn't said from what or which type of programme the child and youth care worker on social media was employed when this question was asked. But it was clearly a pointed question expressing dissatisfaction about two issues. One was the experience of being managed by someone who was not a child and youth care worker. The other a level of frustration about being managed by persons from other fields when a child and youth care worker could / should have been appointed. This is certainly the case in Departmental organisations and now we hear in the community based programmes of the Isibindi project on what appears to be on as a national pattern.

I really cannot be said that child and youth care workers at the professional level do not have training and education in management. The degree, and the diploma curricula have modules on Management and Administration  contained in the qualification.
Fundraising is  really the responsibility of the Board of Management . So there is no real justification in appointing a fundraising manager to a child and youth care setting which, certainly has been the case in some NGO's.

Then there is the legal requirement in terms of the Social Services Act which in the regulations is very clear that a child and youth care worker can be  supervised only by a registered child and youth care worker.

SOWETO??... So where to? It is abundantly  clear that management of a child and youth care facility should and can be done by child and youth care workers. Child and youth care workers want it to be so.... not only as they want to resonate with their managers, but also they want a career pathway that breaks through what they presently experience as a glass ceiling.