WE NEED, WE WANT...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

 

At one time or another all of this has been said in these blogs..It all needs to be said again. Time ticks on and very little has changed.

The drive toward child and youth care professionalisation has been long. My guess is that the start was sometime in the early 1980's when the first training materials reached workers then continued towards becoming basic, then a university degree in child and youth care work in about  the early 90's. It was provided at the then Technicon University of South Africa ( UNISA).

I hold a National Association of Child Care Workers ( NACCW) certificate of registration introduced as a meantime measure to safeguard against unethical practice. It is dated 1993 together with a code of ethics for child and youth care workers.

This was in anticipation of the day when there would be a Professional Board for Child and Youth Care Work (PBCYCW) as part of the then amended South African Council for Social Work Which became the South Africa Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP).The first PBCYCW sat in 2005 but the regulations for registration were gazetted only in 2013.!! Why the delays???

 I was given the task for the PBCYCW of presenting the regulations for registration to child and youth care workers in a national outreach programme. The enthusiasm and recognition for the need to register was demonstrated by the huge numbers of child and youth care workers who crowded the venues  in the Provinces to collect forms for registration.

With the registration of child and youth care workers came the expectation that there would be considerable advance in the status, availability of university degrees, salaries, recognition

Let's start with the last first.

 Well before registration  Masud Hoghughi trained South African organisations in the Problem Profile Approach ( PPA). Never will I  forget. He asked the question "How do you treat the children?" The answers came back in a long list. Given a voice, heard, listened to, with dignity, non-judgementally, developmentally, with respect, advocated for. Then he asked the question "How do you want to be treated?" When it came back...it was the same list. 

"You see," he said " what's good for the goose is good for the gander".

Implications - - management, other social service professions, employers and higher authorities should treat child and youth care workers as they expect child and youth care workers to treat the children.

 What child and youth care workers want is for this to happen. Especially after so many years of being regarded as a support worker, nanny, housefather, housemother, 

I have concluded that what child and youth care worker . want is more than this...it's what child and youth care workers and the field of Child and Youth Care NEED. 

Child and youth care workers, registered as professionals, constantly complain that the profession and their work is not recognised, And now with knowledge, skill and professionalisation. they are still treated like support workers. Some say that they are given domestic duties, driving and what I call "counting underpants". 

For all those years now, child and youth care workers themselves, the PBCYCW, the Council, the NACCW and others in higher authority have been informing and advocating to the authorities that child and youth care workers are in need of formal, administrative recognition as professionals and so given equal status and recognition as other social service professionals with the same qualifications and experience.  There is advocacy happening and advocates. It's a pity, I think that we don't always get to hear about what was said and done. The response is invariably that this is heard and that it is ongoing work in progress

But as I said "time ticks by". The effect of all this is reported as not  experienced by child and  youth care workers in the workplace. Despite the public service strike some years ago when social service professionals delivered 13 demands to higher authority. These demands included better conditions and salaries and equality of status for child and youth care workers. Despite the undertaking by the then Minister that by the end of that October month the demands would be met, in real terms for child and youth care workers...nothing, they say, has changed.

Child and youth care workers say that they need to be heard, to be listened to, that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, appears to be an unfulfilled need. It has to do  with need for esteem and for self-actualisation. When needs are not met.?.. well.. ask Maslow.

Availability of University education grew at first, then shrunk. Distance learning through UNISA was a huge step in the right direction for the field of Child and Youth Care. Then quite suddenly, it didn't accept an intake and removed child and youth care from the list of courses offered. This left, country wide, a good number of child and youth care workers trapped.at  the diploma level. In terms of the SACSSP registration regulations, their level of education permits them to register only at the auxiliary level unless they submit a Portfolio of Evidence (PoE) showing competence at the degree level

Just before registration regulations were signed and published in a Government Gazette in 2013, the then Minister of Social Development injected a significant boost into the Child and Youth Care field and practice in South Africa. Her Department of Social Development on her initiative and leadership  .  funded 10,000 child and youth care workers to be trained as. learners at the Auxiliary level and to be deployed throughout South Africa in the community -based Child and Youth Care model known as ISIBINDI. It rolled out very well. Targets were largely met. Learners received two years training while they practiced. Stipends were given to the learners...Ideal !

The Child and Youth Care service reached village and rural areas where it was needed and otherwise not available.

 I remember at the launch of the project in one of the Provinces, a state official said to the learners and leaders that, in that Province, the budget had been approved and available for the stipends. There were to be graduates at the end of that year. I asked for the budget for those who would then be qualified....silence. 

 And so, will you believe it? That situation has continued for many, child and youth care workers. Graduated at the auxiliary level but still paid the learners stipend. (and sometimes not paid for long periods).

 At a fairly recent meeting with the Department of Social Development, I was told that salaries (as opposed to stipends), can only be paid to persons appointed to posts and that posts have not been created or approved. There were times when, in any case, posts in the state service had been frozen. The procedures and protocols for the establishment of posts is a very long complicated process. they said.

The wants of child and youth care workers? The needs of child and youth care workers? 

Remember, it's quite a long list ; status, recognition, a voice, heard, dignity, development, respect University access, equality, salaries.

Remember. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

.