" My mother told me that 'horses have instincts' ". That was meant to tell me that if I acted on my instincts, then I was acting in the fashion of an animal and not like a human being who functions at another level. More than that, it meant that if Julie had instincts, then she could repress them or deny them or choose to act in other higher, more rational ways.
At one level, I also learnt not to trust my instincts whilst working with the children and young persons. If I acted on them, without stopping somehow to think them through, then my behaviour became 'primitive' and impulsive ... and usually wrong professionally.
But then again, I learnt later that to know and to feel my instincts was always useful
It maybe that Julie's mother hoped that Julie wouldn't have instincts at all !. But that isn't possible. All that we know informs us that instincts and therefor instinctual behaviour is "substantially emotional" and "behaviour that is a manifestation on what may be seen to hinge on genetically transmitted physiological factors" (1)..... Oh dear, Julie got her instincts from her mother... and from her species.
In the PART Course ( Professional Response Training Course) it is suggested that in the face of threat, we have triggered in us an unlearned, instinctive impulse to fight or to flight... and I add.or to manipulate. In other writings I learnt of avoidance, but I suppose that is a type of flight. The biological and chemical effects of these two triggered reactions is completely different in us, our thinking perception and our bodies. In horse terms it will either rear up and strike out, or it will run away. There isn't much choice.. What Julie's mother was saying is that we humans can choose something else - and usually should.
From what I can make out, instinctive reaction as have to do with survival of the individual and in this way the survival of its progeny, whether it is a reflex action, like the sucking of a baby, or the desire to hurt others because they hurt us or to reproduce.
It is very useful for us as professionals to be aware of what is happening at this level in both ourselves and in the children that we are helping .After all, my instincts appear to be there for me ... not them.
Let's face it, Julie's mother was worried about matters sexual.She was worried that some male behaviour would trigger reactions in Julie over which she had no control.She wanted Julie to deal rationally with the instinctive "urge to merge".Its not that it doesn't happen in us, we all know that but that Julie must find another way of expressing sexual arousal or to avoid it.
In children and in the intellectually challenged , inhibition may be reduced so we may get a window here on what goes on in us.
Rosa was about eighteen years old at the time, and diagnosed as mildly mongoloid ( I wonder if there is such a diagnosis) Rosa was limited, but functioned sufficiently yo study catering at the Technical College.
One of the boys sneaked some soft porn gay magazines in to the group home and whist ostensibly watching TV the mixed group poured over these. In one was a series of pictures showing sensual massage so they tried this out, somewhat clumsily on each other..The situation reached a point of arousal which we nick-named "pounding ovaries" and "cold shower time".
Rosa left the group, went to her bedroom to masturbate and ripped strips of wallpaper off the wall in the process.
It was the tattered.wallpaper that started the child and youth care worker to enquire into what happened. Rosa had no problem in relating the incident. It was just something that happened Actually, afternoon soapies on TV were enough to get Rosa going like that.
In a moment of being unsupervised, an episode occurred in a group of younger children whilst watching hamsters . As the hamsters mated in rapid copulatory thrusts , so the excitement level rose and escalated to a point where they just openly stimulated each others genital. It was interrupted by the arrival and intervention of the child care worker.
We can be sure that bio-chemical/neurological/ instinct influences behaviour .It sits deep in the layers of our selves and in the children that we work with. In Bronfenbrenner's metaphor of a set of Russian dolls, it could well be at the level of that tiny little solid one in the very core of the nesting set.
Sure, horses have instincts, but then so do we, even as the professional child and youth care workers that we are.
And so do the children
Its the most difficult profession in the world
(1) Encyclopeadia Britttanica Vol 9, p628, 15th Edition
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE Our own inside outs meet children's behaviour
DEAR YOGESHREE
You have had from me letters that have emphasized the importance of our self awareness whilst we work with children and young people. Also about trying to 'get into the world' of the child so that we can start responding from the 'inside out'. Thing is, our interactions with children and young people is complicated by the fact that in any interactions, that is exactly what it is... our inner worlds meets with the 'inner world' of the child .. ... and then.... the complexity of our being professional becomes very apparent.
Weekends in the Children's Home were always paradoxically tense. On the one hand, the place was virtually empty, on the other most of the most difficult and dramatic moments were acted out over the weekends.
Tea was always set out in the foyer. It was Friday afternoon and a favourite meeting place of child and youth care workers and the young people 'left in' for the weekend.
Some, like Nceba. were old and responsible enough to go to their homes for the weekend under their own steam on a Friday immediately after leaving school. He would do this straight from school and after soccer practise
By about 4.30 pm, the main rush of getting children ready and packed of for their weekends with parents was over and the remains of tea were inevitably left on the huge coffee table in the foyer. The children could always help themselves .
At about 5.00 pm I came up the stairs from the outside and through the great doors into the foyer and as I did , I saw "the feet". Large dirty tackies attached to scrappy jeans ...... and those feet.... resting nonchalantly on the middle of the coffee table. amidst the cups,sugar and milk.
I saw first the feet and the tackies and then, more and more of the identity of the boy wearing them as I came up the stairs. It was Nceba.
From that stairway came a rush through my body from the pit of my stomach surging through my chest and my head felt asif it would burst.
" NCEBA !! Get those dirty feet of yours off that table!!" It came out as a fierce loud shout..
Nceba, with a full cup and a saucer lifted it above his head and threw it with great force against the wall.of the foyer next to my office door. His feet were on the ground and he stood right up facing me before the whole caboodle smashed . Milky tea , bits of broken china spattered everywhere.
My head was already pumped up and and my mouth runnith over " What the Hell !! blah.... blah .... blah !!!!!"
Nceba slowly sat back into the chair that he had so swiftly vacated, his chest pulsated, and I saw for the first time that this was not anger or defiance. It was rage. Rage fueled by utter despair
Nceba sobbed
This was his world, and his view of it .. then and pervasively in his life, Act 1 scene 1 in Nceba's life was a repetitive cycle ... trapped he was in a plot that repeated itself so frequently that it was his lens through which he interpreted the world.and made it fact. The world let you down.... it rejected you ...that's it... finish !!
Nceba had gone home. He had walked in to find his mother in bed with a man he did not know but who was hastily introduced as ' my boyfriend'. ,,,, and Nceba knew this cue only too well.. He must go back to the Children's Home immediately . The boyfriend had been preference to him for the weekend.... so he returned to the foyer and the tea, too brood again on the patterns of the world and his lost hope. Hope that was dashed like the cup against the wall of the foyer which we cleaned up together that Friday afternoon and together tried to pick up the pieces
It took me a long time to make the connections into my own life and its events that 'pushed the buttons' for me that afternoon.The feet on the coffee table got me going and I misread all the signs that things for Nceba were not what I though they were. I didn't actually see them until the sobbing and then it was too late.At least we could still pick up the pieces . Nceba got the blast from a fuse that was lit in me some twenty years before.
I was a teacher at a High School at the time. I had a free period so I went into Great Hall to watch the rehearsals for a Talent Competition to be held that night, I sat in one row near the side entrance to the hall and put my feet on the chair in the row ahead of me. The Headmaster came up the stairs to the door of the hall, saw the feet on the chair, thought I was a pupil ,and red faced screamed at me " Get your fett off that chair"... right in front of a bunch of schoolboys who were my pupils. The event lives with me even now. My feet broke the sound barrier and as he passed me . he said very quietly "Sorry, I though that you were one of the boys" I sank between the floorboards and disappeared in my embarassment
I can't explain this rationally, but I know that that incident sparked my reaction to Nceba's feet on the coffee table. I still cant condone the behaviour and I still don't like dirty tackies, but I think I have learnt to see more now of Nceba, and less of tackies and tables... to shoot less from the hip and not to come in with six guns blazing... to ask the question "What's really going on in me?".... and "What's really going on here?"
Love
Barrie
.
You have had from me letters that have emphasized the importance of our self awareness whilst we work with children and young people. Also about trying to 'get into the world' of the child so that we can start responding from the 'inside out'. Thing is, our interactions with children and young people is complicated by the fact that in any interactions, that is exactly what it is... our inner worlds meets with the 'inner world' of the child .. ... and then.... the complexity of our being professional becomes very apparent.
Weekends in the Children's Home were always paradoxically tense. On the one hand, the place was virtually empty, on the other most of the most difficult and dramatic moments were acted out over the weekends.
Tea was always set out in the foyer. It was Friday afternoon and a favourite meeting place of child and youth care workers and the young people 'left in' for the weekend.
Some, like Nceba. were old and responsible enough to go to their homes for the weekend under their own steam on a Friday immediately after leaving school. He would do this straight from school and after soccer practise
By about 4.30 pm, the main rush of getting children ready and packed of for their weekends with parents was over and the remains of tea were inevitably left on the huge coffee table in the foyer. The children could always help themselves .
At about 5.00 pm I came up the stairs from the outside and through the great doors into the foyer and as I did , I saw "the feet". Large dirty tackies attached to scrappy jeans ...... and those feet.... resting nonchalantly on the middle of the coffee table. amidst the cups,sugar and milk.
I saw first the feet and the tackies and then, more and more of the identity of the boy wearing them as I came up the stairs. It was Nceba.
From that stairway came a rush through my body from the pit of my stomach surging through my chest and my head felt asif it would burst.
" NCEBA !! Get those dirty feet of yours off that table!!" It came out as a fierce loud shout..
Nceba, with a full cup and a saucer lifted it above his head and threw it with great force against the wall.of the foyer next to my office door. His feet were on the ground and he stood right up facing me before the whole caboodle smashed . Milky tea , bits of broken china spattered everywhere.
My head was already pumped up and and my mouth runnith over " What the Hell !! blah.... blah .... blah !!!!!"
Nceba slowly sat back into the chair that he had so swiftly vacated, his chest pulsated, and I saw for the first time that this was not anger or defiance. It was rage. Rage fueled by utter despair
Nceba sobbed
This was his world, and his view of it .. then and pervasively in his life, Act 1 scene 1 in Nceba's life was a repetitive cycle ... trapped he was in a plot that repeated itself so frequently that it was his lens through which he interpreted the world.and made it fact. The world let you down.... it rejected you ...that's it... finish !!
Nceba had gone home. He had walked in to find his mother in bed with a man he did not know but who was hastily introduced as ' my boyfriend'. ,,,, and Nceba knew this cue only too well.. He must go back to the Children's Home immediately . The boyfriend had been preference to him for the weekend.... so he returned to the foyer and the tea, too brood again on the patterns of the world and his lost hope. Hope that was dashed like the cup against the wall of the foyer which we cleaned up together that Friday afternoon and together tried to pick up the pieces
It took me a long time to make the connections into my own life and its events that 'pushed the buttons' for me that afternoon.The feet on the coffee table got me going and I misread all the signs that things for Nceba were not what I though they were. I didn't actually see them until the sobbing and then it was too late.At least we could still pick up the pieces . Nceba got the blast from a fuse that was lit in me some twenty years before.
I was a teacher at a High School at the time. I had a free period so I went into Great Hall to watch the rehearsals for a Talent Competition to be held that night, I sat in one row near the side entrance to the hall and put my feet on the chair in the row ahead of me. The Headmaster came up the stairs to the door of the hall, saw the feet on the chair, thought I was a pupil ,and red faced screamed at me " Get your fett off that chair"... right in front of a bunch of schoolboys who were my pupils. The event lives with me even now. My feet broke the sound barrier and as he passed me . he said very quietly "Sorry, I though that you were one of the boys" I sank between the floorboards and disappeared in my embarassment
I can't explain this rationally, but I know that that incident sparked my reaction to Nceba's feet on the coffee table. I still cant condone the behaviour and I still don't like dirty tackies, but I think I have learnt to see more now of Nceba, and less of tackies and tables... to shoot less from the hip and not to come in with six guns blazing... to ask the question "What's really going on in me?".... and "What's really going on here?"
Love
Barrie
.
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Professionalisation, The South African Professional Board for child and youth care work and the way forward
The first South African Professional Board for child and youth care work was inaugurated in 2004 and met in 2005. It worked through its five year term of office. This however was interrupted by an effective one year when it could not meet officially as a result of it being suspended by the South African Council to await the outcome of a dispute it had on the issue of the Council's view that child and youth care workers at the so called "professional level" would not be registered at the same time as the 'auxiliary level' workers but phased in over an unstipulated period of time. The Professional Board refused to be associated with this concept.
So the first Board had an effective 4 year period of office. In this time it wrote and approved regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both levels which as a result of considerable backwards and forwarding as well as legal advice reached its 16th or 17th draft before the Council submitted a proposal to the Minister and the dispute kicked in officially. It also had written the required 'Principles and Guidelines for Policy for the Code of Ethics for Child and Youth Care Workers'.
Its term of Office expired and the election of child and youth care workers/practitioners to the second Professional Board took place in late 2011. It was inaugurated by the Deputy Minister in March of 2013.
In the interregnum, the Department of Social Development established and recognised an 'Interim Committee for Child and Youth Care Work' (ICCYCW) . This 'interim committee' completed what was called the final regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both the auxiliary and the professional levels. It also approved the final 'Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics for child and youth care workers. The Ethical Code and the rules of Conduct... all in a form that awaited the Minister's approval and would then be ready for publishing in a government gazette. The Departmental lawyer said at the time that this was all that was needed procedurally and that child and youth care workers on the ministers approval of the documents were positioned to be regulated and so to be registered as professionals.
The second Professional Board for child and youth care workers was inaugurated on the 11th March 2013.after a delay of over one year from the date of the election results.
It met informally after the inauguration to get to know each other and to roughly sketch the the present position in the work already done and what the Board was likely to have yet to do.
There seemed to be some common agreement that the final regulations, the Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics, the Code of Ethics and the Rules of Conduct were best served before the new Board and therefor the present Council for approval and forwarding again to the Minister.
It was also agreed that no time should be permitted to be wasted in the completion of this process.
2013 is still the year of the child and youth care worker.. the movement toward professionalisation and recognition is still a movement of all the child and youth care workers and not just the Board.
Together, 2013 must be made to work as the year of the child and youth care worker in South Africa.
So the first Board had an effective 4 year period of office. In this time it wrote and approved regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both levels which as a result of considerable backwards and forwarding as well as legal advice reached its 16th or 17th draft before the Council submitted a proposal to the Minister and the dispute kicked in officially. It also had written the required 'Principles and Guidelines for Policy for the Code of Ethics for Child and Youth Care Workers'.
Its term of Office expired and the election of child and youth care workers/practitioners to the second Professional Board took place in late 2011. It was inaugurated by the Deputy Minister in March of 2013.
In the interregnum, the Department of Social Development established and recognised an 'Interim Committee for Child and Youth Care Work' (ICCYCW) . This 'interim committee' completed what was called the final regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both the auxiliary and the professional levels. It also approved the final 'Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics for child and youth care workers. The Ethical Code and the rules of Conduct... all in a form that awaited the Minister's approval and would then be ready for publishing in a government gazette. The Departmental lawyer said at the time that this was all that was needed procedurally and that child and youth care workers on the ministers approval of the documents were positioned to be regulated and so to be registered as professionals.
The second Professional Board for child and youth care workers was inaugurated on the 11th March 2013.after a delay of over one year from the date of the election results.
It met informally after the inauguration to get to know each other and to roughly sketch the the present position in the work already done and what the Board was likely to have yet to do.
There seemed to be some common agreement that the final regulations, the Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics, the Code of Ethics and the Rules of Conduct were best served before the new Board and therefor the present Council for approval and forwarding again to the Minister.
It was also agreed that no time should be permitted to be wasted in the completion of this process.
2013 is still the year of the child and youth care worker.. the movement toward professionalisation and recognition is still a movement of all the child and youth care workers and not just the Board.
Together, 2013 must be made to work as the year of the child and youth care worker in South Africa.
Friday, 22 March 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE. Transitional objects, termination and time
DEAR YOGESHREE
Tammy at six and a good half was to be transferred to another Children's Home in another city
Part of the rites and ritual of disengagement entailed the collection and putting together of memorabilia. You know, taking something of the past with you. So, time was spent going through bits and pieces that made up her life story.... especially photographs. During this exercise, Tammy gave me a school photograph of herself so that I would have a transitional object too! .It was by far the worst photo of her that any lousy school photographer could have produced. In it her face was screwed up in one of her special 'get off my back' expressions asif she was gearing up to tell the nice photographer where exactly to get off, but at the same time to try to comply. It was a photograph of the best of times and the worst of times and that was fair I suppose. I felt sure it was one she chose not to be included in her package anyway. At the time it thrilled me considerably. Tammy had given ME a transitional object and without any prompting.
It was all carefully worked out.I was to transport her to the next town from where the State procedures for the transportation of children was organised.. So Tammy and I traveled 300 kilometers together leaving so early in the morning that she would sleep most of the way and arrive in time for breakfast. I had done this before, so I knew exactly how it worked. When you get there the staff don't give you time to say long goodbyes. They allow a very hasty 'goodbye' and then whip the child into the areas where the accompanying adult is verboten. So I strategically lingered in the car park with Tammy to prepare her for what was about to happen and what she should expect when we put our feet in the doorway.
"So, Tammy, this is it. You and I will not see each other again now."
'Uncle Barrie"
'Yes Tammy"
" I will never forget you"
" And I wont ever forget you. I have your photograph to remind me too"
No tears, no hysterics. "We did a fairly good job here" , I thought. And she was whipped swiftly into the caverns of the Care Centre.
Ten years later Tammy's name was mentioned very casually at a meeting of child care workers.
"We have someone in our Children's Home I think you know, Looking through the file I came across some reports with your name on them."
There was some discussion about whether it would be in her interests or at least not harmful to her re-unification plans if I visited to say hello after ten years. Tammy was now sixteen and a good half years old.
At last I got a phone call to say that they had prepared her to meet with me.
I got ushered into a counseling room. It had in it two chairs on either side of a set of triangular tables.I sat with my back to the door and waited. The Social Worker opened the door behind me holding Tammy by her arm.
" I believe you know one another" she said. and closed the door.
Tammy looked bewildered and scared.I could see that she didn't have the foggiest idea who I was and quite honestly is she wasn't introduces to me as Tammy, I wouldn't have known her either.
All I wanted to do was to get out of there. So I guessed that was how Tammy felt too.She made her way to the other side of the table and there we were facing each other with no recognition and absolutely nothing to say.. "Hi Tammy, I'm Barrie". We shook hands.
I couldn't believe how big she was. Only now, the image of her photograph started to form slowly behind the teenage face.I saw opposite me until the two faces somehow started to fit. and I realised that this was the Tammy I knew. It was that same expression. .. somewhere between telling this nice man where to get off and trying to comply.
I had lost the Tammy photograph long ago and a strange sense of guilt crept in that I could not produce it and say "Here let me show you"
"Were you at that other place?" Tammy filled the pause and I remembered that she was good that.
"Yes"
" I was there also", she said.
The screwed up face of the school photograph now came sharply into focus as the two Tammys merged.
..... and I knew this was a mistake.
Love
Barrie
.
.
Tammy at six and a good half was to be transferred to another Children's Home in another city
Part of the rites and ritual of disengagement entailed the collection and putting together of memorabilia. You know, taking something of the past with you. So, time was spent going through bits and pieces that made up her life story.... especially photographs. During this exercise, Tammy gave me a school photograph of herself so that I would have a transitional object too! .It was by far the worst photo of her that any lousy school photographer could have produced. In it her face was screwed up in one of her special 'get off my back' expressions asif she was gearing up to tell the nice photographer where exactly to get off, but at the same time to try to comply. It was a photograph of the best of times and the worst of times and that was fair I suppose. I felt sure it was one she chose not to be included in her package anyway. At the time it thrilled me considerably. Tammy had given ME a transitional object and without any prompting.
It was all carefully worked out.I was to transport her to the next town from where the State procedures for the transportation of children was organised.. So Tammy and I traveled 300 kilometers together leaving so early in the morning that she would sleep most of the way and arrive in time for breakfast. I had done this before, so I knew exactly how it worked. When you get there the staff don't give you time to say long goodbyes. They allow a very hasty 'goodbye' and then whip the child into the areas where the accompanying adult is verboten. So I strategically lingered in the car park with Tammy to prepare her for what was about to happen and what she should expect when we put our feet in the doorway.
"So, Tammy, this is it. You and I will not see each other again now."
'Uncle Barrie"
'Yes Tammy"
" I will never forget you"
" And I wont ever forget you. I have your photograph to remind me too"
No tears, no hysterics. "We did a fairly good job here" , I thought. And she was whipped swiftly into the caverns of the Care Centre.
Ten years later Tammy's name was mentioned very casually at a meeting of child care workers.
"We have someone in our Children's Home I think you know, Looking through the file I came across some reports with your name on them."
There was some discussion about whether it would be in her interests or at least not harmful to her re-unification plans if I visited to say hello after ten years. Tammy was now sixteen and a good half years old.
At last I got a phone call to say that they had prepared her to meet with me.
I got ushered into a counseling room. It had in it two chairs on either side of a set of triangular tables.I sat with my back to the door and waited. The Social Worker opened the door behind me holding Tammy by her arm.
" I believe you know one another" she said. and closed the door.
Tammy looked bewildered and scared.I could see that she didn't have the foggiest idea who I was and quite honestly is she wasn't introduces to me as Tammy, I wouldn't have known her either.
All I wanted to do was to get out of there. So I guessed that was how Tammy felt too.She made her way to the other side of the table and there we were facing each other with no recognition and absolutely nothing to say.. "Hi Tammy, I'm Barrie". We shook hands.
I couldn't believe how big she was. Only now, the image of her photograph started to form slowly behind the teenage face.I saw opposite me until the two faces somehow started to fit. and I realised that this was the Tammy I knew. It was that same expression. .. somewhere between telling this nice man where to get off and trying to comply.
I had lost the Tammy photograph long ago and a strange sense of guilt crept in that I could not produce it and say "Here let me show you"
"Were you at that other place?" Tammy filled the pause and I remembered that she was good that.
"Yes"
" I was there also", she said.
The screwed up face of the school photograph now came sharply into focus as the two Tammys merged.
..... and I knew this was a mistake.
Love
Barrie
.
.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE Cultural Competence and Gary Weaver
DEAR YOGESHREE
In my last letter I asked the question whether we had images, metaphors or models that will give us windows through which to get a glimpse of the meaning of children's behaviour in Africa. I did this because all the metaphors to do this seem to come from Europe and the most significant image I thought for Africa was the 'cultural frame or house' into which all these images and models need to be put if they are to be relevant to our understanding here. This came from the writing of Leon Fulcher who worked with the Maori peoples in New Zealand. We set a lot of store on the Circle of Courage as a model in this country; a model based on the rearing of children among Native American children. It has a strong cultural basis. But then again we still have to encircle it with our African cultures to make it really work for us.
So what is this 'cultural context' that becomes the spectacles, the lenses through which we have to interpret , what seem to be any model or metaphor hat we may develop or have in out vocabulary of models in Africa.?
Prof Gary Weaver was brought to South Africa as a key-note speaker t one of the NACCW's bi-ennial conferences. (1991)... (I'm not an 'elder' for nothing !) . He wrote that wonderful paper, gave that stunning address, Child and Youth Care Institutions: Melting-pots or Cookie-cutters . This was his metaphor.
I can remember Leslie du Toit saying " We have brought out Gary Weaver before the right time. We are not ready to hear him now., but I think we will be going back to him in a few years time."
Gary stayed with me and my family for about two weeks. I took him around Gauteng, Soweto and the regions. He visited, agencies, gave workshops . It was my privilege to have two weeks of intense waking-hour experience of Gary Weaver.. In that time and over that period, he left me with important conceptual thinking around the cultural context and cultural competence.
Put very simply , Gary brought it to consciousness, that it is not enough to think that we are culturally competent if we know how to greet, shake hands, know patterns of eye contact , know rituals and rites of the culture food and some words of the culture. To be culturally competent you have to grasp how people unpack their thinking processes, how thinking processes unfold and so how problems are solved.
In his 1991 paper on staff working together and coming from different cultures he says," I also want to point out that people think differently. They don't just have different values. They have different ways of thinking and solving problems, and of course one way is no better than another" (p90).
So maybe when we have to take the idea of finding meaning in the behaviour of our young people in care , when we take seriously the cultural frame in which all behaviour occurs, when we try to answer the question, "What is really going on here?" We have to take all that we know makes up the culture and to distill it into a grasp of the way people think.... their thinking processes and the way thinking and so feelings and behaviour unfold.
Gary gave some practical examples of interpreting behaviour in our situations when he said we need to grasp through the understanding of thinking, when conflict is really conflict.or when it is a lively vehicle for problem-solving. We meet and work in situations where we have to know through the understanding of cultural thinking processes whether behaviour is escalating or de-escalating .
It seems that whatever models, metaphors or images we may use to try to understand, "What is really going on here?", we we have to focus on understanding the thinking processes that are determined by culture.
My original intention in writing these two letter to you on cultural context, metaphors, models and images, was to ask the question whether we have a "window" in Africa through which we help us to find meaning in the behaviour of young people and children in our African context.? Perhaps the question now has to be posed somewhat differently. How in our multi-cultural African cultural context do we capture an understanding of our different ways of culturally driven thinking ?
For me, this embraces all we know about culture and peoples and becomes the essential pinnacle of cultural competence.and so meaning making.
Love
Barrie
Weaver.G, Child and Youth Care Institutions: Melting-pots or Cookie-cutters? in Gannon.B(Ed); Old Limitations, New Challenges. NACCW Capetown, 1991, (pp 6-11.)
Weaver. G: Working with a Multi-cultural Staff. in Gannon. B,(Ed), Old Limitations, New Challenges. NACCW. Cape Town. 1991 (pp86-90)
In my last letter I asked the question whether we had images, metaphors or models that will give us windows through which to get a glimpse of the meaning of children's behaviour in Africa. I did this because all the metaphors to do this seem to come from Europe and the most significant image I thought for Africa was the 'cultural frame or house' into which all these images and models need to be put if they are to be relevant to our understanding here. This came from the writing of Leon Fulcher who worked with the Maori peoples in New Zealand. We set a lot of store on the Circle of Courage as a model in this country; a model based on the rearing of children among Native American children. It has a strong cultural basis. But then again we still have to encircle it with our African cultures to make it really work for us.
So what is this 'cultural context' that becomes the spectacles, the lenses through which we have to interpret , what seem to be any model or metaphor hat we may develop or have in out vocabulary of models in Africa.?
Prof Gary Weaver was brought to South Africa as a key-note speaker t one of the NACCW's bi-ennial conferences. (1991)... (I'm not an 'elder' for nothing !) . He wrote that wonderful paper, gave that stunning address, Child and Youth Care Institutions: Melting-pots or Cookie-cutters . This was his metaphor.
I can remember Leslie du Toit saying " We have brought out Gary Weaver before the right time. We are not ready to hear him now., but I think we will be going back to him in a few years time."
Gary stayed with me and my family for about two weeks. I took him around Gauteng, Soweto and the regions. He visited, agencies, gave workshops . It was my privilege to have two weeks of intense waking-hour experience of Gary Weaver.. In that time and over that period, he left me with important conceptual thinking around the cultural context and cultural competence.
Put very simply , Gary brought it to consciousness, that it is not enough to think that we are culturally competent if we know how to greet, shake hands, know patterns of eye contact , know rituals and rites of the culture food and some words of the culture. To be culturally competent you have to grasp how people unpack their thinking processes, how thinking processes unfold and so how problems are solved.
In his 1991 paper on staff working together and coming from different cultures he says," I also want to point out that people think differently. They don't just have different values. They have different ways of thinking and solving problems, and of course one way is no better than another" (p90).
So maybe when we have to take the idea of finding meaning in the behaviour of our young people in care , when we take seriously the cultural frame in which all behaviour occurs, when we try to answer the question, "What is really going on here?" We have to take all that we know makes up the culture and to distill it into a grasp of the way people think.... their thinking processes and the way thinking and so feelings and behaviour unfold.
Gary gave some practical examples of interpreting behaviour in our situations when he said we need to grasp through the understanding of thinking, when conflict is really conflict.or when it is a lively vehicle for problem-solving. We meet and work in situations where we have to know through the understanding of cultural thinking processes whether behaviour is escalating or de-escalating .
It seems that whatever models, metaphors or images we may use to try to understand, "What is really going on here?", we we have to focus on understanding the thinking processes that are determined by culture.
My original intention in writing these two letter to you on cultural context, metaphors, models and images, was to ask the question whether we have a "window" in Africa through which we help us to find meaning in the behaviour of young people and children in our African context.? Perhaps the question now has to be posed somewhat differently. How in our multi-cultural African cultural context do we capture an understanding of our different ways of culturally driven thinking ?
For me, this embraces all we know about culture and peoples and becomes the essential pinnacle of cultural competence.and so meaning making.
Love
Barrie
Weaver.G, Child and Youth Care Institutions: Melting-pots or Cookie-cutters? in Gannon.B(Ed); Old Limitations, New Challenges. NACCW Capetown, 1991, (pp 6-11.)
Weaver. G: Working with a Multi-cultural Staff. in Gannon. B,(Ed), Old Limitations, New Challenges. NACCW. Cape Town. 1991 (pp86-90)
Saturday, 16 March 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE metaphors, models and images towards understanding children's behaviour
DEAR YOGESHREE
I've been thinking a little more about walking the journey with children and young people 'from the inside out' . It struck me that Maria Montessori watched processes of learning happen in the lives of intellectually challenged kids. She describes these processes and found ways to help learning through her observations. The advantage she had was that she saw learning happen in children in slow motion replay mode, this allowed us to recognise those patterns in children at their regular developmental rate.
It got me wondering how we can or do get 'windows' through which we can see what is going on when we encounter behaviour in troubled children and youth. It was always (and still is) a mantra for me , constantly repeated in my head when engaging with or engaged in incidents of events and reactions of young people in care.
"What is really going on here?"
"What is really going on here?".
What is really happening at some levels above and below the apparent? Thom Garfat's question is "What is the child getting out of this?" Whatever which way we are searching for the' beyond the surface' meaning of the child's behaviour.
We all know of Johari's Window.An image for me was a game of chess played at three levels... but there are surely more. At the top level of play the game moves can be seen. It is what is clearly observable. The second level of play is partly or even mostly obscured. You can get a glimpse of this game ... it's moves and it's impact on the game above it. What is clear is that the two games influence each other. The third game is at the deepest level. It is not really allowed to be directly observed. Each move, each game has a direct influence on the levels of play, especially on the level above it. If you are an astute observer an have an ability to see patterns in the behavioural play, you can begin to work out the rules, and work out "what is really going on here". It may sound like goobledy gooch, but it was a model that worked for me. ... What you are allowed to see.... what you might see..... and what is hidden.... like onion rings.
I heard Merle Alsopp use a different metaphor. She spoke of a stage on which the action takes place. The play unfolds in the life-space in the front of the stage. Veil-like curtains seperate each of the levels of behavioural influence deeper and deeper , one behind the otheron the stage. If you candraw back the curtains you can make the conections among each of the levels of the play of life and the levels of influence _ some of which are societal.
The place of 'culture in these metaphoric images of layers , is the concern of Leon Fulcher (Fulcher 2001). He takes up a metaphor used by Bronfenbrenner (1979). it, to "articulate his ecology of human development."
Bronfebrenner's metaphor is that of a child's toy of Russian nestling dolls. It is a lovely toy. When you open the first , there is a second nestling inside it. When you open that there is a third, a fourth .... in my set there are altogether six. The last one is tiny and solid.
To get Bronfenbrenner's metaphor most accurately articlated, I guess its useful to quote from Leon Fulcher's article (2001) directly:
"That metaphor used a Russian child's toy to nest a microsystem (the immediate setting where a child is, here and mow), within a mesosytem ( relationships with others that affect what is happening here and now with this child). These systems of influence close to each child are in turn nestes within an exosystem ( organisational and institutional structures that administer educational, social and health services) and a macrosystem (social and economic policy environments that sustains prevailing care ideals and maintains public order)"
Fulcher says we must as child care workers put the doll into a doll's house. In his metaphor, the doll's house is the cultural context. This he says is the real home in which meaning can be be given to events between the child and youth care worker and the children living there. He urges us in this important statement
'Child and youth care workers seeking to pursue cultural safety in their practice are encouraged to think about how each encounter is conceptually framed by a cultural context"
To be a professional , we have to learn how to know our cultural frame and to recognise our blindspots in our recognition of the cultural frame of others.
Johari's Window in this model will be completely framed by the cultural context. My chees game will be played in a glass cultural box. Mer Alsopp's stage is framed in the cultural context and the doll is in a cultural doll's house.
To understand the metaphors and to especially learn how to find the meaning of child and youth care incidents during real life encounters becomes what Fulcher calls " a huge undertaking"
Blessings
Barrie
Bornfenbrenner, U. 1979. The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fulcher. L.C. 1990. Acnowledging Culture in Child and Youth Care Practice, 17, (321-338).
Fulcher, L.C.2001. Cultural Safety: Lessons from Maori Wisdom in Reclaiming Youth at Risk 10:3 Fall. (153-157).
I've been thinking a little more about walking the journey with children and young people 'from the inside out' . It struck me that Maria Montessori watched processes of learning happen in the lives of intellectually challenged kids. She describes these processes and found ways to help learning through her observations. The advantage she had was that she saw learning happen in children in slow motion replay mode, this allowed us to recognise those patterns in children at their regular developmental rate.
It got me wondering how we can or do get 'windows' through which we can see what is going on when we encounter behaviour in troubled children and youth. It was always (and still is) a mantra for me , constantly repeated in my head when engaging with or engaged in incidents of events and reactions of young people in care.
"What is really going on here?"
"What is really going on here?".
What is really happening at some levels above and below the apparent? Thom Garfat's question is "What is the child getting out of this?" Whatever which way we are searching for the' beyond the surface' meaning of the child's behaviour.
We all know of Johari's Window.An image for me was a game of chess played at three levels... but there are surely more. At the top level of play the game moves can be seen. It is what is clearly observable. The second level of play is partly or even mostly obscured. You can get a glimpse of this game ... it's moves and it's impact on the game above it. What is clear is that the two games influence each other. The third game is at the deepest level. It is not really allowed to be directly observed. Each move, each game has a direct influence on the levels of play, especially on the level above it. If you are an astute observer an have an ability to see patterns in the behavioural play, you can begin to work out the rules, and work out "what is really going on here". It may sound like goobledy gooch, but it was a model that worked for me. ... What you are allowed to see.... what you might see..... and what is hidden.... like onion rings.
I heard Merle Alsopp use a different metaphor. She spoke of a stage on which the action takes place. The play unfolds in the life-space in the front of the stage. Veil-like curtains seperate each of the levels of behavioural influence deeper and deeper , one behind the otheron the stage. If you candraw back the curtains you can make the conections among each of the levels of the play of life and the levels of influence _ some of which are societal.
The place of 'culture in these metaphoric images of layers , is the concern of Leon Fulcher (Fulcher 2001). He takes up a metaphor used by Bronfenbrenner (1979). it, to "articulate his ecology of human development."
Bronfebrenner's metaphor is that of a child's toy of Russian nestling dolls. It is a lovely toy. When you open the first , there is a second nestling inside it. When you open that there is a third, a fourth .... in my set there are altogether six. The last one is tiny and solid.
To get Bronfenbrenner's metaphor most accurately articlated, I guess its useful to quote from Leon Fulcher's article (2001) directly:
"That metaphor used a Russian child's toy to nest a microsystem (the immediate setting where a child is, here and mow), within a mesosytem ( relationships with others that affect what is happening here and now with this child). These systems of influence close to each child are in turn nestes within an exosystem ( organisational and institutional structures that administer educational, social and health services) and a macrosystem (social and economic policy environments that sustains prevailing care ideals and maintains public order)"
Fulcher says we must as child care workers put the doll into a doll's house. In his metaphor, the doll's house is the cultural context. This he says is the real home in which meaning can be be given to events between the child and youth care worker and the children living there. He urges us in this important statement
'Child and youth care workers seeking to pursue cultural safety in their practice are encouraged to think about how each encounter is conceptually framed by a cultural context"
To be a professional , we have to learn how to know our cultural frame and to recognise our blindspots in our recognition of the cultural frame of others.
Johari's Window in this model will be completely framed by the cultural context. My chees game will be played in a glass cultural box. Mer Alsopp's stage is framed in the cultural context and the doll is in a cultural doll's house.
To understand the metaphors and to especially learn how to find the meaning of child and youth care incidents during real life encounters becomes what Fulcher calls " a huge undertaking"
Blessings
Barrie
Bornfenbrenner, U. 1979. The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fulcher. L.C. 1990. Acnowledging Culture in Child and Youth Care Practice, 17, (321-338).
Fulcher, L.C.2001. Cultural Safety: Lessons from Maori Wisdom in Reclaiming Youth at Risk 10:3 Fall. (153-157).
Monday, 4 March 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE Tammy acts out her messages
DEAR YOGESHREE
This letter has to be read as a part of the previous Tammy tales I have told you in the past few letters....poignant moments when she spoke some special truth about her life situation.
It was very dramatic, I remember it well. It was a Sunday evening.
Tammy had been taken out for the weekend by Mom and returned at the designated time that Sunday evening. As Mom released her hand to leave the screaming started. Tammy clutched at the wall pushing herself against it and clawing at the wall with her finger nails. Then the expected escalation in vehemence and volume started. Mom stood, silent and quite unmoved. I had come to recognise this in Mom, it was a feature which I called 'emotionally flat'.When we did see some kind of show of feeling I always thought that it was a role-play, not real, designed to heighten her message and not a response to what was going on in her world.
I said" It would be better if you left now and leave me to handle this". Mom beat a hasty retreat.
All I could really do was to follow this screaming,clawing child around the room. She pushed herself slowly to the left raising her arms high, outstretching her fingers like a cat with its claws out until she had worked her way around the wall from on corner to the next, moving across the length of two long dining-room walls. I followed behind, talking, talking talking. The idea was to at very least give her a re-assuring tone because she surely couldn't make sense of my words.
My first thought was that this had to do with separation, that her return after the weekend with Mom was in itself the trauma. But the journey around the boundary walls of the dining-room became a journey of discovery.I haven't yet been able to work it all out, but as the screaming, her loud yells of 'No", the wailing and the intensity of the outburst rose and fell, I discovered that we were having a type of conversation. What happened over the weekend we will never know, but it started to dawn..... this was a pattern,. Tonight's most dramatic outburst was pure desperation. It was asif Tammy was saying to me. " Can't you guys work it out? Are you all that stupid that you can't get it? It's like you are all part of the problem and you don't seem to get it. So, maybe you will get it now!!"
"Do you never hear anything? I tell you that the staff here have their own agendas and that they don't contact with me in my human condition. I tell you that there is no human being in my life who gives me a connection I associate with ownership. I try to lay claim to you Mr Lodge, you you don't lay claim to me. You keep on with this thing that my mother must fill the things central to my life and only now you see that she can't return any warmth.."
" I can't tell you what happened this weekend and I probably never will, but surely tonight I've screamed it at you like I've never done before.
"I don't want to be here, my needs are not met here and I don't want to be out there. My needs arn't met there either. My being and my longings are trapped."
That Sunday night a neighbour heard Tammy's powerful screaming and called the police. She said that the staff must be abusing a child in the Home.
This letter has to be read as a part of the previous Tammy tales I have told you in the past few letters....poignant moments when she spoke some special truth about her life situation.
It was very dramatic, I remember it well. It was a Sunday evening.
Tammy had been taken out for the weekend by Mom and returned at the designated time that Sunday evening. As Mom released her hand to leave the screaming started. Tammy clutched at the wall pushing herself against it and clawing at the wall with her finger nails. Then the expected escalation in vehemence and volume started. Mom stood, silent and quite unmoved. I had come to recognise this in Mom, it was a feature which I called 'emotionally flat'.When we did see some kind of show of feeling I always thought that it was a role-play, not real, designed to heighten her message and not a response to what was going on in her world.
I said" It would be better if you left now and leave me to handle this". Mom beat a hasty retreat.
All I could really do was to follow this screaming,clawing child around the room. She pushed herself slowly to the left raising her arms high, outstretching her fingers like a cat with its claws out until she had worked her way around the wall from on corner to the next, moving across the length of two long dining-room walls. I followed behind, talking, talking talking. The idea was to at very least give her a re-assuring tone because she surely couldn't make sense of my words.
My first thought was that this had to do with separation, that her return after the weekend with Mom was in itself the trauma. But the journey around the boundary walls of the dining-room became a journey of discovery.I haven't yet been able to work it all out, but as the screaming, her loud yells of 'No", the wailing and the intensity of the outburst rose and fell, I discovered that we were having a type of conversation. What happened over the weekend we will never know, but it started to dawn..... this was a pattern,. Tonight's most dramatic outburst was pure desperation. It was asif Tammy was saying to me. " Can't you guys work it out? Are you all that stupid that you can't get it? It's like you are all part of the problem and you don't seem to get it. So, maybe you will get it now!!"
"Do you never hear anything? I tell you that the staff here have their own agendas and that they don't contact with me in my human condition. I tell you that there is no human being in my life who gives me a connection I associate with ownership. I try to lay claim to you Mr Lodge, you you don't lay claim to me. You keep on with this thing that my mother must fill the things central to my life and only now you see that she can't return any warmth.."
" I can't tell you what happened this weekend and I probably never will, but surely tonight I've screamed it at you like I've never done before.
"I don't want to be here, my needs are not met here and I don't want to be out there. My needs arn't met there either. My being and my longings are trapped."
That Sunday night a neighbour heard Tammy's powerful screaming and called the police. She said that the staff must be abusing a child in the Home.
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