DEAR YOGESHREE
This is being written on an air-flight to Namibia - so if the writing is shaky - then it's turbulence.
Mighty congratulations on your pass. How proud your family must be that you now have the degree and that you have done so well, I see from your CV.that you have a record of doing well. I,m not suprised that you have found work already. I do hope that you will be happy in what you have chosen. I am sure you will do as you say - find creative ways of making young people (and no doubt adults too) literate.
I am sorry that you have had losses in you family. To spend a peaceful , quiet but reverence filled Diwali makes good sense to me..It is the way I see the Christ-mass - not really a time to party, but more of a time of reverence , quiet fellowship and thanksgiving . You are a resilient person. Your CV shows that you are an achiever and a performance orientated person. you are personally an energetic, driven cheerful soul , so, with all the signs of resilience - you will and can go far. I am more than happy to be a companion on your journey. I do feel that I have done very little for you up to now. So, maybe this is where I can start to give you early guidelines for the climb to the top.
Sharpen your alpine boots.
I once met a person who headed a huge engineering company. On top of this he undertook to raise R1m for his old High School Building fund. He gave half an hour a day and another one hour a week for a meeting of the project, In 'those days' a R1m was a very big sum of money..... he raised it in three months.
This man gave me a lesson I will never forget.
He said that when you build a massive bridge you have to have a grand design. It the vision of the big picture that you have of the finished bridge, but there is an even bigger picture that you have to have. It has to do with how the bridge will impact on a societal system. It must at once serve and uplift communities and the quality of life.... benefit the world, so to speak. ...and yet be in harmony with it.
The bridge , he said has to be beautiful in itself, yet very practical. It has to improve the quality of life. It has to contribute to a better world.
"Yet", he said " as an engineer, I have to know and pay attention to every nut and bolt - that's my job.Any oversight in the minutest detail and the beautiful bridge has a weakness that may cause it ti collapse with catastrophic results.... the end of any thought of social upliftment, just hurt, injury and possibly ... death."
"That's my job, "he said," I build bridges".
The analogy fits perfectly the work we do in child and youth care. Bridge building is what it is all about.
Some of us work with the children and youth who must be supported as they make a crossing from disharmony into a better world. Some of us build the bridge, some of us visualise it, design it and fit it into the bigger vision for a better world. Some of us do all of these. All of us are part of the visions and we all have to give the same minute attention to detail as does the engineer. All of us are part of the planning and the plan to put all the bits together at the right times to make the transition happen.
Over a period of time I think that I have put together little pieces into a bigger vision that has to do with a new world. Not just a changes world, because I find it difficult to believe that by tweaking the world we have will bring about the transformation that is needed. I know that I will not be completely part of the new world whist I am in this earthly life (unless the end of the world comes soon), but I do know that I have this one chance to work with children and youth so that they can catch the vision of the new world I think the children and people like you will have the power then to create.
I hope that my letters to you an help you to build bridges, to do this for your sake , for the sake of the children and for the sake of a new world.
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Saturday, 2 February 2013
About 'Dear Yogeshree'
During this year a number of writings on this blog will be introduced in the form of a letter and addressed to 'Dear Yogeshree', They are in fact a collection of actual letters written to Yogeshree when she was just about to enter - 'start out' - into practice as a child and youth care worker. Actually we anticipated that she would find a position in a Residential Treatment Centre somewhere in Durban and I remember giving her names of creditable agencies I thought would give her an experience of good practice. But it wasn't to happen that way. She was immediately appointed as a part-time lecturer at the University of Technology at which she had just received her professional degree.
This concerned me......straight out of the door of the University as a student, and straight into the door of lecturing in the field meant that Yogeshree had no real vocabulary of experience to draw on as illustrative examples of theory in practice, no background of practice to give her insight into what works and what doesn't . She would not have a store of case histories to draw on and no interventions to describe.
The 'Dear Yogeshree' letters were written to her with the intention of making my experience available to her. An elder writes to a 'starting out' child and youth care worker..
But let me go to where it all began.
12 years ago I was chairperson of the National Association of child youth care workers in South Africa and therefore the President of FICE South Africa. At the bi-annual conference of the Association held that year I was given the tradition seat in the front row. At some stage, a South African Indian woman student came and sat next to me rather deliberately.. There followed a conversation.I will forever remember..
"Are you Barrie Lodge?" she said.
'Yes"
" I've been wanting to meet you for a long time - I'm Yogeshree.
"Hi"
" Move over Barrie", she said." I want your job".
'ME " That's fine, you can have it now if you like"
" In five years, I'm going to be sitting here"
"Tell you what Yogeshree - I'll help you. I can advise you and give you guidance on how to get here in less than five years."
The conversation didn't end tere and we exchanged contact details.
After Conference we spoke. Yogeshree from Durban, me from Johannesburg. Then one day I got a letter, handwritten, in which Yogeshree asked me if I would be her 'mentor'. I agreed at once, but wasn't sure how that would happen from such a distance.
The letters started in 2001 and became a regular stream of correspondence until sometime in late 2003. I was in any case trying to write for the field for about an hour every day and my letters to Yogeshree were then included in my writing schedule. The collection I called 'Dear Yogeshree' - an elder writes to a starting out child and youth care worker.
Barrie talks child and youth care will continue with writing and so talking about issues in the field and matters of concern in general and in the African setting in particular, but there will be ' Dear Yogeshree" letters appearing in the blog. They will always be introduced that way. Yogeshree has give her permission for the letters to be blogged. She says they were helpful to her.
I hope that they might prove to be of interest to you.
Watch out for the first of these next week,
This concerned me......straight out of the door of the University as a student, and straight into the door of lecturing in the field meant that Yogeshree had no real vocabulary of experience to draw on as illustrative examples of theory in practice, no background of practice to give her insight into what works and what doesn't . She would not have a store of case histories to draw on and no interventions to describe.
The 'Dear Yogeshree' letters were written to her with the intention of making my experience available to her. An elder writes to a 'starting out' child and youth care worker..
But let me go to where it all began.
12 years ago I was chairperson of the National Association of child youth care workers in South Africa and therefore the President of FICE South Africa. At the bi-annual conference of the Association held that year I was given the tradition seat in the front row. At some stage, a South African Indian woman student came and sat next to me rather deliberately.. There followed a conversation.I will forever remember..
"Are you Barrie Lodge?" she said.
'Yes"
" I've been wanting to meet you for a long time - I'm Yogeshree.
"Hi"
" Move over Barrie", she said." I want your job".
'ME " That's fine, you can have it now if you like"
" In five years, I'm going to be sitting here"
"Tell you what Yogeshree - I'll help you. I can advise you and give you guidance on how to get here in less than five years."
The conversation didn't end tere and we exchanged contact details.
After Conference we spoke. Yogeshree from Durban, me from Johannesburg. Then one day I got a letter, handwritten, in which Yogeshree asked me if I would be her 'mentor'. I agreed at once, but wasn't sure how that would happen from such a distance.
The letters started in 2001 and became a regular stream of correspondence until sometime in late 2003. I was in any case trying to write for the field for about an hour every day and my letters to Yogeshree were then included in my writing schedule. The collection I called 'Dear Yogeshree' - an elder writes to a starting out child and youth care worker.
Barrie talks child and youth care will continue with writing and so talking about issues in the field and matters of concern in general and in the African setting in particular, but there will be ' Dear Yogeshree" letters appearing in the blog. They will always be introduced that way. Yogeshree has give her permission for the letters to be blogged. She says they were helpful to her.
I hope that they might prove to be of interest to you.
Watch out for the first of these next week,
Friday, 1 February 2013
The Child and Youth Care worker in family work
We appear to have some assumptions about the core reasons for relational, marriage , partnership or family problems: lack of income, unemployment, that the partners are from different cultures, race or religions, that there is alcohol abuse in the family , that it is a marriage or relationship where they are too young ......or 'family disorganisation'
Family disorganisation includes these possibilities: the incomplete family unit, normally it is the father who is missing; members who continue to live together but with no meaningful communication or interaction; a member dies, is in jail,at war or suffers from depression.- there may be some tragic loss of a family member; one person may have a mental pathology. (adapted from Goode 1964)
The research shows that there may be some cases of family breakdown because of these factors, but the number which are DIRECTLY caused by these factors is few.. Tiny percentages.
What the research is saying is that there is another core, or central reason why families become disorganised. In fact a 'good-enough' family system may survive poverty, unemployment, migrant labour separations and other stressors. The research shows that the central factor seems to be the loss of the expectations that each person has of the other in a relationship or a family.
To understand this we first have to understand something about how people choose a partner.
Often each partner believes that they see in the other, at least the potential , the possibility to continue some of the ways they believe relationships work as experienced in their own upbringing; in values, in the role that each family member plays in the family or relationship, in communication styles, in problem solving, i patterns of interdependence, in the way they believe children are supposed to be raised and behave. They both often expect the the relationship and the family will meet certain very deep learned expectations.
Drawing on the responses of couples during pre-marriage counselling, a pattern of expectations emerge around such issues as, money-management, domestic responsibilities, decision-making, family systems ( patriarchal, co-leadership,democratic, mutual submission), problem solving practices, cultural practices, sexual behaviours, values, child rearing.... the list goes on. It is seemingly very complicated and inter-related.
When these expectations are not or cannot be met, then what Goode calls 'role failure' is blamed for relational tensions and possibly even disintegration.(van Pelt 1980).
The issue is often explained as a need for members to either make some agreed adjustments to their roles or to re-contract their expectations by mutual agreement. But most frequently they need to be helped with communication skills that will allow them to 'tell each other the truth in love' ( Backus 1991) The thing is that its not just a matter of who does what, but how each does what in a complex pattern of the others anticipations .responses and reactions Anger, frustration, infidelity ( cheating )and even violence or withdrawal can result
Now this is where child and youth care workers can play their part in preserving family life as there are invariably children in the system, often victims of the tensions and sometimes they too need to learn the skills to "tell in love" or themselves be influenced and supported in adjusting to healthy family expectations.
The child care worker has a unique part to play . They work in the life-space of the and it has become very clear that some skills are best facilitated and practised in the family life-space, with perhaps only some practised in the safety of the agency facility. What the child care worker does is to facilitate that members articulate the issues in the family conference and to assist in the process of re-defining and re-contracting role expectations and behaviours. They support family members as they make adaptations and re-learn the habits that can preserve family life. They provide and rehearse skills, relationship and negotiation skills. They help learn communication skills .... how to tell each other the truth in love. Child care workers help families practically with the everyday events of their lives.They support members to cope with the endings of old habits, styles behaviour patterns and expectations and how to deal with the wilderness and confusion that goes with learning new ways of behaving with each other.
Child and youth care workers model and influence, build on the strengths of the members within the family system and on what happens in the moment to moment living space of the child and the family. They work practically to build a climate of acceptance and growth for children and youth. They provide opportunities to break old cycles of developmentally destructive or distorted experiences and they help to build a new vocabulary of good-enough life experiences in the important and significant areas of life.... belonging, competence through Mastery, Independence and virtue through generosity. (Brokenleg, Brentro and Van Bockern 1990)
The child and youth care worker in facilitating family preservation, is a key professional in reclaiming children and youth at risk and so in nation-building in this country.
Goode., William J: The Family. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series 1964
vav Pelt., Nancy: To Have and to Hold . Southern Publishing Company 1980
Backus., William: Telling Each Other The Truth . Struik Christian Books 1001
Brentro., L.K, Brokenleg.,M, Van Bockern.,S: Reclaiming Youth At Risk. Natioal Education Service 1990
Family disorganisation includes these possibilities: the incomplete family unit, normally it is the father who is missing; members who continue to live together but with no meaningful communication or interaction; a member dies, is in jail,at war or suffers from depression.- there may be some tragic loss of a family member; one person may have a mental pathology. (adapted from Goode 1964)
The research shows that there may be some cases of family breakdown because of these factors, but the number which are DIRECTLY caused by these factors is few.. Tiny percentages.
What the research is saying is that there is another core, or central reason why families become disorganised. In fact a 'good-enough' family system may survive poverty, unemployment, migrant labour separations and other stressors. The research shows that the central factor seems to be the loss of the expectations that each person has of the other in a relationship or a family.
To understand this we first have to understand something about how people choose a partner.
Often each partner believes that they see in the other, at least the potential , the possibility to continue some of the ways they believe relationships work as experienced in their own upbringing; in values, in the role that each family member plays in the family or relationship, in communication styles, in problem solving, i patterns of interdependence, in the way they believe children are supposed to be raised and behave. They both often expect the the relationship and the family will meet certain very deep learned expectations.
Drawing on the responses of couples during pre-marriage counselling, a pattern of expectations emerge around such issues as, money-management, domestic responsibilities, decision-making, family systems ( patriarchal, co-leadership,democratic, mutual submission), problem solving practices, cultural practices, sexual behaviours, values, child rearing.... the list goes on. It is seemingly very complicated and inter-related.
When these expectations are not or cannot be met, then what Goode calls 'role failure' is blamed for relational tensions and possibly even disintegration.(van Pelt 1980).
The issue is often explained as a need for members to either make some agreed adjustments to their roles or to re-contract their expectations by mutual agreement. But most frequently they need to be helped with communication skills that will allow them to 'tell each other the truth in love' ( Backus 1991) The thing is that its not just a matter of who does what, but how each does what in a complex pattern of the others anticipations .responses and reactions Anger, frustration, infidelity ( cheating )and even violence or withdrawal can result
Now this is where child and youth care workers can play their part in preserving family life as there are invariably children in the system, often victims of the tensions and sometimes they too need to learn the skills to "tell in love" or themselves be influenced and supported in adjusting to healthy family expectations.
The child care worker has a unique part to play . They work in the life-space of the and it has become very clear that some skills are best facilitated and practised in the family life-space, with perhaps only some practised in the safety of the agency facility. What the child care worker does is to facilitate that members articulate the issues in the family conference and to assist in the process of re-defining and re-contracting role expectations and behaviours. They support family members as they make adaptations and re-learn the habits that can preserve family life. They provide and rehearse skills, relationship and negotiation skills. They help learn communication skills .... how to tell each other the truth in love. Child care workers help families practically with the everyday events of their lives.They support members to cope with the endings of old habits, styles behaviour patterns and expectations and how to deal with the wilderness and confusion that goes with learning new ways of behaving with each other.
Child and youth care workers model and influence, build on the strengths of the members within the family system and on what happens in the moment to moment living space of the child and the family. They work practically to build a climate of acceptance and growth for children and youth. They provide opportunities to break old cycles of developmentally destructive or distorted experiences and they help to build a new vocabulary of good-enough life experiences in the important and significant areas of life.... belonging, competence through Mastery, Independence and virtue through generosity. (Brokenleg, Brentro and Van Bockern 1990)
The child and youth care worker in facilitating family preservation, is a key professional in reclaiming children and youth at risk and so in nation-building in this country.
Goode., William J: The Family. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series 1964
vav Pelt., Nancy: To Have and to Hold . Southern Publishing Company 1980
Backus., William: Telling Each Other The Truth . Struik Christian Books 1001
Brentro., L.K, Brokenleg.,M, Van Bockern.,S: Reclaiming Youth At Risk. Natioal Education Service 1990
Monday, 28 January 2013
Child care worker fostering a child in his care ???
Derrick was about 10 or 11 I remember, but small for his age which made him rather cute.Truth was that he was a really handsome boy, blonde and god looking as boychildren go He had a much older brother in care in the same 'Home". His background history was complicated and painful, like every child in care, but his biggest need was to somehow experience a safe reliable adult male figure, ... a sort of 'father' model so to speak.
I was designated that role. I was to be that figure for a period of time.
At first it was as was planned in his 'treatment programme'.- conscious, planned, professional. The idea was that that this would happen for three to six months and then I would help to make another male worker acceptable to him . We were to build on my relationship to allow him to make 'good-enough', trusting relationships with adult males.
It didn't quite work out like that. In a few months I found myself saying, "my Derrick" and "that little Derrick of mine". "my boy ". The professional relationship was becoming, No, dare I say ... had become a filial one. The staff saw it. I didn't really. At staff and case discussions it was discussed and they would warn me and say that some other male worker should be used. But by that stage I didn't care or bother myself with the warnings because I knew that I wanted to foster Derrick.
So, I took the idea to my wife..
"Let's foster one, Let's take in Derrick.. he has a mother, but I think that he is pragmatically orphaned."
Well two events happened at approximately the same time. My wife and I had two of our own biological children both teenagers. We lived in a house on campus. I was the Director of the "Home" ( Residential Treatment Centre). We called a family meeting and I put my proposal.
My own children were remarkably rational. "If we take him in as our own", they said, " He would always be a "Home boy" who we have 'borrowed , from the organisation - singled out for special care, given the best and ... you can say 'loved' more than the others". It's not fair on him, on the others nor on us who have to face the other boys every day somehow or another.It's not a good idea unless you leave the "Home" and we live somewhere else. It's not a good idea",they said.
My children were right. I couldn't argue against their logic. I could only say, But he will fit in" and He needs to be fostered" amd I really like the boy" ( I avoided the "love" word).
In that same week, Derrick was apprehended by the police and charged with malicious damage to property. Secretly he had been making his own collection of motor vehicle bonnet badges. hen he was caught he was busy breaking off the bonnet badge of a Mercedes Benz which was parked in the city street. He need it in his collection.. The incident forced him to reveal his full little hoard of broken off bonnet badges. They were mainly from luxury cars.
" Whats the bid deal/" He said. "It's no problem man" . the cars belong to 'larnies', and I hate 'larnies' (slang for rich middle class people) They just buy another one man"
It was this incident that thrust me into a reality check and I was forced to rethink about what I had been denying all along. I had forgotten that Derrick was in the Treatment Centre in the first place because he was in need of specialised residential care. he was a deeply troubled child with behaviours that typified almost every boy in the Centre. The treatment he needed was group residential treatment of the type that he would really only get in the "home". It was not the stealing incident itself that made me rethink. It was the realisation that if I 'professionally' took everything into consideration then it was clear that foster care with my family whist I was a child care worker for his friends and his group in care , .... if I took into real consideration his own mother and his brother, as well as the reality that he would be the 'chosen" amongst the others ... then it wasn't a good idea. fostering him would complicate his life .It was likely to bring him hurt rather than healing and my family was likely to get hurt too. There was a lot going for it and there would have been some benefits but the cost outweighed them. It was noble, but not the solution for Derrick.
We did not foster Derrick,
NOTE
This is a purely hypothetical narrative for the purpose of putting forward the issues of fostering a client .... Derrick is based on a combination of a number of children and does not exist as an individual. .
I was designated that role. I was to be that figure for a period of time.
At first it was as was planned in his 'treatment programme'.- conscious, planned, professional. The idea was that that this would happen for three to six months and then I would help to make another male worker acceptable to him . We were to build on my relationship to allow him to make 'good-enough', trusting relationships with adult males.
It didn't quite work out like that. In a few months I found myself saying, "my Derrick" and "that little Derrick of mine". "my boy ". The professional relationship was becoming, No, dare I say ... had become a filial one. The staff saw it. I didn't really. At staff and case discussions it was discussed and they would warn me and say that some other male worker should be used. But by that stage I didn't care or bother myself with the warnings because I knew that I wanted to foster Derrick.
So, I took the idea to my wife..
"Let's foster one, Let's take in Derrick.. he has a mother, but I think that he is pragmatically orphaned."
Well two events happened at approximately the same time. My wife and I had two of our own biological children both teenagers. We lived in a house on campus. I was the Director of the "Home" ( Residential Treatment Centre). We called a family meeting and I put my proposal.
My own children were remarkably rational. "If we take him in as our own", they said, " He would always be a "Home boy" who we have 'borrowed , from the organisation - singled out for special care, given the best and ... you can say 'loved' more than the others". It's not fair on him, on the others nor on us who have to face the other boys every day somehow or another.It's not a good idea unless you leave the "Home" and we live somewhere else. It's not a good idea",they said.
My children were right. I couldn't argue against their logic. I could only say, But he will fit in" and He needs to be fostered" amd I really like the boy" ( I avoided the "love" word).
In that same week, Derrick was apprehended by the police and charged with malicious damage to property. Secretly he had been making his own collection of motor vehicle bonnet badges. hen he was caught he was busy breaking off the bonnet badge of a Mercedes Benz which was parked in the city street. He need it in his collection.. The incident forced him to reveal his full little hoard of broken off bonnet badges. They were mainly from luxury cars.
" Whats the bid deal/" He said. "It's no problem man" . the cars belong to 'larnies', and I hate 'larnies' (slang for rich middle class people) They just buy another one man"
It was this incident that thrust me into a reality check and I was forced to rethink about what I had been denying all along. I had forgotten that Derrick was in the Treatment Centre in the first place because he was in need of specialised residential care. he was a deeply troubled child with behaviours that typified almost every boy in the Centre. The treatment he needed was group residential treatment of the type that he would really only get in the "home". It was not the stealing incident itself that made me rethink. It was the realisation that if I 'professionally' took everything into consideration then it was clear that foster care with my family whist I was a child care worker for his friends and his group in care , .... if I took into real consideration his own mother and his brother, as well as the reality that he would be the 'chosen" amongst the others ... then it wasn't a good idea. fostering him would complicate his life .It was likely to bring him hurt rather than healing and my family was likely to get hurt too. There was a lot going for it and there would have been some benefits but the cost outweighed them. It was noble, but not the solution for Derrick.
We did not foster Derrick,
NOTE
This is a purely hypothetical narrative for the purpose of putting forward the issues of fostering a client .... Derrick is based on a combination of a number of children and does not exist as an individual. .
Thursday, 24 January 2013
PUBLISH..African child and youth care can teach the world
The field of child and youth care has grown primarily from knowledge and practice that comes from Europe and North America. If we take just our recognised pioneers, people like Pestalozzi, Korzak, Fritz Redl, Bettleheim , and more recently Anna Freud , Brentro, Trieshmann, Whittiker, Maier, Hoghoghi, Kreuger, Brokenleg, Garfat to name a few; these are all names of Europeans and North Americans.
Also, almost without exception, the source of growth in our knowledge has come from urban residential child care practice and from findings with delinquent, troubled or troubling youth.
It was probably Brian Gannon , a pioneer in the South African setting, who wrote :
"In the Western world, it was the problems which society saw in the poor, the retarded and the criminal which came to differentiate the literature of our field. ........the writings of Pestalozzi in the 18th century, Carpenter and Bosco in the 19th and Dewey and others in the early 20th century remain relevant"
What has happened in the South African setting is that this essentially urban residentially based European and North American knowledge, skill and practice has either been applied as it is, or somehow minimally adapted to the South African context. The result has been that the methods, Western problem solving and processes in the field as a field of study are applied directly into practice or are tweaked a little to say that they have some African relevance.. Such would be the case in the use of the "Circle of Courage (Brentro and Brokenleg) which we felt comfortable with and made central to practice because it "seemed to fit" our African context.
The point is that we don't really have an indigenous , that is AFRICAN child and youth care body of professional literature and a practice that is ESSENTIALLY African.especially in residential care.
Again attributed to Gannon
" The oral tradition of African and other indigenous child care practices reflect a gap in the child and youth care literature and present a challenge to the field of child and youth care i South Africa."
We have a specific African context in which child and youth care is practised in South Africa and Africa. Two elements of a much wider set of factors have been selected to show how they force our child and youth care to be unique and uniquely African .
The geography, demography and ecology of out country gives us settings characterised by disadvantaged people living in semi-rural and deep rural settings,. in which children are being raised and in which our work must be done.The unfortunate legacy of our past has left us with a clear link between that which is rural to poverty and lack of service provision. It is almost as if the apartheid mind regarded rural poverty as somehow noble, quaint, primitive, cultural and to be preserved. But apartheid was oppressive and destructive and its effects are still to be felt. We have an inherited paucity of services ... even basic services especially in the rural settings in which children live.
This context or life-space requires child and youth care workers to practice with African relevance and creativity In this setting has grown distinctly African solutions to an African situation. The Isibindi Model of care is a good example of this. In this way the rural African setting in our child care here has become the crucible, the hot-house of African child care knowledge, skill and practice.
The second selected element is what I call the African mind. It has to do with the amalgam of cultural values that surround spirituality, human relations, community, time, respect, language and the way we as Africans explain good fortune and misfortune ..... how we make sense of everyday events and of life itself especially social life.
Child and youth care in Africa is really only effective when it is approached through this mode. In the African context, issues and understanding have to be seen, experienced, approached through the African lens, through the 'African mind",, and through the African interpretation of meaning.
Through these two elements of our context alone, and there are many more (like our HIV/AIDS pandemic) it becomes very obvious that we have a child and youth care here that is distinctly African, .... and it works.
This places a huge responsibility on us as bearers of this African knowledge and practice to articulate our practice and theories. I know that we have an oral tradition and that we really good as African to tell our stories, but the time has come We must tell the world what works here and what doesn't. We must write it down, share it publish it.
Believe me ... Europe, America and the world can learn from African child and youth care work.
Also, almost without exception, the source of growth in our knowledge has come from urban residential child care practice and from findings with delinquent, troubled or troubling youth.
It was probably Brian Gannon , a pioneer in the South African setting, who wrote :
"In the Western world, it was the problems which society saw in the poor, the retarded and the criminal which came to differentiate the literature of our field. ........the writings of Pestalozzi in the 18th century, Carpenter and Bosco in the 19th and Dewey and others in the early 20th century remain relevant"
What has happened in the South African setting is that this essentially urban residentially based European and North American knowledge, skill and practice has either been applied as it is, or somehow minimally adapted to the South African context. The result has been that the methods, Western problem solving and processes in the field as a field of study are applied directly into practice or are tweaked a little to say that they have some African relevance.. Such would be the case in the use of the "Circle of Courage (Brentro and Brokenleg) which we felt comfortable with and made central to practice because it "seemed to fit" our African context.
The point is that we don't really have an indigenous , that is AFRICAN child and youth care body of professional literature and a practice that is ESSENTIALLY African.especially in residential care.
Again attributed to Gannon
" The oral tradition of African and other indigenous child care practices reflect a gap in the child and youth care literature and present a challenge to the field of child and youth care i South Africa."
We have a specific African context in which child and youth care is practised in South Africa and Africa. Two elements of a much wider set of factors have been selected to show how they force our child and youth care to be unique and uniquely African .
The geography, demography and ecology of out country gives us settings characterised by disadvantaged people living in semi-rural and deep rural settings,. in which children are being raised and in which our work must be done.The unfortunate legacy of our past has left us with a clear link between that which is rural to poverty and lack of service provision. It is almost as if the apartheid mind regarded rural poverty as somehow noble, quaint, primitive, cultural and to be preserved. But apartheid was oppressive and destructive and its effects are still to be felt. We have an inherited paucity of services ... even basic services especially in the rural settings in which children live.
This context or life-space requires child and youth care workers to practice with African relevance and creativity In this setting has grown distinctly African solutions to an African situation. The Isibindi Model of care is a good example of this. In this way the rural African setting in our child care here has become the crucible, the hot-house of African child care knowledge, skill and practice.
The second selected element is what I call the African mind. It has to do with the amalgam of cultural values that surround spirituality, human relations, community, time, respect, language and the way we as Africans explain good fortune and misfortune ..... how we make sense of everyday events and of life itself especially social life.
Child and youth care in Africa is really only effective when it is approached through this mode. In the African context, issues and understanding have to be seen, experienced, approached through the African lens, through the 'African mind",, and through the African interpretation of meaning.
Through these two elements of our context alone, and there are many more (like our HIV/AIDS pandemic) it becomes very obvious that we have a child and youth care here that is distinctly African, .... and it works.
This places a huge responsibility on us as bearers of this African knowledge and practice to articulate our practice and theories. I know that we have an oral tradition and that we really good as African to tell our stories, but the time has come We must tell the world what works here and what doesn't. We must write it down, share it publish it.
Believe me ... Europe, America and the world can learn from African child and youth care work.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
"Cuddly Bunny" "Lobola Value" and now we are "family"
In one of our training courses for child and youth care workers there was a reading for the facilitator. It was to help embroider an exercise on the wearing of "masks". It described a young woman who grew up in a loving family with her older sister. It had to do with the way her parents valued her from the beginning....they called her older sister "the clever one" . Your sister is the "clever one" they would say to her,"but .....you, you are mummy and daddy's " cuddly bunny" She learnt from the beginning to behaves the child not as bright as her sister. After all, that was not the way she was valued and not the way to guarantee her connection with mom and dad. She was valued as the one who was somehow to be cute, crawl onto laps and snuggle up. She was, the "cuddly bunny"
Right into adulthood she rained the most approval and acceptance by being what her parents valued her to be and not the independent, intelligent achiever that she really was.
It took psycho-therapy for her to rid herself of the persona that she was not, and to rid herself of the "cuddly bunny" mask to allow herself to be who she really was.... her real "self"
The sadness of this child, trapped inside her mask, scared to drop it, not able to come out and realise her full "being", resonated with me somewhere.
The body of research called the "value of Children" or VOC investigates this phenomena and its significance for development and child rearing practices.
What follows rests heavily on two research papers flowing from the VOC research project: Sam(2001) and Ware.H (1978)
The thinking behind research into the value of children is that having children is a mixed blessing. VOC is a psychological construct to reflect why people choose to have children. That is, why do people decide about the benefit they will derive from having children vs the cost of fertility?
The VOC thinking is that parents choose to have children because the must percieve some benefit , .. that they will somehow benefit by them.
VOC identifies three areas of value or benefit within which parents believe they will derive from having children: The psychological value, (p- voc), social value (s-voc) and/ or economical value (e- voc). Various weighting in their decision to have a child or children may be given in these areas, depending on geographic, economic and cultural situations of the parents
Parents who place value on the psychological benefit they will derive from having a child,outweigh the stress and discomfort of fertility with the joy, happiness and unconditional love that they will get from it. The perception of this value often varies with the hoped for , or actual gender of the child . The first born in addition to the other psychological benefits is perceived as giving an exciting new experience to the parent(s). The second is often valued for the benefit it will bring the first. A third may be valued for providing a child of different gender to the first two if they are of the same gender and so provide the exciting new experience of the first.
It would seem that urban, Western parents often stop at this point if the value of children to them is p-voc.
Parents who see benefit in having children for their social value choose to have children because society or the culture somehow expects it. The understand society or their culture has this idea that an ideal "family" has children. Often there is a societal or cultural expectation (especially in Africa) that it is the role of women to bear children, or that children completes, binds or commits a relationship.
In many African societal/ cultural thought there is the idea that a son secures the family line and the family name.. It is said that a male cant take the risk of being forgotten by having one son only as then his name may be longer remembered and so he will be longer recognised as an ancestor.
The idea that a parent may choose to have children for economic reasons seems to be more heavily weighted in rural agrarian communities and especially in African and Asian studies. There is an old African thought that the more children a family has, the richer the family. The children are seen in e-voc fertility decision making to become extra hands in the field . They may be conceived for the direct or indirect , immediate or longer term economic support they will provide.
In South Africa there are a number of immediate economic benefits that derive from a child: child care grants, maintenance payments, foster care grants, disability grants, "damages " if the girl child falls pregnant. A girl child can provide domestic help, clean, cook and look after the your child and so allow the parent work.
Parents that place value on having a child for its economic value in the longer or long term, consider, the 'lobola' value of the girl child, care for the ageing parent (girl child), the financing of the family (boy child) ,.or the reciprocal benefit of investing in the education of a child now for support later. There are other such longer term benefits such in the cultural thinking around property rights of the male child.
There is comment that comes out of VOC research that the benefit or value to the parent in choosing to have children or a child has implications in child-rearing practices and as in the "girl in the mask" contributes to the formation of the child's "self" concept and so to the very nature and behaviour of the child.
The effect then of the VOC research on child development theory seems to deserve more attention in developmental studies, and we appear to have somehow overlooked it.
and it has particular importance in child development in Africa.
Sam.D.L., Value of Children: Effects of globalisation on fertility behaviour and child rearing practices in Ghana. Research Review NS 17.2 (2001) 5- 16
Ware . H., The economic value of children: comparative study in Asia and Africa: comparative perspectives., Papers of the East- West Population Institute . No 50. April 1978
Right into adulthood she rained the most approval and acceptance by being what her parents valued her to be and not the independent, intelligent achiever that she really was.
It took psycho-therapy for her to rid herself of the persona that she was not, and to rid herself of the "cuddly bunny" mask to allow herself to be who she really was.... her real "self"
The sadness of this child, trapped inside her mask, scared to drop it, not able to come out and realise her full "being", resonated with me somewhere.
The body of research called the "value of Children" or VOC investigates this phenomena and its significance for development and child rearing practices.
What follows rests heavily on two research papers flowing from the VOC research project: Sam(2001) and Ware.H (1978)
The thinking behind research into the value of children is that having children is a mixed blessing. VOC is a psychological construct to reflect why people choose to have children. That is, why do people decide about the benefit they will derive from having children vs the cost of fertility?
The VOC thinking is that parents choose to have children because the must percieve some benefit , .. that they will somehow benefit by them.
VOC identifies three areas of value or benefit within which parents believe they will derive from having children: The psychological value, (p- voc), social value (s-voc) and/ or economical value (e- voc). Various weighting in their decision to have a child or children may be given in these areas, depending on geographic, economic and cultural situations of the parents
Parents who place value on the psychological benefit they will derive from having a child,outweigh the stress and discomfort of fertility with the joy, happiness and unconditional love that they will get from it. The perception of this value often varies with the hoped for , or actual gender of the child . The first born in addition to the other psychological benefits is perceived as giving an exciting new experience to the parent(s). The second is often valued for the benefit it will bring the first. A third may be valued for providing a child of different gender to the first two if they are of the same gender and so provide the exciting new experience of the first.
It would seem that urban, Western parents often stop at this point if the value of children to them is p-voc.
Parents who see benefit in having children for their social value choose to have children because society or the culture somehow expects it. The understand society or their culture has this idea that an ideal "family" has children. Often there is a societal or cultural expectation (especially in Africa) that it is the role of women to bear children, or that children completes, binds or commits a relationship.
In many African societal/ cultural thought there is the idea that a son secures the family line and the family name.. It is said that a male cant take the risk of being forgotten by having one son only as then his name may be longer remembered and so he will be longer recognised as an ancestor.
The idea that a parent may choose to have children for economic reasons seems to be more heavily weighted in rural agrarian communities and especially in African and Asian studies. There is an old African thought that the more children a family has, the richer the family. The children are seen in e-voc fertility decision making to become extra hands in the field . They may be conceived for the direct or indirect , immediate or longer term economic support they will provide.
In South Africa there are a number of immediate economic benefits that derive from a child: child care grants, maintenance payments, foster care grants, disability grants, "damages " if the girl child falls pregnant. A girl child can provide domestic help, clean, cook and look after the your child and so allow the parent work.
Parents that place value on having a child for its economic value in the longer or long term, consider, the 'lobola' value of the girl child, care for the ageing parent (girl child), the financing of the family (boy child) ,.or the reciprocal benefit of investing in the education of a child now for support later. There are other such longer term benefits such in the cultural thinking around property rights of the male child.
There is comment that comes out of VOC research that the benefit or value to the parent in choosing to have children or a child has implications in child-rearing practices and as in the "girl in the mask" contributes to the formation of the child's "self" concept and so to the very nature and behaviour of the child.
The effect then of the VOC research on child development theory seems to deserve more attention in developmental studies, and we appear to have somehow overlooked it.
and it has particular importance in child development in Africa.
Sam.D.L., Value of Children: Effects of globalisation on fertility behaviour and child rearing practices in Ghana. Research Review NS 17.2 (2001) 5- 16
Ware . H., The economic value of children: comparative study in Asia and Africa: comparative perspectives., Papers of the East- West Population Institute . No 50. April 1978
Monday, 31 December 2012
Happy 2013 Year of the Child and Youth care Worker !!!
This is self proclaimed ............. 2013.. The Year of the Child and Youth Care worker. In South Africa in particular we need to strategise a year that highlights the professionality of the Child and Youth Care Worker. The idea is that we... the people on the ground, the stake-holders par excellence, the people who really count, or should be counted, will use the avenues that are available to us to proclaim and make known our importance in the development of the Nation and the lives of children. I have a hope that what we may be able to do this year will find the support of the international Child and Youth Care community .. world wide or that what we WILL and CAN do to promote the profession in South Africa will serve as an inspiration to other countries where there is a struggle for recognition,, In South Africa we say "VIVA" (long Live) Child and Youth Care "Pambhile" ... ( upward!!).
We have had movements in this country before and those movements lead us into a democracy. Now we will have a 2013 Movement to lead child and youth care into a recognized and respected profession and.... a force to be reckoned with .
Happy 2013. child and youth care workers. ... OUR YEAR... now is the time GRAB IT>!!!
We have had movements in this country before and those movements lead us into a democracy. Now we will have a 2013 Movement to lead child and youth care into a recognized and respected profession and.... a force to be reckoned with .
Happy 2013. child and youth care workers. ... OUR YEAR... now is the time GRAB IT>!!!
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