HOW ABOUT PRIVATE PRACTICE?...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA

A spurt of social media posts came as something of a surprise. There appears to be child and youth care workers in South Africa who are thinking about Child and Youth Care Work as Private Practitioners.

It's like travelling into uncharted waters for us. The call is for job descriptions - What do we do as private practitioners? How are we paid? Are private practitioners recognised? "We need National Association of Child and Youth Care Workers (NACCW), and  South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) recognition", they said. Is it an area of speciality like it is for Social Work? .....OH WOW????
Quite right! The questions are quite right because it feels like preparing to enter the wilderness right now. I know of only say 3 child and youth care workers in private practice right now. I wouldbe interested to know of any more. I call myself one. I am registered with the SACSSP on the strength of proof provided of my being independently employed. My registration certificate does not make reference to private practice. There is no area of speciality for this. In applying to SACSSP I wrote my own job description. I was asked to provide letters of reference from persons and organisations who had received services from me as an independent child and youth care worker. These together with an affidavit to confirm that I had been and am working as self employed.

On the scope of practice there was one comment from a social service practitioner colleague that much of what I do sounds like consultation, education and training. I think that expert subject and practical experience used to empower and capacitate quality child and youth care work can be part of what private practitioners do.

I do accept work as a subject and practice "expert" This leads to things like Quality Assurance (QA), policy and procedure development, learning materials development, learning assessment, the design of frameworks as developmental tools .  I also design innovative models of child and youth care practice.

Then there is the job description component which my social service practitioner colleague believed spoke perhaps more of what is associated with child and youth care work.

The key performance areas for parenting challenging situations, positive parenting as life-space intervention and support in family settings. This involves the daily event scenarios that are intimately associated with professional child and youth care. I get calls for help from  parents, "My child is on drugs"  "My child is cutting"

To the question in the international arena " What do child and youth care workers in private practice do? There were several responses.

QUOTES:
Shawn Douglas Ward.......I provided, in the moment, skill development for parents on how to manage disruptive behaviour. While working with a child, I would be teaching skills and emotion regulation, assertiveness, distress tolerance and interpersonal skills.

Caroline Giter .........I provided in-house support. I had one on one sessions with the child and would meet the mother to normalise and plan next steps. I also supported them at school.

Donald Budd.........During my initial meeting,I address my child and youth care background.  I provide emotional support eg to children, team and families

Charlene Pickrenn............I address individuals/ team social and emotional intelligence, coach, consult and present workshops......

Then came the issue in South Africa of recognition of Private Practioners. Who acknowledges, recognises child and youth care workers in Private Practice?" As I said, I was registered by SACSSP with a private practice job description. Social Work has an Association called SASWIPP  Private Practitioners have to register with this association and meet certain criteria. Social Work has Private Practice as an area of specialisation for which, also certain criteria have to be met. As yet, child and youth care has no separate categories of specialisation. I suppose, given time some areas of spesialisation may be decided. 

It is my personal view that in child and youth care in South Africa, we should avoid having a multiplicity of Professional  Associations. Perhaps we can think about different categories of membership with some criteria attached......like for example, at least five years experience and a specified level of qualification.

Frequent requests for an example of a scale of fees has reaped no definite firm set of fees for services. Who pays? The client pays. From what I understand there are laws which prohibit competitive fees among people offering the same service. I understand that to ensure regularity in this, Medical Aid rates are charged. And so the dilemma for child and youth care workers aspiring or providing private practice. Child and youth care services are not recognised for medical aid payment We have no scale of fees.This is where. it seems, the Professional Association and perhaps others need to work together sometime soon.

Don't talk of child and youth care as an emergent profession. We have been around for centuries. Emerging though, is a cadre of experienced child and youth care workers who, being unemployed in organisations, perhaps also retirees, veterans, for whom private practice is a way of providing child and youth care services.

 Much can be done now to build a foundation in anticipation of the movement 

Communities already know the value of child and youth care workers in their homes because of their experience of the community based work done by Isibindi. Medical Aids are ignorant. Some form of regulation needs to be drafted to ensure goals and standards and to avoid instances of exploitation. We CAN learn from Social Work

It's going to take time, focus, advocacy and energy to place private practitioners where we should be in South Africa and in the child and youth care system

A LUTA CONTINUA