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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