MORE THAN ROCKET SCIENCE...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

It was Nelson Mandela who called us a Rainbow Nation. He was of course, right. Many colours, many cultures, one nation. We are encouraged to focus on what we have in common to recognise our shared humanity as a people. 'Tis true. We do have enough in common to say that we are all South African.. But then, it's not only race, nationalities. and our 13 different official languages that makes us diverse. Privilege, class, disadvantage, spirituality, restricted language codes, religion, education, rural, urban, tradition, values, heritage, gender, gender attitudes, child rearing practices, and more........all that is embraced in the word CULTURE.  We are a fascinating, complex people.

Put all of this into a child and youth care programme together with the additional complexity of the behaviour patterns of children and youth  in care, and we get  a sense of the intricacy of child and youth care practice. More than rocket science!!! Now we know for sure why we are a"profession". ..not child minders, nor nannies. nor domestic workers. It is about time that the powers that be, and the other social service professions recognise this too.

In this blog I thought to look at some of the inevitable complex patterns or phases of human experience that merge at any one moment in the daily life of children and youth in car and to parallel that with phases of child and youth care workers development to explore what working in the moment means in our practice.

One of these experiences is culture shock. 

I think that in South Africa we are particularly susceptible to culture shock.when coming into a child and youth care setting. There is always an an argument that after 24 years of democracy, the end of apartheid, segregation and separate development, that anything like culture shock would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately it's not so. We still have vestiges of apartheid living on. Bantustans and the group areas Act were scrapped. But still, many residential areas and regions are characterised by separation by colour. Township life, rural villages, provincial towns, urban slums, crowded apartments, informal settlements, overcrowding, shack life, still typify the residential settings from which children and young persons come into care. They come into residential facilities which are not only culturally diverse, but cut off from familiar sounds,smells, people, street life activities, stimulation,
community, local peers (including their gang maybe).

The facility itself has its own foreign culture. Deliberately structured, routined and sometimes.. regimented. You sleep alone dormitory style when you are accustomed to sharing a family bed.

I arrived early morning at a facility in a place surrounded as far as the eye could see with nothing but veld (grassland). it called itself "Juvenile Holding Centre".  Getting out of the car we heard a girl singing in one of the rooms facing the driveway. It had a wailing melody. "It's like crying" my colleague said. "It's from the heart, hurting about her situation." In Africa we know. In Africa, in every situation. in joy, in sadness and in pain, we sing. A single voice is joined by others as community embraces that moment with the other.......you belong... She sang alone.
A passing employee went to the window. "Thula...ukhona mlungu" ( Quiet! there's a White person here") I went to the barred window. "Please sing"I said. "It was good to hear you singing. You sing well". There were five adolescent girls in that room. Two of the were White.......she sang alone. Where was the child care worker to "do together"?  Where was the Rainbow Nation. Why the old stereotypes ?

At the same time child and youth care workers may be experiencing culture shock. The reality is different from the lecture room.

In my entrance into on-line child and youth care work, with my family and at what may appear to be a very simple experience of environmental change, I (we) experienced culture shock. It was an all white residential setting.so it wasn't a "racial" thing. It had to do with class. The children and young person's language was loaded with the most explicit expletives. Not infrequently directed at us> Some of which my children had never previously heard. Children went to school bare-footed, ate with their hands, drank tea from the saucer, no books, no reading, obsessed with TV soapies and lousy violent movies, short fuse  behaviours, Your mother.....your  ma....banter. "It just shouldn't be like this". After three weeks all I could think about was to load my suitcases onto my roof-rack, pack my family into the car  and go home.

It is said that there are four phases of culture shock. Honeymoon, crisis, adjustment, adaptation. I was at the crisis stage. We did eventually adapt. It took however at least two years practice with excellent supervision and mentoring before I felt confident that I was practicing therapeutically. I was going through my own phases of professional development and adjustment. ( doing for, doing to, doing with, doing together)

It is said that children placed in a facility separate from parents, whatever the circumstances, experience "death". I used to call it "a little death". Commonly, I guess, this is known as separation and loss. There is little need to say that there are well known phases of grief. The Kubla- Ross DABDA (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance). In no strict order and with no smooth transition. 

Children then, inevitably will show behaviours not necessarily characteristic of  that child.....quiet, withdrawn, low mood, defiance frustration, over servile, aggression, even violence.

It seems that what I'm saying is coming into a child and youth care programme is good medicine. But it  has a range of fairly unavoidable side-effect, mainly beyond your control. This applies to children and to the incoming child and youth care worker. This becomes very complicated because child and worker are experiencing different phases of adaptation at different levels at any one moment. This leaves the child and youth care worker with the responsibility to recognise what is happening with themselves and what is happening in the child in any given time. Meaning making. Then to provide support to the young person as a primary focus through it all.......culture shock ,separation, loss, adaptation to institutional life, group living and the issues that brought them into care in the first instance.

It was Prof Jim Anglin who said ....
Child and youth care is not rocket science. t is MORE THAN ROCKET SCIENCE.

When?  I ask, With registration as professionals, When, will this be acknowledged and fully recognised  in our Rainbow South Africa