EMPLOYMENT ADVERTISEMENTS.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Some Facebook friends are sharp at spotting advertised vacancies for child and youth care workers in South Africa. The employment advertisements illustrate tellingly the status employers attach to child and youth care workers. Needless to say the advertisements raise indignant comment.

A recent advertisement sought a Youth Development Manager but stipulated a requirement of a degree and registration in Social work. It raised classic comment.  Outrage tinged with humour. "Do we exist?" "There ARE degrees in Child and Youth Development!".  There are degrees in Youth Development"!! Point is, the advertisement could at very least have advertised for a qualified, registered social services professional. Better still a  child and youth care worker with a degree in youth development.

"Do we exist?' .....good question....come the more senior posts, do we exist as child and youth care professionals?  OR.. In the minds of employers are we just bum wipers and underpants counters. Are they simply ignorant of what as professionals we are qualified and registered to do??....yes,... in knowledge, skill, AND MANAGEMENT!!
In my professional and personal capacity, I have had occasion to visit Governmental organisations, offices, agencies, regions and provinces In some, there are no child and youth care workers employed and in almost all, no child and youth care workers in senior management positions. I think that in the funding of posts     ( the post funding model), it is either believed that in management positions, child and youth care worker posts do not get government funding. Or again, there is employer or funding ignorance about what child and youth care workers are qualified to contribute. 

I heard an official say, "Social workers do "generic child care and child protection work".  What is generic child care?  I have learnt by hearing the nature of the cases in these districts and regions that there is unarguable evidence for the need of child and youth care workers as part of the social service practice. Surely there can't be territorial issues among social service professionals when nationally we are advocating for integrated case management and the best interests of the child.

Another feature in the advertisements for child and youth care workers is the requirement for a non graduate qualification, especially a diploma, at auxiliary level, when the key performance areas lean towards those of the professional. There is evidence of professional level child and youth care workers being supervised by auxiliary level workers and bottom heavy staffing structures, You don't have to be a brain surgeon to get that it's cheaper! No wonder social media spawns comment, "I'm a graduate and I'm unemployed".

We even see advertisements where no qualification requirement is stipulated. 

Now for a big one. Advertisements have been copied and posted on social media where no salary or salary range is advertised. Social media comment, "What's the salary?" Phone calls and Whatsapp queries, "Do you know what salary range they offer?" Rightly or wrongly, the suspicions among child and youth care workers are always that the employer does not want, or is too embarrassed to publically commit to salary.

Then we see employers advertisements which do not stipulate the requirement that the child and youth care worker be registered as such with the South African Council for Social Service Professions. (SACSSP). The law has required that a child and youth care worker be registered since 2013. This makes it an offence for an employer to employ an unregistered child and youth care worker....and an offence for a person to be employed as a child and youth care worker without registration What does this omission in the advertisements for employment say about the mindset of the employer around the recognition and status of the profession?  There is a call to take legal action against such employment practice

Recruitment procedures give the advertisement a place in hiring and contracting a new employee. It can't be taken lightly by employers, The advertisement is a point of referral for the letter of employment . It can be used s evidence if there is some kind of dispute.  Again, the advertisement for the employment of a child and youth care professional has to be given the consideration and the respect that is deserved by any social service professional.. By any professional for that matter.

Of course we exist. The issue is,  employers have set out, advertisements reproduced in the social media,that can and have, left child and youth care workers with the impression that they can be exploited. Some say blatantly, "We are exploited"

Of course we exist.... we exist as professional social service professional. We exist with qualifications, registration and an invaluable practice to reclaim the lives of children and young people. We exist to nation build......and it all starts at the very beginning.

CAVEAT to employers.... The employment advertisement is the beginning. ..... you are the beginning.  











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GANG WARFARE....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

On Thursday this week, our social media featured pictures and comment about a gang related shooting of a Mannenburg mother in the Cape Flats. From what I could gather, it was a drive-by revenge shooting for the loss of a gang's member. Celeste left two young boys, 3 and 5 years old. 

Gang rivalry (warfare) is no excuse for this. ( Fancy boys vs Hard Living). People live in fear of violence, guns and being caught innocently in crossfire. The call is to bring in the police "gang squad". The parents of gang members came in for flack. "It's not your children if you support them in their wrongdoing or are proud of their actions."Some comment said, "It's a disaster". "It's the end times!" The community expresses it's outrage in protest, road closures, tyre burning and blame. "Enough is enough - the police are failing us....our children die in the crossfire, ( and they do!) , We live in fear.

The Minister of Police responds. Large numbers of riot squad police and visual policing moved into the area. 

My experience - -  group violence can and frequently does, escalate when there is a police presence. There seems to be certain satisfaction among gang-like groups of youth if they experience themselves as having the power as a few, to mobilise uniformed forces. There are some social media stories circulating that some police persons are fearful of confronting gang members and some, it is said, are bought out with threats of violence against their families 

It's doubtful whether either the protest or the police strategies are the solution. They may be pouring petrol on the fire. We have to find a way of addressing the disease and not the symptoms.

What attempts are made to do this, and by whom?

 Some church groups. There was a  national TV news item which featured a church group giving full "rock styled" sets of musical instruments and sound equipment to a school in the flats.
The banners read. "Join Bands, Not Gangs". It was intended as preventative and life changing. I wondered if this endeavour in a school was preaching to the converted, a cheque book exercise, without getting hands dirty..... and getting high profile media exposure as a pay-off.

Dr Shernaaz Carelse at the Western Cape mini Conference this month, spoke of having come from "one of our projects in the Cape Flats". It must be assumed then, that the Social Work Department of the University of the Western Cape is undertaking "on the  ground" work in gang areas. Social workers are involved in the mess of gangs and gang membership, or with the parents and community. No publicity, just quietly getting on with it. No high public profiling ..... typical of Social Service professional practice. 

Dr Carelse immediately then said that child and youth care workers belong in the work with gangs. Dr Carelse and I are in sync. Child and youth care workers belong in gang work.

Brian Gannon told me that in 1989, Dr Barnado's Homes, a type of young person's residential consortium, closed the doors of all it's residential facilities. It was part of a UK national move to de-institionalise child and youth care by closing residential facilities. Brian Gannon quoted figures saying that Barnado's was reaching about 400 young people. They moved their programmes into the streets. .....there they reached about 4000 young people. Success was measured by an annual count of the percentage of the young people entering the Criminal justice system through the district courts. I seem to remember him saying that in one East of London districts, the number dropped from +40% of all cases to 17%.

I cannot but help thinking of Amy Biehl. In the South African apartheid era, at the age of 25 while delivering bread to families in Guguletto, she was brutally murdered by two youth. Her body was dumped into a culvert. Her parents came from the USA for her funeral. In the midst of pain and loss and distress the Biehls recognised a need among township youth, which, if it could be met in a constructive way, would contribute to the reduction of violence and crime. They had built and resourced Youth Centres in Guguletto and other townships. The main off the street attraction was, among other programmes, the boxing clubs. They opened Bakeries to provide employment and easily accessed bread... Biehls Bakeries. Disasters are signs of social need, and so, social  service.
Like Barnado"s and the Biehl's.

Gang warfare is a sign of need. A sign of a need for intervention and Social Services We say as child and youth care workers that we work in the lifespace of young people . We say we have a unique approach. This is where we are needed. We must take our programmes into the streets. We must apply what we know, apply our skills and self where the need is now calling for us... in the streets where there are young people in the grip of gangs. It's not for me to spell out tasks, our professionality and our track record in South Africa speaks for itself. Enough to say that child and youth care workers will approach the roots of the need for young people to join gangs. Irirangi Make is a restorative justice worker among indigenous people. In social media she says, "We are not dealing with just the individual, the incident that brings a person here ( the justice system) we look at it from whanau. Whanau is a multi-layered, flexible physical, social, family, extended family and spiritual  perspective. This is EXACTLY where child and youth care workers in South Africa have considerable experience and knowledge in practice. An integrated case management, multi-disciplinary team approach is indicated. In this setting, child and youth care workers will contribute invaluably and practically to the reclaiming of young people in gangs.  Barnado's  and the Biehls did it. Child and youth care workers know how to reframe and redirect a-social and anti-social behaviours toward the more appropriate , pro-social, less damaging,   

Child and youth care workers know the adrenaline rush in young people...the "Let's make a movie "stuff....They know adventure seeking and risk taking as a developmental need, they know connection and belonging, the insignia, the regalia, fear, power, oppression, issues of self esteem, control , manipulation, poverty, parenting, issues of skin colour, identity and support in the management of anger and change.

It's time.   Child and youth care work has to put it's money where its mouth is. We have to do outreach work. We have to take our programmes into the streets.

    





    

WRITE -UP OR WRITE OFF....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

doctorate in Social


At the Western Cape mini conference on the 2nd October 2018, Dr Shernaaz Carelse of the University of the Western Cape stressed the need for child and youth care workers to WRITE. Dr Carelse is well positioned to encourage us to write and to publish. She was a child and youth care worker in residential setting, now with a doctorate in social work. She knows well, as do I, that we, in South Africa have a lot to say.....and that's just what we do.  SAY it!  We are a nation of oral communicators. We are avid and animated story tellers, We don't write - very sad. YET, we all know the story..."If it's not recorded, .....it didn't happen".

If we don't publish we run the risk of being regarded as a lesser profession in the social service professional sector. 

Prof Adrian Van Breda is the editor of the journal South African Journal of Social Work and Social Development published by University of Johannesburg and Unisa Press. In a message to me he said " Would be good to have child and youth care literature". There is another Social Work Journal published at Stellenbosch in South Africa, Social Work/ Maatskaplikewerk. ...good thinking to publish in more than one language and to publish digitally

Of course we have a South African child and youth care journal! And ... it has international recognition . The NACCW published quarterly CHILD & YOUTH CARE WORK. I live in the bushveld.  Postal deliveries are slow, to no go. So the most recent I have is Quarter 1, 2018. The editorial apart, there are 6 articles in the journal of which, 3 are contributed by South Africans. The others are gleaned from non South African writers or journals. Interesting that one of these is a research report form a Phd student from Hamburg on research she did in Cape Town Childrens' Homes.

We have in South Africa, members on the editorial teams of at least two international e-journals Relational Child and Youth Care Practice (published quarterly) and  CYC-on line published by CYC-net (monthly).

There are many opportunities and space for us, as South African child and youth care to contribute writing for editorial teams to consider for publication. 

We can create space and opportunities for ourselves. How about a monthly newsletter for a NACCW Region, or for your organisation.? We can always make our Annual General Report booklets into a something worthwhile with our child and youth care contributions. Write in the social media, tell the success stories, in-house research outcomes,...even just a literature review is a helpful piece of writing.

As child and youth care workers we must write!

I have a few thoughts for talk .......better....a few thoughts for writing.

Writing is like prayer, You have to do it, to learn how to do it.

Composers of music, I am told, often get, or hear a melody in their heads. In these odd, often inopportune moments, they have to grab something to scribble it down. As an aspiring learner writer, that happens to me. Thoughts, ideas, words come and I have to write them down, then and there, otherwise they go as fast as they came. Frequently a line, a phrase, or even a whole page gets scribbled on a piece of scrap paper at odd times.....mainly when I'm standing somewhere. I seldom write sitting down. We all have our idiosyncrasies.

Roald Dahl had a wooden garden wendy house. At a certain time every morning he would go there, wrap his legs in a blanket and write for a few hours. He disciplined himself to write every day. 

Googling seems to feature as part of writing. As does reading. Apart from the information bit, reading develops for us a lexicon, a compendium, a vocabulary, a bank of words and style which later flow from the unconscious.

Where can we, as child and youth care workers draw ideas for our writing?

Simply, from what we do, our programmes, our creative interventions, our "Aha" moments or our internal struggles with the tensions between theory and practice. Our South African praxis.     I can never tire of saying ....our value to the world is in our South African, our indigenous way of doing things. If its not recorded,....it never happened.

Now we get to the actual writing part. There are short courses offered on writing for publication. I hope that soon child and youth care workers in South Africa will have to gather Continuing Professional Development points ( CPD points) for continued annual registration as professionals. A course for CPD points for writing for publication in child and youth care work is enticing.

Pointer 1 . Decide clearly for whom you are writing. Who is your target readership? Academics? First time, setting-out child and youth care workers? The international world of child and youth are? Who?. Be very sure of this. Obviously, the target readership determines style and language. This blog is called Child and Youth Care TALK. The idea is to have a conversation with busy child and youth care workers. A quick,easy read.

Pointer 2. Decide on your message. A single main message is ideal. Some supporting sub-messages, some narratives and examples  support the message... then sometimes they become the message!   I had a High School teacher who always said of us as pupils, "You remember the story but you forget the POINT !" 

Pointer 3. Plan, at least roughly. A point by point draft outline. Then you can expand on the points to make an article.

Pointer 4. Find a suitable title....something that will grab the attention of your target readership.

Pointer 5. Then write,!!! -  editing can come later. Don't worry too much about correctness. If you don't see it when you edit, the editorial team will help you out. The South African Council for Social Services Professions, for example have advertised for a language expert to edit writing before it's published. Most editorial teams tweek material before it goes into print .

Pointer 5.Write, write write, frequently. ....then is begins to flow.

Pointer 6 Think about picture stories, videos  books and blogs. 

Again, if we can think, if we experience ....and we do,....then we can write. As South African child and youth care workers we are known to be fearless, outspoken, colourful, creative, child-centered hardworking and unique. At very least we can tell of what we do. With our special qualities captured in print, we should not and cannot be demeaned as a profession.




     



  

CAN WE CRY?....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

A social media post with pics  told that a young boy stabbed a teacher to death. A follow-up post showed a pic of the boy. It said that the youngster died of epilepsy. I wept. I wept for the boy. I wept for the teacher. I wept for the the whole horrendous situation. I wept at the comments which said, mainly, "If this is true, then he deserved it." "Revenge is sweet". I couldn't help it. The tears just came. 

It was much the same when a news report told of a driver of a bus which overturned. Nine people died in that incident. The driver was found hiding in the back of a truck. He was arrested and taken into custody.
 I seem to live my life a moment away from tears. But, I said to myself, "This is OK, I'm in the privacy of my own home."

I was once visiting at a hospital when a patient died. The nurse drew the curtains around the bed, went into the glass enclosed duty room and sobbed. She was comforted by the other nurses.We could all see. I thought "professionally you don't do that" - at least she did try to make it private.

Is it OK for professionals to cry. Is it OK for us, as professional child and youth care workers, to cry?" 

I have cried on a few occasions. .....once openly sobbed.

We ran, what we called disciplinary enquiries" for young persons, especially the older ones if the incident warranted it. The idea was to mirror for them what would happen in the workplace ....an experience in a safe microcosm of  life in the big world out there. 

The boy, near on 18, didn't come back after a weekend at his parent's house. He was 5 days late! I the course of the whole thing of "why?" It struck me that he had no experience of anyone caring enough about him for him to understand that ANYONE would worry about him and his wellbeing......as did his child and youth care worker. I excused myself. Said there would be a 5 minute break; went out onto the verandah and cried.

A boy's family of 3, got killed in a car accident. He acted out at school which threatened expulsion. At our enquiry, he said, "I don't care, What do I have to live for?"......I cried. That "nothing to lose, don't care "...was just so sad,...scary and so very dangerous.

We stopped having "disciplinary enquiries". Instead we held "incident discussion meetings"which changed the tone and the nature of what we did.....more in line with restorative justice and restitution. I was sure that those big guys would experience any tears as weakness and an inability to provide FIRST for their needs.

When we were to leave the Children's Home for another work appointment the community of children were given 6 months notice. A Psychologist helped with the termination process It was all carefully, professionally and strategically planned . Two days before we were due t leave, 3 girls cut their wrists that night. When I reported. the next day at the final Board Meeting.... I openly broke down !!!! I was SO embarrassed! Professionals JUST DON'T DO THAT !!!! .. or do we?

Are we allowed to cry as professional child and youth care workers? We developed a protocol. Yes, but in private. And yet,,,, I saw times when tears seemed to add something to a moment of caring,...... not that often, I must however say. 

Then again, I saw what I called "unfortunate tears", moments of anger, frustration, disappointment. Often when child and youth care workers experienced the organisation ( or me!), as not providing enough support after difficult experiences.These tears seem to talk of the caring community, the therapeutic milieu and personal supportive supervision. I was fortunate in having really good intra-personal supervision. On a contract basis with a Board member. I received excellent supportive personal supervision from a psychologist and the from a past Director of a Place of Safety. This, believe me, helps ....no... it is essential when living a life close to tears as we do as child and youth care professionals.

We all know that tears are healthy, it's just that we are not expected to let our personal emotions interfere with our first responsibility.This is REALLY DIFFICULT ...We have to sort out our sympathy from our empathy. But, if you must, if you can, cry in supervision, ..and rather not in a glass enclosed duty room

LEGALISED MARIJUANA.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

No sweat to find a theme for this weeks blog!  There was a blaze of social media posts and comments on the recent Constitutional Court ruling that legalised marijuana (cannabis, dagga, weed) for household use....."weed is legal in South Africa."....."Holy smoke!" "weedsellers are now florists".......the plants can now be grown domestically...from what I could gather from the social media posts, 12 plants can be grown. Domestic use quantity for smoking can be carried privately. 

Judge Raymond Zondo's Constitutional Court ruling went like this;

Some extracts: 
" The personal use of dagga is not a criminal offence."

"The right to privacy is not confined to a home or private dwelling. It will not be an offence for an adult person to use or be in possession of cannabis in a private place " (my italics).

"This judgement does not specify how many grams of cannabis can a person use or have in private.".........(the legislature will have to consider a quantity that  does not constitute undue harm) my brackets.

What's good about this judgement? Some say that the drug dealers who sell dagga, sell other stuff as well. What they are reputed to do is to introduce young people to harder drugs until a young person gets hooked. Then they kick in with the demand to pay. The dealers are accused of using dagga among young persons as a "gateway"  to the harder stuff. By legalising dagga for domestic use, they say, it could be possible that the dealer is left out.

In terms of the Constitutional Court ruling. it's still illegal to deal. It all depends on how much is being carried. The police have to make a decision.

BUT THEN:   I heard this twice from different sources. An Anti-drug action group said that legislation won't close down the drug houses. They said that the police have a monthly target figure for the arrest of persons in possession. The police they said, would not allow the drug houses to close They will still be protected to ensure that their arrest targets can be met. In fact, they argued, more street corner arrests for possession are likely.....their comment..." Moe people in jail....more children denied parents".??

The big argument in support,
Dagga is less harmful to health than alcohol or cigarettes. It is said to have beneficial health benefits, properties that fight or reduce the growth of cancer cells, is safer in the lungs and slows down the onset and process of Parkinsons and Alzheimer's. There appears some evidence to support this.

What are the negatives for young people?
Alcohol and cigarettes have an age restriction for purchase. It's 18 years. One our leaders in South African child and youth care posted a pic of the dagga plant on facebook with the comment: "for your own home only and not under 18". I queried whether he got the age restriction for purchase of dagga from the Constitutional Court ruling. His reply was "No, that came from my desk". I searched the judgement for an age restriction on the sale of dagga and couldn't  find one......only "for adult use". 

I'm not sure what it means for children age 13/14 to buy dagga. Presumably they will smoke it. My experience in a residential care facility was that the boys, when high acted out in a state of euphoria coupled with the loss of fear . A sense of being indestructible.... "if I jump off the roof.... I will fly!" .. type of thing. It's not called  "giggle weed" for nothing. Also there was a belief that physical prowess is improved. I don't know if that is so.
I have this possibly unfounded view that it's not wise or clever for a 13/14 year old to smoke weed, especially at school.
What do we really know about children and marijuana?
Little. As an illegal substance our researchers say that research has been slowed down or made almost impossible. Some research in the USA States in which it is legalised, show scanty evidence of any negative effects on fetal development of the baby in-utero. One research exposed the brain cells of mice and then living human brain cells to marijuana. They found evidence of a negative effect on aspects of neurological development which could affect cognitive functioning and problem solving into adulthood.
What if children smoke it? One statistic I found said that an estimated 61% of children in South Africa had tried it by the age 14....even if just as an experiment.
  Only recently a father spoke about his son who started out on marijuana at age 14. Graduated to nyope (wonga) and whose acting out was a risk to himself, property and others. So some social media comment is that with the legalisation of dagga will come a mindset that the marijuana mixes, like nyope are now legal.

Another concern is the effect that smoking marijuana may have on driving and so on motor vehicle accidents as this could well have an effect on children as passengers or pedestrians. The American states reported a nil effect. Alcohol related accidents ..yes, but the effect of alcohol and marijuana use when driving increaded the accident rate significantly.

Social Service Professionals are putting out different but strongly worded messages about the legalisation of dagga in South Africa. Some want the field to protest, to publish position statements. They want South Africa to know about the number of cannabis related cases to whom they have to provide interventive services. 
Some say that we now don't have to feel like criminals when we recreate or take marijuana based medication.

Right now, it all sounds somewhat dis-jointed!