ACTIVITIES AND GROWTH...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE I SOUTH AFRICA

Visits to some facilities found isolated incidents of young people and children hanging around. The problem was the lack of structured activities. In some of those instances, the child and youth care workers seemed also to be hanging around rather like monitors, watching...yes, but engaging and involving young people in activities...NO!

In some of these places there were no school facilities, enclosed high walled enclosures. Routines were the only activities. Problem is that unplanned, frequently... mostly, negative activities occupy boredom and the empty spaces. It's an ideal time for young people to plan vandalism, break-outs, sexual behaviours and planned moments to frustrate the child and youth care worker. Then they watch the reaction  It's grand entertainment. I called it "pulling the puppet strings". It's grand entertainment.

TV and video is often quoted as the solution, but passive time filling is not developmental. then,soccer for the boys, sometimes within the confines of the enclosure is a favourite. 

I saw at times, lack of stimulation with little to no meaningful interaction between child and youth care workers just informal interaction among the young people themselves.

Thing is, developmental activities are essential for developmental goal reaching and an essential part of professional child and youth care practice.

There any number of best practice models which I saw in visits. These programmes have a kind of calendar of activities. There's the annual calendar. For example, celebrating the meaning behind the public holidays like Heritage Day, Youth Day, Human Rights Day the facility or programme's birthday. Each is planned with the young people's participation. Then comes things like farewells, end of term and end of year functions functions.   
These programmes have a monthly activity schedule - individual birthdays , Spring day, weekend programmes outings (if allowed) visits, visitors, social outreach, adventure activities. 

Each young person has an individual daily programme of activities which may include time with the social worker in group or case-work, remedial class, art and craft class. debates...the list is limited by only by the lack of planning and careful thought about the needs and goals of the young people in the programme. .
The lack of developmental activity planning has a negative developmental effect, but then, so does the over scheduling of children and young people. There is a need for balance. I am very aware of programmes that are deliberately planned to be what I called "too tight". The thinking here is, "keep them constantly busy and they don't have time to get into trouble". 

Activities do cost. They cost in time, effort and funds. Often, I found lack of activity blamed on management for these reasons. This is not good enough. In training, in those organisations, I always ask each child and youth care worker what each can do fairly well in their own domestic, personal life. Typical responses are: "I can bake, sing, knit, crochet, fix appliances fix in maintenance, grow vegetables. Again the list is endless. 

So what's the problem? As child and youth care workers we have a range of skills we bring with us as 'self' which can and should be useful n programming activities. 

Many activities, don't have a cost attached...group discussions, debates, and structured skills programmes, It is often forgotten that auxiliary level child and youth care workers are permitted in terms of the regulated scope of practice to provide programme of an "educational nature". The more psycho-social programmes can be undertaken by child and youth care workers at the professional level, Most programmes of a therapeutic nature are provided by a social worker. There are any number of 'off the shelf' programme manuals for life skills, building relationships, building friendships and keeping them and diversion.

Now we have to look at at activity planning itself. Developmental activities are professionally planned to forward the developmental needs, areas and goals of the young people participating in them. The activity is really just the means through which goals are reached  The group involved in the activity is carefully selected as having Individual Development Plan (IDP) goals which can be forwarded through the activity or the group structure. The who and the what and the goals of an activity need, then careful thought. It's not easy. There can be group or individual activities.

Young people hanging around, restless - - "OK, lets go bake some cookies". "lets go play cards"...or whatever.  Unstructured diversion is needed sometimes. But, well scheduled, well planned goal orientated activities are part of what we do as child and youth care workers.

Back to the programmes that don't have schools, skills training workshops Art rooms or anything.It can and must be overcome and compensated for.

There's a saying, "If you don't plan, you plan for failure". Failure in our child and youth care programmes results, over time, in children and young people 'going backwards' degeneration. This, we cannot allow.

As professional child and youth care workers we are required to 'think, plan, do' and to take a critical look at ourselves and our organisational programmes.

Think, plan, do. 






                                                                                           

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

We all said, it was an historical moment.

A panel of seventeen selected child and youth care workers met at the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP) for a training workshop. The purpose?...the policy of the assessment of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points for child and youth are workers n South Africa.

Training started with "Why CPD, anyway?" It was clear that some child and youth care workers would object to the requirement now needed to maintain registration as a professional. Anticipated was a set of objections based on the necessity to pay for additional annual training.

Let's start however with the need for CPD.

We were all 17 of asked "Why are you here?" My response was, "How would it be for you, if you went to a Doctor who had not read a medical journal for the last 5 years? How would our young people think if they were served by so called professionals trained 5 years ago (or more) and not kept up to date, somehow, with more of today's knowledge and skills?" As in medicine, so in Child and Youth Care practice, the field has a rapid ever-changing growth in knowledge, skills, concepts of being and of self. The world itself has not stood still. We can no longer say, "I've been doing this for the last 15 years. I know what is best". 

That is it ! As professionals we have to stay up to date, to expand what we have started to know and to, sometimes, revise it. 

Well, in the year 2020, child and youth care workers in South Africa will have to provide evidence  that they are updated in order to keep alive their registration and so, to keep their jobs. Basically, the need for CPD cannot be disputed in the best interests of the child.

Let's start then from there. These are the requirements as set out in the SACSSP policy for the award of CPD points:

In summary:
1. At professional level you are required to to obtain a minimum of 15 CPD points annually or 30 points over 2 years.
2. At auxiliary level 10 CPD point annually, or 20 over two years
3.At least one activity must address the professional code of conduct and ethics.
4. A maximum of 10 points can be forwarded to the next year for a period of one year.
5. Each CPD activity is approved by the SACSSP against set criteria and awarded on completion of the activity.

Firstly, service providers. The problem is that there is money to be made from the provision of CPD training. Everyone and anyone wants to jump at the opportunity. So service providers and their programmes have to b approved by the SACSSP and measure up to the formula for the number of points that can be awarded.

Then we have to be accountable and accounted for.

The advice is for us, now as child and youth care workers to open a file, collect and file evidence of your CPD attendance at approved CPD training, accredited workshops and approved conferences and seminars.

Points for what you do as CPD as an individual can be gathered in a more complex system of point formula. Collect evidence now of any self directed CPD you have done. 
In brief, this is a list, without detail, of the areas of self directed CPD you can undertake and submit for point consideration. The greater the significance of such, the more the point value. 
Personal wellness, self study, learning programme participation, memberships of professional associations, being an examiner, peer review, paper presentation, authorship of article, book or textbook, formal research, project or policy analysis. 

As this is a new, but nonetheless important move forward in the profession of child and youth care work in South Africa, the Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work           ( PBCYCW) decided to ease us into the system by allowing that:
service providers who provided training/workshops of a CPD nature in 2019 will, on announcement be permitted to submit those programmes retrospectively for the allocation of points. What you have done, then in those programmes and what you have done as self directed in 2019 can be used for CPD points.

Now back to the cost. It can be controlled. Most organisations undertake an annual performance appraisal and set out a personal development profile for each staff member and ensure that there are CPD styled workshops or courses to meet the need. If these apply and receive accreditation much of the group CPD activity can be gathered in the workplace.

CPD is not punishment. It has been applied in Social Work for a very long time. Now child and youth care workers in South Africa will be on par with all other professions. CPD separates us from occupations such as child minders and nannies. Registration together with CPD put us well and truly into the category of professionals.

It marks a moment in the history of our professionalisation in South Africa
.
Welcome it !!  


      

LANGUAGE WE USE... CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This blog is not talking about the language we use when talking to or with young people. It's about the language we use when we we describe behaviour, especially in a written descriptive profile, reports and in discussing young people with other professionals. Yes, there can be  a degree of spill over from our professional descriptive language and what we say to young people. That's exactly why we have to get it right. The risks and implications are well articulated in the article: Brown A.M Appropriate language in Child and Youth Care. CYC-net, Issue 85 February 2006/ Best Practice .

Now to the issue of this talk. The question was whether we, as child and youth care workers, can "rephrase" diagnostic terminology like manic depressive (bi-polar) and ADDH? 'the question  continued. "When taking to young people about themselves can we rephrase or avoid using diagnostic terms?"

I recall an occasion when a child and youth care descriptive profile was sent to a psychiatrist following the arrest of a 16 year old boy for the sexual harassment of three young women in the street of the local town. The child and youth care worker and the multi disciplinary team assembled the descriptive profile as a developmental assessment. He had three days of assessment by psychiatrist(s) in the psychiatric hospital. The report back was "We can add nothing more to the developmental assessment that you have submitted"....no labels (fortunately), just comment on context, some advice on management and a way forward.

It means that when we do profiling (and talking to young people) we can rephrase, avoid labeling, use purely descriptive language and produce a powerful tool, acceptable to and useful for, other professionals in the best developmental interests of the child.

We do this because it is the language of the child and youth care profession. We do this because we know that labels are damaging in the immediate, short and long term.

Until I came into child and youth care, I was suspicious of this thing called 'self fulfilling prophecy'. I soon learnt differently. If we told a young person, "you have a behavioural disorder", then that's what you get. " Sorry, but you know I have a behavioural disorder!"  Same with bi-polar and any other label.  I experienced young people 'living into' the labels.

Then, when labels follow young people into other life-spaces, they are viewed differently. In school, clubs, family and community and even into the adult workplace even when the behaviour of the person no longer reflects the childhood symptoms. I experienced children and young people refused entry into, so called 'normal' schooling simply on the strength of a label. In simple terms, children and young people can be given labels which can be inaccurate or misdiagnosed.
Our descriptive language is a professionally learnt language/communication style/ profiling skill in which we do rephrase and contextualise what we observe. 

To do this, the formula are really quite simple sounding but in practice it is not that easy.

The first is to learn to use description. 

"About every three weeks in a predicable cycle, Luckys facial features appear to change.  His eyes seem to pull back at the sides, giving him a somewhat 'Chinese' appearance. When this happens we experience a change in his behaviour which lasts about three days. His way of speaking and addressing staff takes on a changed tone.he refuses to do chores During one of these periods he stole clothing from the boy's lockers and sold them at the taxi-ranks in town. This is a repetitive occurence during those three day periods"

That could be a descriptive profile in strictly behavioural terms.The Diagnostic label was, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE)... sorted with simple medication. Explanation to Lucky was not that much different from the descriptive behavioural profile.

We contextualise.

We always describe behaviour within the circumstances in which it happens.In that way we can rephrase. Given the life-space situation, eg school ,family, in these relationships, in that company, when this happens, Lucky...does this or that.

I always said that child and youth care workers in my employ will hate me because, if they say. "He was disruptive", or "rude". or "unmanageable", I would say "Don't tell me that. Tell me what he DID and in what circumstances". 

Lastly, when the final Developmental Assessments are tabled, if diagnostic terminology is used, state clearly, the source from which they came, the name of the professional, and the tests administered, the results and  on what date. There has been a pattern over time of certain diagnoses being somewhat popularised: Tourettes Syndrome, ADDH, Aspergers, behavioural disorder and the like... all held later with some suspicion. Diagnostic fashion seems to  change and diagnostic labels have been refuted and changed.... Caution! In one year, I remember,that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) itself was called into question. (I haven't seen comment on the latest 5th edition).

Child and youth care workers describe observed behaviour in context. That's what we do and that's what we do best as one of our unique skills. We don't diagnose and we don't label. We write what we see and hear. We say what we see and hear. When we do this, we practice within our unique profession.