EMPLOYER TICK-BOX VS QUALITY: REDUCING WORKPLACE ASSAULT. CHILD A ND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

I'm still responding to the massive social media response to the issue of child and youth care workers being assaulted.. I add the phenomena of aggressive, violent behaviour by anyone, to any other in a child and youth care facility. In this blog I have labelled some of the employers responsibilities in this as "almost intangible"and "intangible".

An almost intangible is recruitment.
There was a lot of comment on this. Many said that the wrong people get appointed. It's acknowledged that child and youth care workers in South Africa have to be employed on the basis of qualifications, registration with the South African Council for Social Service Professions, for having a criminal record, clearance from the the Child Protection Register (no record of child abuse) and also from the police for evidence of a criminal record. So much for the tick-box tangibles. 

 The four human, personal character qualities that make up the research found therapeutic personality are: Empathy, Intelligence, Unconditional Acceptance (non-judgemental), and self awareness.
In education and training, these qualities can be learnt and developed. But at the point of employment, they should be integrated as part of the person.

There is more.

 It has to do with the concept of the"wounded healer". In interviewing candidates for  child and youth care posts, I have frequently been told "I have suffered my life, so I know what it's like. I can help these children". Certainly there are among us a good number of people who have indeed suffered . The issue is that for many that pain has not been resolved and redirected into healing for others., then the risk of triggers into reaction rather than response increases the risk of aggressive or violent behaviour in the young person in care.

Then comes the candidates REAL understanding of what child and youth care is really all about...the values, the ethics the purpose, the philosophy and it modus operandi. I unfortunately, have sat on panels where the the interviewers themselves did not have a grasp of this. Recruitment errors then exacerbate the the risk of assault in the workplace. Employers have a role and a responsibility to employ the right people.

Now for a less tangible but essential employer responsibility.

A therapeutic milieu demands that the nature and quality of staff relationships contribute to the reclaiming of young people at risk.... to the development of more coping, less damaging behaviour. Social media posts and comments have mentioned tensions ....manager: worker, social worker: child and youth care worker, younger worker: older worker,  Most of these comments refer to "not caring", "not understanding, "not trusting", hierarchical issues and attitudes.

It's easy to say that staff relationships must be "professional". It's not easy to to define, or practice teamwork, consistency, support, trust, macro and not micro management and the flattening out of age old hierarchical systems. Especially that....especially... role and not title is critical in the relationship style of child and youth care facilities.Social media comment and posts suggest that this is often found wanting. I have noticed that often in government systems people are called by their titles and not by their names, Young people bear the names,client, juvenile, or offender, or inmate. Here is a formula for reactive behaviours.
It is the employer and management that has a critical, primary responsibility to create, engender, and model staff relationships congruent with the concept of the therapeutic milieu. Otherwise ..tension,.....tension makes for acting out. Acting out can lead to aggression.

Team building is not a "once a year" outing to a resort for a braai (barbecue).  Employers have a responsibility to make caring staff relationship a pervasive, ongoing, in-house interaction. After all, the employer cant just give lip-service to the core practice of muti- disciplinary team functioning and the integrated case management approach.

Now for program and programme

In this blog, the word program will refer to the greater reason for the existence of a facility. So, for example ....providing a place for the safety of children and young persons, or providing for young persons in trouble with the law. The word programme will refer to the inputs that are made to achieve the objectives of the program. The Children's Act sets out a list of these as a requirement. The list is not exhaustive but includes: reception, care  and development, substance abuse, recreational,creative, skills development, educational,life skills, diversion, the employer ca tick-box these, but ..the possibilities and the needs depend really on the needs of the young person ,,... and that's the point !! 

In developing an individual development plan (IDP ) for the child, social media posts from child and youth care workers are saying that young people are frequently put through a "one size fits all" regimen. My experience was that this was frequently  happening in the NGO sector in particular. But its government employed child and youth care workers who voice  the often in-applicability of programme to the core individual  needs of the children and young persons in care.

However, from a child and youth care perspective, this is not where the REAL therapeutic reclaiming work is done. Child and youth care workers say that it is in the relationship based interactive responses, engagement and repartee between child and youth care worker and the young person in the life-space and daily events of the child that  reclaim the lives of children at risk.
I agree.
For this to be effective and reduce levels of possible uncontrolled outbursts and damage to self, child care worker, others, or property,  we have to examine the employers role in setting a tone that allows for these intangibles.

And so we get to tone.

I call it "tone" and say that it is "in the wallpaper" of the facility. It's like this. When I walk in the corridors of a convent, I don't meet anyone, but I know deep down inside me, a calm ,a peace. I suppose it could be called "atmosphere" I refer to it often as the "culture "of the place. In the convent it is created by the calm and peace in the persons and daily life of the nuns. I wouldn't dare raise my voice there.

 I get that sense of it's "tone" when I  when I go into a child and youth care facility. The tone comes , I have no doubt from the top down. The employer and the management sets, creates, the tone, the organisational climate. How problems are approached, how caring is shown to staff and to everyone, how much ownership exists in the way things are done.... it's like what is commonly called the difference between a house and a home. ....Now, ... children and young people are very quick to identify with the wallpaper of the facility and so are the staff without even being conscious of it. Top down in many facilities can determine the tone, climate, wallpaper of the facilities and in government organisations I am frequently told that policy, philosophy, procedure, comes from above. But tone is a within these walls thing. so that tension in itself can create a climate of resentment, masked or blatant oppositional  aggression . This will be mirrored in the young persons in care.

All of these intangibles non tick-box employer responsibilities impact on the possible risk of aggressive acting out and the probability of assault in the workplace. All of this impacts equally on the approach that child and youth care workers have toward behaviour management.

Behaviour management practices then, will have to be explored in the next week blog.

 Until then, stay safe.