JUGGLERS, AND FIRE-EATERS...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Child and youth care workers this week, posted on social media ...."We are"....We aren't", 'We hope ", "We don't". Messages of confusion.

The moment in which we live and work is rather like a juggling act 
with all the balls in the air.
Let us try to catch a few.

In March this year. the Department of Social Development's service level agreement( SLA) and memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Association of Child Care Workers came to an end. It was a five year agreement in which the Association was contracted to be the service provider for the training of nearly 9000 learners attached to Isibindi Projects throughout the country.
The norms and standards and the model itself was monitored, evaluated and maintained by Mentors. The Mentors were employed by the NACCW whilst the learners were contracted and paid by the Department of Social Development provincially. It was all done in  partnerships. All of these arrangements terminated on the expiry of the 5 year guaranteed period.

So, child and youth care workers in some provinces experience delay. Uncertainty and confusion go hand in hand with delay. It seems to be taking a long time. Here's a ball in the air for child and youth care workers caught in the juggling act. Where and when will it land?

Another juggling ball in the air.... The NACCW which designed and developed the Isibindi model provided the safegaurds that protected the child and youth care thinking, philosophy and practice of the model. Child and youth care workers are asking with some anxiety whether the model will somehow change. The National Department of Social Development now, in a sense, have a sort of ownership of the community-based child and youth care model. Will it's name change? Will, they ask, the approach, philosophy, the way of working, its practice, change?  For them,the ball is in the air. 

The red and the blue balls are in the air. Oops, there's a yellow one!

Child and youth care workers are worried about employment. Social media texts..."I have a degree and I'm not employed". This juggling ball could be airborne, in flight, because of a moment in our history. Just prior to the then Minister of Social Development signing the regulations that legislate the levels of professional child and youth care workers, the Professional Board for child and youth care work attempted a survey through the universities. The question was, "How many higher learning and degree graduates have we?" At that time the estimate was 600+. But where were they? Services were extensively provided by child and youth care workers with the Basic Qualification in Child Care ( at level 2 or 3) or with no qualification at all. In the promulgated regulations there is a "sunset clause", a granny clause, a catch all to give everyone a chance to register at the auxiliary level (even on the strength of a job description only). This was designed to be  inclusive and to give child and youth care workers a chance to get a qualification.
It was also understood that child and youth care workers who held posts and operated within the scope of practice of a child and youth care worker at the professional level, like supervisors, managers programme managers and senior posts, would retain their job titles and key functions. They had to know that they were secure. No-one was to be demoted. No jobs lost as a result of registration.
The thinking was and still is, that TIME would work this anomaly  out of the system.
Employers were expected to advertise and fill vacant posts with graduates when the scope of practice demanded a child and youth care worker registered at the professional level.

History is still working itself out, but has been unfairly and illegally slowed by employers who advertise senior positions and fill the posts with child and youth care workers at the auxiliary level. 
The child and youth care workers most left hanging in mid-air are those with a Diploma in Child and Youth Care Work at level six. They seem to be neither one nor the other. Advantage is taken of that. 
Statute does regulate all of this, but for as long as employers are allowed to ignore it, We remain in limbo and the juggle goes on.

The situation is not improved by the so-called "freezing "of government posts and the NGO's continue to struggle financially. (I've said that before!!!!)

Red, blue, yellow .... floating in the juggling act.
Haaai ! another just popped up! Its the black ball inscribed "salaries".....enough said.

But here's a green ball. Reach out to catch it..... The Isibindi Project can't fade out and die. It has stirred up the interest and support of the children and young persons, of the communities who benefited by it. It attracts funders because of its international status. Together with the Safe Park Model, and its add-on programmes it is rooted in South African soil. In some provinces it continues and in Kwa-Zulu Natal it is operating as Isibindi with a zulu word appended to its name. Take heart. It cannot fall and die.

And another close to hand --- Orange. There is a surge of interest for child and youth care workers to be employed in schools. This surge of interest could not have come at a better time. Possibly the Department of Education had a gestalt moment when press and the media reported a significant number of incidents involving violence, behaviour management needs, drop-outs, school rapes and a high pregnancy rate in schools.  The need for child and youth care workers in schools can no longer be a juggling act. ......reach and catch this one!

 Confusing times, but not without hope. With child and youth care established as a profession in South Africa and with the fire in our bellies, let them bring on the juggling clowns.....we know how to walk the tightrope and eat fire.

My Facebook cover pic reads
"When you are in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think that you've been buried.
PERHAPS YOU HAVE BEEN PLANTED !......BLOOM ! "