TOWARD BETTER.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

The question was "Whats your definition of a better child and youth care field for everyone who works in it?"

The responses showed common threads. More knowledge,  to be known for the professionals we are, status, recognition, to practice our profession without instruction from other professionals. Then came the frequently expressed call for equal salaries with other social service professionals, a safe work place, improved working conditions, to work with non-judgemental colleagues.

These "definitions" are perfectly valid, practical and should be noticed by policy and decision makers.

There are other concerns, gaps, developmental areas needed in South Africa to better the child and youth care field.

These are some thoughts for talk.

RESEARCH.  The need for research in South African child and youth care is loaded with complications which are inter-related and which glare out at us. Right now, I know of only three doctorates in child and youth care work being undertaken, one masters, and some mini-dissertations at the Honours level. It means that we have a paucity of published  South African  research and this is painful. I remember Canadian Prof Jim Anglin tell me that he ensured a publisher before he did the research for his second doctorate.           ( Anglin. James P. 2002).
It is all coupled with two other concerns that must be addressed in the child and youth care field here......The availability, or perhaps I should say, non-availability of universities with child and youth care departments or divisions right now offering senior degrees.. Few. Durban University of Technology, Monash SA, possibly  Stellenbosch. A chapter on some aspect of child and youth care in a senior degree in Social Work, Theology or Education really doesn't count as child and youth care research.

It all means that lecturing staff are difficult to find. and universities  are compelled to use staff with other qualifications.

INDIGENOUS PRACTICE: Then we need research which can better our indigenous practice. The predominantly euro-centric knowledge base of our education and training has determined that our approach and practice is essentially euro-centric.

EASIER ACCESS TO UNIVERSITIES: What is being said here is that in South Africa we need more accessible universities offering strictly child and youth care degrees at the first degree level and then people who can supervise senior degrees in child and youth care work. 

If we can get this right,....and smartly,  a number of other betterment requirements could be get sorted.

What would make the child and youth care field better for everyone? 

INTEGRATED CASE MANAGEMENT. Some child and youth care workers responded to the question by saying they were not contributing into the compilation of Individual Development Plans (IDP) Family Development Plans (FDP), let alone working practically as part of a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) or being part of Developmental Assessment (DA), or Risk Assessment Analyses. Maybe this partly or wholly explains the absence of IDP, FDP, DAs and Risk Analyses in many of the facilities I have visited.

A MORE CLINICAL APPROACH: The late Brian Gannon, our South African pioneer, knowing my involvement, once asked me, "When you visit these places, what talk do you hear between child and youth care workers and children?"  I had to be honest. I experienced most life-space interaction and communication between child and youth care workers and young people to be what Brian Gannon then called "Routine, domestic and logistical."
"Where are your sneakers?"  "Did you collect your laundry?"  "Have you done your homework?"  "It's time for you to go shower." All of this was interpreted as caring. But we are in a developmental profession. Life-space situations provide us with the moments we have to move away from superficiality into something more problem solving, developmental, clinical, learning rich, self-determination styles of communication and practice. I have often wondered if this comes about as a result of a gap between theory and practice in our education and training or maybe a misunderstanding of our professional modus operandi by management.   

MORE CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORKERS IN SENIOR POSITIONS:  Everything so far said about "better for the field of child and youth care" hinges on more child and youth care workers in senior positions, senior degrees and research based practice.

DIGITAL RECORD KEEPING: We are well into the 4th Industrial Revolution. It's time that our record keeping , young people's  and children's files, be digitalised. Manual record keeping (don't we all know it?) is time consuming, record retrieval, storage, and transfer certainly more effective and efficient. I know of only one organisation which has completely digitalised file content..... maybe there are more????  In our State president's State of the Nation Address (SONA), he said that every child will be given a tablet to access information. It should, then not be a big intellectual jump to realise that child and youth care workers should be issued with laptop computers and facilities fitted with central computer systems as standard equipment.

We have really come a very long way in the child and youth care field in South Africa since we became a truly democratic country in 1994 and the transformation of the child and youth care system which followed. It is good however that we have not become complacent and back slapping. Of course we can be better and will. We have a drive in our search for excellence here. We have the potential to continue to point direction to countries beyond our borders. 

Alute continuo.......

 Anglin. James P. 2002 Pain, Normality and the Struggle for Congruence. The  Hayworth Press.