CONNECTION PATTERN ENCOUNTERS......CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This is not a"What to do" blog. It is a "What we encounter" blog.

It's still with last week's question......should girls, (young persons) in a Place of Safety be allowed to  'mix' with young persons in another "unit"? Short answer last week was "Yes". Not only is freedom of association a human right... and young persons are human.....Right?  But in child and youth care, trial and error learning is developmental learning.

If I ranked developmental need areas of the young persons within the facilities I directed, then relationships and relationship styles predominated....by far! In no matter which of the residential configurations ( village, cottage, dormitory, "unit's") child and youth care practice has much to do with furthering developmental social relationship styles. It's not whether social connection styles are right or wrong, but whether they are "clever"or "not that clever"...does this help or harm you?

It became quite useful to have some "handles" to assist in the observation and identification of friendship styles and so in interventive practice It's quite OK to have in-house jargon for various behaviours provided all in the facility know what they describe and use them. They are frequently more descriptive and avoid long technical psychological diagnostic labels. This may sound like trivialsation but we all know in child and youth care that it's earnestly serious stuff  this.

So here goes....these were some of the descriptive handles we used in the facility... This is something of what, as child and youth care workers, we encounter and is part of our developmental practice.

Sticky toffee paper syndrome. I saw this mainly with girls in both their peer and adult relationships. I guess it is commonly known as "clinging"..one unravels oneself from the left side cling, only to be clung on the right side... physically much too inappropriately, touchingly close. OK in very little children, but when this continues into the teens, it is obviously a developmental area with underlying relationship issues.

The Main Manna. We sometimes would refer to this social grouping jokingly as The Mafia. This group connected socially to share power and control. Also to protect each other and to get what they wanted through physical threat throughout the whole facility. This social style demanded and used the next social grouping style, that of the Skivvy.

Skivvies. In this social relationship style, servitude is regarded as the  key  social acceptance. As a "gofer".....if I fetch and carry,  I can maintain a so called friendship with others, and a relationship with adults. I must say that I saw this approach to social connection frequently among abused children. "What must I do next to please you?"

Gangs.  This is the one probably most feared in facilities. Apart from pre-adolescent single sex groupings.....normal...if we combine the Mafia with the skivvy many social social relationship needs are met. 

See-level pelmets.  This is the "We must be noticed... no matter what in order to be connected and socially accepted social style group. If we are noticed... we belong".....usually negative behaviours attract notice to this group. I had the black nail polish, black lipstick very short skirt, clip-clop shoes, jangly earing, the see my bum short skirt brigade.

Now for some others where description isn't needed.

Relationship reluctant, (shut off), Isolates, Do, Dare or Forfeit. In-group, Rivalous grouping, Familial..........and more...

 It seems that connections and styles of connections, socially.....friendship groupings, can be somewhat predictable in our settings. and this is where group residential work becomes an opportunity for child and youth care practice. It sometimes takes a while for starting out child and youth care workers to celebrate  what I used to call "the colours of the rainbow"...If you are allowed to see the relationship colours,.... then you know what needs to be done. We can explore more helpful relationship style alternatives.

There are any number of instructional "programmes"designed for presentation to young persons .... "Finding friends and keeping them", "Building and maintaining positive peer and adult reationships, "Becoming parentable". At one time I think I had 22 such programmes on the shelf. 

HOWEVER, when involved in Quality Assurance of diversion programmes for young persons in conflict with the law and placed by the courts in residential or non-residential facilities, we always sat and talked with the young persons to get their opinions and experience of such programmes.
Tom Garfat, in his  doctoral thesis kicks off with the statement that an intervention is only as effective as it is EXPERIENCED as effective. Well that was indeed confirmed by the young persons in such "sit down and go through sessions of pre-prepared material" programmes. They said  they always wrote in their evaluations that it was helpful only to satisfy the requirements of their sentence.

It gets, I think to this... Tell me ...I'll forget  . Show me ...I may remember.   Let me do...I'll learn forever.

Schooling is for passing. Experience is for learning. Child and youth care workers expose young people without fear to the university of life. Want a PhD? (Peoples Handling Degree), .....then MINGLE.

For child and youth care workers, the "what we do?' can become problematic. especially for setting out child and youth care workers and ....let us say managers with no background in the field. Our training and education does not always bridge the gap between theory and practice. It doesn't always provide the missing link. There is a principle in South Africa that is quite useful , I think. It is called "what works" It is probably the way to go. Usually it comes as a result of child and youth care workers sharing experiences. "For me this worked" "For me, this didn't work". Learning circles.

The thing is that for us and  young persons in care, socialisation is a given for learning and change. 

SOCIAL MIXING BETWEEN HOUSES ......CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

There was a time when it was trendy to call what child and youth care workers do, "group residential treatment". Then the word "treatment" fell out of favour as it was said to be associated with medicine, psychology and psychiatry. Then we got "group residential care". Now we talk of "development" but the group residential tag has faded. So , logically I suppose what we do in facilities is "group residential development".... and a group residential setting becomes something of a community. I have always said that this community , or group living arrangement, creates opportunity for us to design a microcosm environment that is not only healing ( therapeutic) but also reflects the world beyond its walls that we would want it to be, whilst at the same time prepares young people and children for the realities of the world that is.

No matter in which of the group living settings we work, as child and youth care workers we are developing better, more appropriate coping skills whilst creating a view of living harmoniously and helpfully together. We are agents of social change. 

It is within this context...(.is it a theoretical or a reality model?)....the building of appropriate, positive peer and adult relationships happens. The group, the setting, and the community becomes the stage, the platform, upon which developmental, (therapeutic) learning unfolds. Rather like a directed drama, with scenes, acts,and players. Child and youth care workers orchestrate the plot, as well as they can. The players are a very diverse group. Sometimes in single sexed settings, sometimes mixed sex, mixed ages, mixed backgrounds, mixed histories and experiences, mixed ways of solving problems, mixed relationship styles. It's  a complex cast to direct. From the relationship needy to the relationship destructive and everything in between. That's what we work with....we are child and youth care workers.

The social media post that sparked this week's blog asked the question.....and this is not a direct quote......Should we allow institutionalised girls in a place of safety in one unit to mix with girls in another unit.?? .

One of my very first articles published, was called "Letter to a kid" It wasn't actually primarily addressed to children. It was penned for the facility's Board of Management. They didn't get the child and youth care realities of work and concept. They wanted the children's home to be an "angel factory". It never got to them that children and young persons have a right to make choices, and in making choices to make mistakes, to be different, to choose their friends. In making choices they have a right to be experienced as  a-social, to connect, to belong, to being, and dare I say it.....they can choose to be anti-social. As child and youth care workers, what we do with children and young persons, is to explore together before, hang -in together during, otherwise empathise, partner together after.... then explore together again. They will experience the university of the world, the natural or logical consequence s of their choices. It can be, and usually is, somewhat messy. And the child and youth care group living facility is a safe place in which to do this. Child and youth care workers are the support they need to move from Act 1, Scene 1  to Act 2, Scene 2 with as little hurt as possible and with help not to repeat the same Act and Scene all over again... to help in the ever unravelling story until they can internalise the plot of "what ifs" by testing alternatives.
 Institutionalised locking away of choices, locks up learning. If this sounds like radical child and youth care, then I guess it is radical child and youth care.

The different styles of "not that helpful" relationships is for another blog some other week. What is perhaps worth exploring in this blog are the underlying thoughts of risk attached to actively disallowing, and actively allowing the mixing of young persons from different place of safety "units"..

When formal. assumed or personal policies are to disallow mixing, I have experienced child and youth care workers who talk of "MY CHILDREN". ...  The relationship between cottages/houses can be  something like that of a bad divorce.. "You don't go there, you don't talk to those girls. They are all foul mouthed bitches and BAD NEWS. Don't let me catch you with that lot" The inter house rivalry caused heightened, intense inter-house rivalry, to a point of extremely insulting name calling both of individuals and of the  house.."Whore House !". There were false allegations. Even physical property damage and violence... At the bottom of all this lies policy and perhaps the child and youth care worker, on the one hand trying to protect the young persons in the house and on the other, using an approach that is relationship destructive......what happened to the world as we would like it to be. ...and the world view of these young persons?
This was so obviously damaging , but at another level, the child care workers themselves experienced a breakdown in teamwork and staff relationships. When it may be necessary to reshuffle the groupings and shift houses... damage control becomes huge. 

There are risks that occupy the thinking of child care workers in between house mixing. Peer pressure is an obvious. What if there is a predominant placement of first time offenders or substance abusers in that house?  To what extent, they ask, will all the hard work and the IDP be eroded by peer pressure? Then there are practical issues, like dating and sexual experimentation, the borrowing of clothing and possessions between houses, Visiting, to gain advantage screen time when it is "screens off" in one house but not in another,  having made a good connection with the other house child and youth care worker.

Should children in a facility be allowed to mix between houses? My short answer is "Yes". I think that the effects of allowing children to make choices in peer relationships, in the safety of a child care setting, the opportunities for developmental learning and the  input from life space child and youth care professionals out way the so called risks. In any case if we know what the risks are, we as group residential workers can plan for them and use them to the developmental advantage of the young persons in our care.







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THE DIGITAL DILEMMA DEBATE...,SOUTH AFRICAN CHILD AND YOUTH CARE

Weekly, this blog invariably refers to child and youth care worker's posts and comments in social media. It's one of our ways of keeping an ear to the ground as it were. What I miss are posts and comments from children and young persons in the system. Strange.....cellphones, tablets, i-phones, and even laptops are all part of everyday communication, expressions of opinion and knowledge acquisition. Am I thinking way out of the box to contemplate young persons being part of our facebook or twitter friends and commenting with us on issues that affect not only us, but have an impact on the social services they receive? Someone said that young persons are just not in the same whatsapp groups as child and youth care workers ...(and me !!) I wonder why?

Anyway, group and friendship chats apart, it got me thinking about young persons in our systems and their access to digital communication.

In the 1995 Cabinet Enquiry into the status of Places of Safety,and what were then called Places of Detention, one of the queries of the facility was whether young people had access to newspapers, receive and send uncensored letters, radio and TV..especially international and local news  The non-availability to communication, of any sort, was regarded as a violation of a RIGHT. The world has turned a few revolutions since then. Now, communication and recreation,.is digital. We have been through the 3rd Industrial Revolution, ....We are already well into the 4th Industrial Revolution. I heard only two days ago about an Artificial Intelligence (AI) dating app available on mobile phones, tablets and laptops!! And it's voice activated to boot.!!! The question of young person's rights comes up again....this time in a completely different ballpark. This is the kernel of what I have dubbed a digital dilemma

What do the.Rules and Conventions say? 

Let's start with The Rights and Rules of Juveniles in Detention UN Annexure 45 of December. A(45/49) 1990. The Beijing Rules.  See,.the title is outdated, as is the century, We have to translate  contextually to capture the implications for us, young persons and the upholding of rights today.
Rule J59 is probably the most significant, 
But Ill start with: Rule 18(c) Juveniles should receive and retain materials for their leisure,and recreation as are acceptable with the interests of the administration of justice. ( My bold).
The question is; does this then mean, mobile digital games, music, and video?
Rule J moves on...Contacts with the wider community...J59 and 61 deal with the right to communicate in writing or telephone with family, friends, and other persons and representatives of reputable organisations ........
 The question then is,  does this now mean the right to e-mail, google , websites, facebook, twitter, whatsapp and the like?

Key words in all the documents including the 2009 UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children (See.Section 104 (d) stress: retain, communicate, access, link.....
What links? how? when? using what means of communication? To whom? under what supervision, levels of privacy and access to information? Does the Right to Access to Information apply to young persons and children and those in facilities?

I did a round of telephone calls to people I knew in different settings in the field of child and youth care. It will be a lengthy blog if each of the different policies and practices were to be fully articulated here. I'm going to try a type of summary:

No facility I contacted allow the children to retain their mobile digital devices on admission. In the more restrictive environments, especially those young people in conflict with the law and sentenced or awaiting trial, this could mean the return of the device on disengagement.
However, policies around access and useage appeared then later, in some instances to be discretionary. So I got different practices around control. These ranged from a Children's Home setting where the child and youth care worker held the devices and allowed use in supervised limited screen times . The criteria for access to devices changes from facility to facility ranging from,,,,only senior grade, responsible, serious learners, to young persons in diversion programmes getting some easier access. The least restrictive most empowering controls spoke of the young persons allowed access  to google, be part of whatsapp study groups and friendship groups.

HOWEVER... without exception there was considerable emphasis on what was called "THE RISKS".

So let's go there.   And herein lies the debate, the tension and the digital dilemma..... Policies of access and usage were diverse but there was total agreement on the risks ... firstly to the facility itself. Theft......theft of digital devices raises issues of responsibility. apart from the behaviour management that theft causes...can for example, the state be held somehow accountable or responsible if digital devises are stolen. Can a facility be accused of negligence or inadequate control of property or supervision? 
Then comes cost. Who pays? Data and airtime costs are high and how is that controlled and provided for?

Then came a single word "Sites" No real need for further explanation...

Then a number of other risk words, nude pics (swapping), blessers, sugar daddies and stalkers....all of which in- house, increases the risks they said, of sexual acting out. "Heightened hormones" one said.

The telephone conversations highlighted, acknowledged and debated the tension between today's digital world, the cyber space realities, the rules and conventions that determine child rights and the child and youth care realities of practice in residential facilities.  

I'm left with more questions than solutions. What is out of line, the rules, our practice or our policies?

There is no doubt ..... the digital dilemma debate continues.