THE JOB INTERVIEW.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

It must have been the child and youth care worker post advertising season just before this blog holiday. a sudden number of social media texts asked "what questions should I expect at a job interview?  The came the freezing of posts.....seems to be a pattern. Advertise, then freeze. But the question got the scribblings scribbling.

The job interview is but one part of the recruitment procedure. For the interviewee the most scary part, but be aware that a lot has been going on behind the scenes. A good advertisement has been very carefully drafted. Legally, it is the benchmark against which all applications are measured. Do you comply with the advertised requirements? If you have complied with every detail of the advertisement you then have a right to query why you were not appointed and the organisation must respond. Be sure to provide all the documentation requested. If to be certified be sure that they are certified within three months previous to submission.  CV's are very carefully interrogated and checked. References are traced,Your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts are also likely to be checked to see what your posts show about you. The finest detail in all of this may be the reason for you not being shortlisted or put at the bottom of the pile.

A word about your CV. The standard of presentation speaks for you in your absence.

Shortlisted? Good. Now for the scary part. The most usual interview approach seems now to use a set of agreed questions. These then get divided among the panel members.Your response to each question is then scored by each member of the panel. At the end, the ranked scores are added up and a final score is reached. Then, a panel grand score total is calculated.  A recommendation is made by each panel member based on the scores and some impressions they had of the candidate. Someone is usually given the task of putting all this together and coming up with the top three.  A final choice is made.

For me, the approach has it's pro's and con's. At one level it all sounds very objective and scientific and panel members don't have to do much to get an assessment. Set questions, set ranks for scoring. Numbers for people.People as numbers. At another level. How does a  panel get an idea of the very tool of child and youth are workers.....the self if questions don't probe at least a little into the unmeasurables. The what makes you tick? How you react as a result of your own child rearing experiences your own emotive and sensitive issues and personal issues. Religious  and sexual matters as they apply in professional practice....  cant really put a "score"to all of this. 

But, it does raise the question for candidates, What questions are usually asked? That is what texts in the social media asked.

But let us start again from a slightly different perspective. The physical self. You will be scored on appearance and personal presentation. The physical self does invariably create a first impression. Take care of the way you dress....modestly,... the way you sit, hold eye contact and your tone of voice.

Then in answering questions. try to be brief and to the point. Add what you have learnt for child and youth care in each of you previous work experiences ,

Now for the usual questions.

The panel will always try to set you at ease. First question. "tell us about yourself. Who is ........( your name)? 

Then you can expect among  the questions "What are the "Bathopele" principles? This is typically a Government type question. If this helps then here they are.

 Consultation. The client is consulted on the quality and level of professional service they can expect to receive.
Service Standards. The client is told of the level  and standards as in the above.
Access. equal access to all.
Courtesy. always
Information.full accurate information about entitlement to professional services.
Redress. appealing and redress. Remedy of complaints and positive response to complaints.
Value for money. proven economically available service and best possible efficiency and value for money.

One social media response was that she was asked for 5 of the codes of conduct and 5 requirements of the code of ethics These are available in the regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers. Go to the South African Council for Social Services web site.

Interview panels like asking why you applied to be appointed to that particular programme. Don't say because you are unemployed and looking for work. Don't say that you are not happy or satisfied where you are presently working. You can refer to being able to contribute because of what you have learnt at previous employment and you can refer to the possibility of a career pathway.

You will inevitably be asked what skills you will bring into the workplace for young people here?
What brought you to choose child and youth care work in the first place? .....please do't say the it is because you "love"children. Keep your answer professional.
 I really don't like the "knowledge questions when a child and youth care worker gets interviewed by a panel comprised mainly of people from other professions. But attempts are usually made, like "Name three rights of children and three responsibilities".  Name a theory that you would use in understanding child development and what does the theory set out.? Have you heard of Erikson....What is his theory?

A few cautions. Beware of bringing God into your professional interview. In the US based Dependable strengths programme  which is a programme of excellence in training people in successful job seeking, we were told that it usually does not pay to say "Because God sent me" Panels don't see God as a measurable against which to score your response. They will frequently think that your God given ministry can be fulfilled where you are presently employed... "Why here?"

A few other seemingly random but important points about the job interview. The trade union representative will be present. If the shp steward is in a supervisory/management position, it could be the shop steward. Otherwise it will be an external trade Union representative. Their presence is to assure that proper procedure is followed and that the final selection is "right".

There are some questions which may  not be asked and/or the answer to which may not be used in determining an an appointment. You can refuse to answer this type of question. Religious and political beliefs and affiliations, sexual and gender issues, body mass issues, ....anything which hints at possible discrimination.

Yes, the employment interview is scary. You can and should prepare. Find out as much as you can about the organisation/facility/programme to which you are applying. And... be prepared for the unexpected question. 

If posts become unfrozen, and you have applied already ...may it go well for you.











  

THE FOUNDER SYNDROME....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Having worked in and for organisations and programmes where the founder is the Director, Manager, Chairperson or the mother -body Head, a social media comment last week rang bells . 

The styles of management of some founders I experienced, showed patterns, which I am calling the "founder syndrome". 

It must be said that founders, especially in the smaller communities appear to have founded projects with genuine good intention. Then the programme attracts funders and donors, diversifies, employs a body of staff and or volunteers. It was then I often experienced what I am calling the founder syndrome 

One such township project called itself "Love". A group of three, with a dominant leader. established a project to help the poor. As it attracted goods for distribution, they said "We are the poor". "We need help as much as any other". No registration as an accredited non government organisation, a savings account and no receipted record of incoming donations or goods masked the very worst organisational symptom of "founders syndrome". It has to do with "ownership". If I/we own it then I/we have some kind of right to possession.

In small communities, founders as leaders of "welfare" projects are almost invariably respected and  highly regarded as community leaders and benefactors. This too contributes to the complex set of founder syndrome symptoms. The intention to do good does not necessarily need qualifications more than an ability to influence others, to have the power to mobilise and convince others of the value to the community. I worked in and for a "lead from the get go" founder directed initiative which expanded into a range of projects, one of which was a well funded child and youth care programme compelled to employ qualified and registered child and youth care workers,  Now founding skills were no longer enough. The professional knowledge and specialised skills, philosophy, approach and language of the child and youth care field was not only a,threat but exposed management approaches which child and youth care workers frequently challenged. An oftfound symptom of the founder syndrome is that founders hold onto ownership for as long as they can. They sometimes appear to resort to "for as long as you are employed in this organisation, you will do it this way.....we have always done it this way". In the very worst scenarios, child and youth care workers complain that they have experienced founder syndrome leadership vs professional practitioner power issue. Child and youth care workers in these situations tend to leave or spend a lot of time hankering to leave

Other contexts is when the founder is a church or faith-based structure. My experience, again in the worst scenarios....as much as we may want to think differently, many church structures are hierarchical, top down structures. If this has a trickle-down effect into child and youth care programmes, then church dogma, objectives and belief systems can, by child and youth care professionals be experienced as symptomatic of the "founder syndrome".  Actually, now I come to think about it, there can be a risk of the syndrome showing itself in any top down management approaches if , for example, founded by National Organisations or Government when the founder structures determine policy and compliance. It's the "ownership" thing and again maybe, the being out of touch with the field of child and youth care.

I worked in a facility where the Chairperson and the Board of Management had been in office so long, that they regarded themselves as the founders. They followed the founder syndrome symptom of becoming a fixture and frequently again out of sync with the child and youth care field and it's status. When the Act was changed to regulate the limit on the term of office of Board members. I had to inform them that they were required now by law to step down . This would then also allow for a body of different fields of expertise to sit in Management. They wrote to me saying that I had "fired" them and as in "unfair dismissal" they employed the services of a lawyer. he lawyer had to support the rotation of these founding members. He was very diplomatic with them saying that the "intention" was not that they fired. Such is the engagement and emotional connection that founders have with the organisation. It's part of the syndrome.

In child and youth care there is only one ting you can expect and that is change. This is where founders with good intention often tend to get stuck. 

Then there is the good news.

Recently I renewed acquaintance with a Director of a child and youth care facility after decades. Her comment was " Every time I think I can rest, things change"....Music to my ears. What she said brought back a memory of a planning meeting of the "welfare" arm of a church at Provincial level. The head of the Welfare section lead a breakaway group to discuss child and youth care. Two of us in child and youth care leadership positions had to correct misinformation and misunderstanding to bring child and youth care thinking, philosophy, language and practice up to date. ( "re- unification" for example). Next day he called for a plenary meeting. I was made out to be ignorant, put down, insulted" he said.......founders syndrome !  

I have been describing worst case scenarios. In doing Quality Assurance visits I encountered the founder syndrome and equally I encountered founders who were from the very beginning open and respectful of the professional growth and practice of child and youth care in a fast changing world.

Yet some child and youth care workers in South Africa do say that they feel they are pushing against an immovable force.

There was a "housefather"who called me "an educated idiot"He regarded himself as the founder of his group home. Educated idiots we are not.When the ground shifts, the playing field shifts, the goalpost shift and the game changes.


The social media outcry was that some child and youth care workers in some settings feel trapped in systems held static by the founders syndrome.

BEING UNDERVALUED... CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

As always this talk blog is written in my personal capacity as a child and youth care worker in private practice and not as a member or voice of or for any association or organisation.

We are all reeling in South Africa over the impact and effect of the 22nd NACCW Biennial & CYC- NET World  Conference 2019 Nation Building - One Child at a Time ! 
So big was the experience that there was a Conference resolution proposing that that the 3 days become 5 days

It could perhaps be said that the Youth Conference presentation stole the show. But truth is, ...the young people stole our hearts, exposed the realities their world and value of the role of child and youth care workers in their lives. 

Pity that the Deputy Minister of Social Development was not present then...During her speech the child and youth care workers behind me were chanting "No! No! No!" when she said that child and youth care workers should not complain about being paid stipends and not salaries or having to wait for payment.  The "No! No! No!" grew in volume when she said that child and youth care workers are "support workers".

To say that child and youth care workers are and will be "support workers" is highly emotive...especially when addressing child and youth care workers themselves at a World Conference. Dictionary and a search for similes  - words of equal meaning, found words  ...back-up, aid, to give assistance/aid to someone, to take a person's part in something, to underpin, buttress, reinforce someone or something. The most stabbing of the meanings for child and youth care workers is probably, "the action of contributing to the success or maintenance of the value of someone/something". Equally, in the language of organisational structures, the term "support staff"" is associated with domestic workers, kitchen, maintenance grounds, garden, estate and security workers. Little wonder that 1400+ child and youth care worker delegates at the conference took exception to the term being applied to them. Did I say "took exception"? Maybe,"expressed outrage" describes the mood more closely.

Support workers to whom? Support workers of what? In the context of the speech it was interpreted as support workers to other helping professions

The speech dominated discussion in passageways, Passage talk used the words "ill-informed","insulting" . Top of the pops.. "Government is making us nothing more than slaves!"

First, let us say something again about our journey to becoming a profession in South Africa.

In 1998 the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) agreed that Child and Youth Care was a true profession. The Professional Board for Child and Youth Care  Work ( PBCYCW) was incorporated into the SACSSP Act 110 of 1978. It's first warm body inauguration was i 2006. The regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers was signed by the then minister in October of 2014. some said that all this was "unexplained strategic delay". The qualification requirements and the levels of professional registration were meticulously matched as equal to the other social service professions ... as was later, the annual fee. 

So, child and youth care workers quite rightly, don't regard themselves as subordinate to any other profession at the same professional level. They don't regard themselves as more important. They regard themselves as equal. 

Child and Youth Care Work complies with all the requirements of a profession in it's own right. These are worth looking at again.

1. Child and Youth Care Work has it's own unique body of knowledge ans skills and it's own body of literature.
Sure, helping professions will and do share a thin thread of commonality and values. Important is that Child and Youth Care Work has not "grown out of".. is not the "child " any other one specific social service or helping profession which gave  it birth and so accounts for what it is or accounts for its practice. Why the term 'life-space" and "in the moment" discussion continues, I cannot fathom. Unique we are. 
That's it!  Our own research and our own praxis is indeed unique and embedded in our own literature.

2. This allows our practice to stand alone as a profession in it's own right. Independent bu integrated in case management. 

3. Child and youth care workers are nationally organised. We are a National body. The 2019 NACCW Conference is undeniable proof of this requirement for professional regulation. All 9 provinces were well represented as were a further 28 countries for around the world. Child and Youth Care in South Africa is internationally connected and recognised for it's professional status.

4. It abides by it's own ethical code of practice. The SACSSP has a department of Professional Conduct. Two Disciplinary Hearing Committee's exist. One for Social Work and the other for Child and Youth Care Work. The procedures for disciplinary hearings are very specifically detailed in the SACSSP Act 110 of 1978 with amendments. These are rigorously  followed.. It all means that our practice as child and youth care workers is regulated as it must be as a profession....and it is !

There is no valid discussion. Child and Youth Care Work in South Africa is a profession equal to any other helping profession registered at the same level.

Other plenary session speakers at the 22nd NACCW/World Conference had consoling and reassuring messages for child and youth care delegates. 

Aziwe Magida the Chairperson of the Professional Board fo Child and Youth Care Work (PBCYCW)  redirected the "support worker"label by saying that , in essence, the only support work we do is to troubled children and young people in their moments of distress when it happens, where it happens and as it happens.

Keynote speaker Kiaras Garabaghi said we should accept that the presence of politicians at our conferences is an indication of the importance they give child and youth care work irrespective of what they say. In other countries, he said, politicians don't come.

Good to hear.

But the issue didn't go away and hasn't even now.

At another forum, I heard a Departmental official say that the principle of equal dispensation ( pay) for equal value is to be upheld.

This is the very centre of what happened in that speech of the Deputy Minister. Child and youth care workers experienced the speech as devaluing of their work, profession and practice. The idea of equal value is seen as loaded with subjectivity differing perspectives, unmeasurables, understanding.  Equal dispensation for equal qualifications, equal levels of registration,ethical compliance is measurable 
and observable As are our statistics such as recivicity ( the return rate of young people into the system) and our success stories. The Youth Conference input gave testimony to exactly this.

The experience of being undervalued with all the feelings this raised for child and youth care workers was that being undervalued interpreted into salaries and posts being underpaid.

Alute Continuo
   












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