THE ROLLER COASTER PROFESSION.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

There is again concern on social media that child and youth care workers are leaving the profession. This time,  having studied social work whilst employed, or are currently doing so, or are moving to education, or are simply leaving. Reduced numbers    can't be filled with the through flow of graduates or child and youth care workers with a Diplomas.This leaves vacant posts, or else, a compulsion for child and youth care workers at the auxiliary level to perform some of the more advanced tasks in the scopes of practice.

There was a book shown on Facebook last week called Social Work The Rise and Fall of a Profession. It's context is the UK, but I thought the title captured something of the trends in the child and youth care profession in South Africa. The cover of the book shows a roller coaster ...the upward hikes and the scary drops. In previous blogs, this analogy proved useful....the rises and the falls for us as child and youth care workers in South Africa has spanned decades.

The first Professional Board for Child and Youth Care was inaugurated in 1998 after years of being statutorily in the Council for Social Service Professions Act. The first five years were spent drafting regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at the Auxiliary and the Professional levels. The scopes of practice became a hurdle. The question was always, how does child and youth care practice differ from other helping professions and does it have enough original content to make it a separate profession? Was child and youth care yet a profession or an emerging profession, or an occupation that needed to first be an extension of the arm of other "established" social service professions. It was an ongoing debate.

Academics saw child and youth care as belonging in their various academic departments....Social Work, Psychology, Mental Health Care. All this resulted in there being no elected Professional Board for Child and Youth Care for a full 5 year term. No warm bodies.....No Board. The Department of Social Development came to the rescue and funded an "Interim Committee/Board" which functioned to continue the work in the interregnum.  

The 18th draft of the proposed regulations was signed into law in October 2013.
( See: Lodge. B. 2015 Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, Professionalisation of Child and Youth Care Work in South Africa Vol 28, No4, p5.)

It was in that period that Social Work was declared a scarce skill     (and a critical skill). Like the UK, it was experiencing a "down". Poor salaries resulted in numbers of social workers drifting away....leaving the profession for industry or the UK. Study bursaries were made available to offset the dwindling numbers. It worked. Some say that it worked too well as there was a time when we had unemployed auxiliary and graduate Social Workers. I am saying this because bursaries for university study were not available for child and youth care workers at that time and the University of South Africa shut down it's child and youth care degree. 

A very successful model for community-based care called Isibindi was designed and rolled out nationally by the National Association of Child  Care Workers ( NACCW). This provided employment of large numbers of child and youth care workers and learners at the auxiliary level. In 2013, the then Minister of Social Development undertook to adopt Isibindi as a national  model. The Department financed the training of 10,000 child and youth care learners.The learners were paid a stipend and required to register with the South African Council for Social Service Professionals.The agreement was that for 5 years the NACCW would be the training service provider and employ the mentors to ensure the continuity and standards of the model. . In the five year period social media hosted expressions of disappointment by child and youth care workers in comments that they struggled to find appointments into the more senior posts.

The contract ended in March of 2018.

Social media exploded. Some Provincial Departments announced a "dry season"....no funds...no pay.  Delayed payments of stipends, suspended training. Some projects closed. Qualified child and youth care workers at the auxiliary level were still paid learner stipends. Monies in the community based projects bore no comparison with child and youth care workers in residential facilities.

Here began the drift, reminiscent of the social work crisis of 2012/2013.

In 2017, National strike action was taken. It lasted 6 weeks The trade union had a 13 point list of demands. They included better and equal salaries for all social service practitioners, the removal of the ceiling placed on the salaries of child and youth care workers at levels 4,5 and 6 on the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD). It was agreed that these demands would be met on the 31st October 2017. The date came and went and were not implemented. Apparently changes to the OSD have to be made at a very high level in the National structure and can or do take a very long time to fix. 

This week on social media, it seems that child and youth care workers may be running out of patience. It was said ...they can't wait.

This brings us to this week's social media posts.

The move of child and youth care workers out of the profession is a matter of concern. In one province it was said ... Yesterday only 38 child and youth care workers were transferred to Social work.
More are doing social work studies at the auxiliary level.
" Our profession is dying a slow and painful death". Social media comment speaks of confused and mixed emotions. Even now, one child and youth care workers in one of the provinces said that in their project they had not been paid since October of last year. (Sometimes this can be a problem within the holding agency)

There is evidence of a lift. Training and compulsory training is emerging. An Isibindi styled model is underway. There is talk of more universities interested in offering a professional degree in child and youth care work. Some provinces, it was said, will or have made increases in salaries  ( if little)

AND the resilience and loyalty of child and youth care workers to serve the best interests of the nation's children persists as a beacon of inspirational light. Child and youth care workers are encouraging each other not to become despondent, but to hang in. Feels as if they are anticipating another haul upward on the roller coaster.

STAFF BURNOUT....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This week the blog is (somewhat) longer than usual. 

Social media post: "I burnt out - only now referred to a psychologist" The organisation blamed for the lack of support and caring, delaying intervention until it was too late and an implied apparent unenthusiastic referral to external professional support. The post raised comment. "Does the organisation pay for your medical aid?" "Were you given proper supervision? " There was perhaps a masked hint that the workplace could be "toxic" ( another word being bandied about on social media now).

All relevant. All important.

What then, is burnout? .....Burnout in the helping professions has also been called Compassion Fatigue. With constant stress you have a feeling of helplessness and are completely exhausted. Problems seem insurmountable. Detachment threatens your job and your relationships. It is a state of physical and emotional exhaustion. (adapted from www.helpguide.com).

Some serious questions surface. Who cares for the caregiver? Who cares for the carer of the caregivers?

I know burnout......been there twice. Each was a different experience. 

The first time I had no idea that I was burnt out. At 5.00 one morning I got out of bed to go wake the boys. But I sank to my knees next to the bed. There came from within me.....from the very pit of my stomach a loud wail, a scream. I didn't initiate it. I had no control of it. It just welled up frightening me. I called it a "primal scream". Crying all the way up to the boys dorm. I experienced an increase in my heart rate. I felt trapped - no escape.

Looking back, the actual workplace situation was something I should never have allowed for myself. No breaks, no leave, no weekend off early 'til late. Neglect of family, relationships, doing two jobs at once, on constant call and every day a new huge child related human drama to be faced. Some would say it's the calling. I now call my burnout my foolish self uncaring.

It's the old story. On the aeroplane you are told......fix your own oxygen mask before helping others.

I referred myself to a doctor. I think that he experienced physical state. My psychological state was a mystery to him. He didn't recognise compassion fatigue. only anxiety. So, he prescribed Ativan. Ativan is used for anxiety and some neurological brain irregularities. I was not anxious I was physically and emotionally worn out, now with nothing more left to give. The Ativan got flushed down the toilet. It has a reputation of becoming addictive.

I insisted on three days leave in in my caravan in the Hogsback mountains with my family

It was as I had thought. Came back to chaos. The children had pulled every wire in the building to set off the fire alarm. It was to create an emergency dramatic enough to get me back. There was a fear that I would never return. Something very wrong. Organisationally, children can't be that dependent on one person. For some child and youth care workers it may feel good to be so needed, but its part of the toxic workplace.

There was a psychologist, the only psychologist in the city at that time. He sat on the management board. He was the one to see the signs ( after the event). He volunteered his time then to give me 6 months weekly, what he called, supervision. It was really psycho therapy. A life saver, a job saver. The problem was I had allowed myself to get sucked into a toxic workplace of my own making.

There was a child and youth care worker heading toward burnout. She recognised the symptoms,. Shut herself in her room one day. We asked why did you not pick up the phone we have a policy to organise a retreat, support and relief. She said, "This is a place of caring. Why should I have to tell you I need care? You should have noticed". I'll never forget that. She was right, but only partly right...The oxygen mask story again. It really should not be like this, but if you  need care you sometimes have to take the first step

This makes it important to recognise the signs of burnout.

My second burnout was somewhat different. I found myself focusing on small things. To protect myself from feeling overwhelmed and not coping. I focused on the easy to handle and deliberately avoided the major pressing issues. Any form of confrontation for example. A brooding, looming disaster. Like, I'm a very tolerant person but the toilet roll must not be in its holder the wrong way round. A child smoking becomes an issue when he is facing a major relationship breakdown not addressed. Responsibility was reversed. "I am to blame" The children's behaviour became my fault, my inadequacy. In a toxic workplace that is an organisational norm and heavily underscores faulty child and youth care thinking, especially by management. 
There were emotional symptoms. I lived close to tears all the time Without actually crying tears. The inside of me was crying. Not a primal scream this time, a primal weeping. Physically the experience of fatigue was overwhelming. It was a huge effort to go to work, to respond to call - outs, to focus.

Then came the heartbeat thing. This time coupled with nausea. The doctor ruled out a heart attack. Prescribed a tonic.

Again, a Psychologist board member came to the rescue. Six months weekly therapy.There is a lesson here. It's not shameful to be in therapy if you are in the helping professions.

What then is the treatment.?

The most obvious answer to this is that prevention is better than cure. It really is the facility, organisation or programme's responsibility to provide policy, procedures, services which prevent burnout. Also to provide immediate intervention if it should occur. 

There some unnegotiables. the organisational imperatives for the avoidance of staff burnout.

Regular supervision.....and by this I don't mean hierarchical "snoopervision".  I mean personal "inter-vision" "I did this. "I felt this". I'm feeling".........proper supportive workplace supervision with a child and youth care worker. Not with someone from another profession, and not the manager. Not with someone who will say, pull yourself together. Go get vitamin B12 or a tonic.

Then comes case-load. When I had my first burnout I had a full junior and senior dormitory of boys in my direct care. and then the young people who had been placed in boarding schools but were attached to the facility. 8 - 12 is recommended with support.

Long working hours. This idea of 24/7 is obsolete and illegal. The practice of long shifts even if kept within the weekly limits of working hours as set out in the Conditions of Service Act. The 12 hour shift has risk of negative effects on staff performance on that day, and so burnout risks.

The boss. Has to be alert and caring as well as really understanding of the work of child and youth care. Studies, serious research frequently quoted also in the social media has shown that a poor boss can make employees sick. Most employees leave, not because of the work but because of the boss. The boss doesn't have to be a single person. Quite often the boss is an external system.

A team approach. Child and youth care workers can't do this on their own. It's a team thing. A child and youth care worker can and should have focus children or a focus group. What we call the primary worker, but there has to be a team. A team of like minds, real support, caring and skills at different levels. Left to be responsible and accountable on your own contributes to burnout.

Self care is essential in the prevention of burnout....Remember the oxygen mask story. The seven R approach is useful: 
RECOGNISE the warning signs
REVERSE THE DAMAGE by seeking support
RESILIENCE take care of your physical and emotional health
RECREATE have other interests and use time to REFLECT, RECOVER and RELAX.

This implies regular leave.  It must be allowed and taken No such thing as "pay out in lieu" or a few days here and there.

Burnout should not be allowed to happen. The question of treatment of it, is a difficult one. It HAS to be HOLISTIC. No single pill. No three days off story.Treatment has to address the physical, social, family, emotional, cognitive (an individual staff development plan), spiritual and life-stage task domains. It does mean that you may have to get help from a psychologist, compulsory leave which should be sick, or special leave, a plan for personal development, the 7 R's , and an overhaul of the organisation's practices. A support group is essential. Be prepared to have your friends support. But also, child and youth care workers need to gather supportively around a colleague in the recovery period. Social contact is essential to the recovery of burnout.
Management must be be particularly caring and supportive of the needs of child and youth care workers and to provide organisational safegaurds against compassion fatigue occurring or re- occurring.

How wonderful it would be if questions about burnout and its treatment did not have to be asked.

Child and youth care burnout should never happen

Perhaps more accurately, child and youth care burnout should never be allowed to happen. 

SOCIAL MEDIA AND ETHICS.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

There appears to be a gap in our child and youth care Codes of Conduct, Code of Ethics, Guide for the policies of the course of Ethical Conduct for Social Service Professions. None of these refer to social media ethics specifically. There is obviously a flow over from what is contained in the Regulations attached to the South African Council for Social Services Act . It's just that it would be appropriate in this digital age for social media to get specific mention. All the regulations on ethical conduct for Social Service Professionals  regulate the Acts or Omissions Deemed to be Unprofessional or Improper include a section which has to do with behaviour which, with due regard to the prestige, status and dignity of the profession, is detrimental to his/her position as a social service professional. This then applies to child and youth care workers.

It is unethical for us to publicly criticise other Social Service Professions or professionals. Yet social media appears to be regarded as immune. It's used in the bigger context as freedom of speech.  

I remember being given an example of unethical speech freedom. Apart from hate speech. In a crowded cinema it is illegal to yell "Fire!, Fire!" when there is no fire. Unnecessary panic and anxiety and fear is aroused. A mass exodus through narrow exits put people of risk of harm. So it is in our profession. Yet, so often we see the cry of "Fire" when there is a smouldering in a corner of the profession which can be contained.  The risk....   a mass exodus. There is clearly a difference between advocating for the profession as a whole on social media and using it to drag contextually specific issues into the digital arena.

We all actually know, what we say and do and how we are perceived in the wider community has ethical implications for our profession. Once a professional, always a professional. In social media this appears to be frequently disregarded. What if our clients, children and young people search our time-line on facebook. And it IS done! I'm told that employers check out time lines as background checking of the references of work applicants. If they do it, then our young people in care can do just that....and will. What will they find there? 

If some of the posts I sometimes read and see is any measure, - then whoooo!

I am NOT GENERALISING. In some posts only. Private life is exposed. Stuff we would never share with our clients. Sexual behaviours, relationships, allegations, family issues Much of what, as professionals we keep to ourselves and to our close friends perhaps our family. But, there it is, for all to see and read. Believe me, I'm not writing this as a prude, but as a professional. At a personal level there is much which is beautiful, witty, insightful, but my concern is how will our posts be interpreted by the children and young people in our care if it appears on our timeline? Provocative poses, Explicit wording, expansive cleavage, bulging crotches.???

There is another social media trend. It's the open often vilifying criticism of the workplace. In terms of our ethical behaviour toward the employer, there is reference to our not criticising the workplace in the public media....interpreted as newspapers and TV. Social Service Professional ethics as well as workplace codes of conduct simply disallow this. There was a post which said there is a workplace manager who made it policy that if he/she makes a friend request on Face Book, staff members are requires to accept. Not at all sure of the ethics of such a policy !!!! It does though, speak volumes of employer anxiety that internal workplace or personal criticism will be exposed on social media.   Social media seems to be interpreted as "Chatting to friends", which it may be. But social media can be a public medium  depending on how it is used or managed.  So, some texts are a diatribe of organisational criticism. I was once told that anything in the digital arena is in the public domain It can be used. It can go viral'. It can be a yell of "Fire! Fire" in the crowded cinema. There ARE other forums, other platforms, for this.

The use of a question on social media allure other professionals to come out and uncover within organisation/facility criticisms. The questioner is protected, when others, I think, in good faith, may put themselves at risk.

None of this means that we, as child and youth care workers are closed off, that our freedom of speech is stifled, The use of administrated groups, closed groups, and privacy settings can allow us protection as professionals. I was given lots of advice when I went onto use social media. Much of which I have ignored, I'm afraid to say. Like, use LINKIN for professional contact. Have a family group for family matters. But I like facebook. It is interactional, stimulating, and is a platform for us to keep informed, to debate and to make plans. JUST..ethically,....  be guarded. Be safeguarded. It's the public nature of social media that place us at most risk of  possible professional ethical complaint.   

CHRISTMAS IN CARE.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Community in the main, it seems, have a loaded, idealistic sentimental idea of  Christmas with children and young people in care .A somewhat soppy image of a heart warming, soul satisfying moment of goodwill and sharing with less fortunate children. 

It could be so, but child and youth care workers sometimes experience Christmas from a somewhat different reality. There are good times and bad times. It's not all tinsel and glitter.

Non-governmental facilities,....the "Children's Homes" more especially, are coupled in the community mind with poor, orphans, abandoned, neglected, abused little children. In general, as we in child and youth care all know, is not entirely necessarily the reality. Anyway, the idea of the "poor little children" coloured by media sentiment at Christmas, triggers a wave of well intentioned giving to these "less fortunate". Some parents want to foster in their own children a mindset of giving. They help their children clear out the cupboards of old, outgrown toys and clothing and deliver them to the Children's Home,  So, here we go. ...A constant door knocking. Arms full of cast-off toys, sweets, clothes, expired date luxury food-stuff. Cast-off cupboard cleared goods for cast-off children. Shame ! I called them the "do gooders"
It is all well intentioned, but on the receiving end of all this, the messages can, for the children, build, if not re-enforce pervasive mind-sets, a world view, which may NOT in the longer term be that healthy into adulthood. 

We even have jargon for some of these world views. "learnt dependence", "second hand citizenship", "P.L.O.M. (poor little old me!".  In more extensive wording, "the world did this to me. The world put me here, SO the world owes me. It's now my RIGHT to be provided for".

.....a child and young person expectation of benefaction.  This is an experience vastly different from child and youth care goals of reclaiming restoratively the lives of children and young people through the provision of healthy life experiences in belonging, mastery, independence and generosity as say, in the Circle of Courage model. There is a disconnection in all of this Christmas thing with our concepts of ecological care. We are sometimes ourselves as child and youth care workers, and as facilities guilty of creating an experience of extravagance at Christmas that approximates, if not mirrors a middle class cultural lifestyle incongruent with the realities following the child's disengagement from the facility. 

My worst experience ever of all of this was a seasonal  extravaganza staged by the "Motorbike Boys" in Johannesburg and labelled "The Toy Run". It was me. I agreed to host it !! About 250 to 300 motorbikes with pillion  riders arrived and parked on the soccer fields with two mountains of toys. One mountain for boys. One mountain for girls. Mostly wrapped, they ranged from bicycles to teddy bears. I had invited other NGO Children's Homes. Then the big hand-out started and so did the ruction. Accusations abounded. Children had joined the queue more than once. They just went round and round it was said . Boys joined the girls queue and visa versa, held out their hands for toys as they had sisters, cousins family and others. The motorbike boys said that this was not the intention. But of course they did. The children saw these huge piles of toys and it is part of our culture that we share as much as we can with family and others. It is part of our community spirit. BAD VIBES !!! And I bore the brunt of it. "Never again,"they said,"Not here".

Christmas impacts further on the end of year realities as children and young people will in fact be "released" into their own ecologies. .....Boy aged 18  comes into my office, "I think I'll just "park off here" for longer". Girl. "My little brother can go home but, I'm staying. I have and will have a much better life here".

All this Christmas stuff happens for the most part, well before the actual Christmas day. The school holidays start well before and the system of "holiday placements "click in. Some with hosts, some with mentors, some with significant others, friends and some with family...parental homes. Family gatherings in many of these family situations is often not that congenial. Alcohol consumption can frequently be considerable. Old family tensions and ill feeling can be re-awakened with disastrous effects for the children. Statistics show that suicide, suicide threats and attempts escalate.  As does violence. Frequently, children and young people experience, in this so called season of "good will'', a re-enactment of the very  situations which brought them into the system in the first place. Over Christmas especially, we had what I called, "the many happy returns" These included the necessity of "call outs", Calls to collect children . Calls by children, Calls by community......even on Christmas Day.

Christmas day, then, left child and youth care workers on duty, with the unplaced, unplaceable, returned, disconnected children These are all too often the most troubled youngsters with the most troubling behaviours

Shift systems determine who is "On" and who"Off" on Christmas day. It means that some child and youth care workers are separated  from their own children and families on the day of Christmas ( or Christmas Eve) 

It really takes a very special kind of person. A very special kind of dedication and commitment in the working life of a child and youth care worker to live through a working Christmas day. It's a sacrifice. It's a  applaudable service. It is seldom recognised in the same way are are police, the fire department, paramedics, nurses and doctors.

Child and youth care workers are unsung HEROES. 
               

INDIGENOUS PRACTICE.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

There's a sudden recent spurt of comment, question ,articles and discussion on the issue of indigenous child and youth care in South Africa. Or should I say,....lack of it? The form of response varies from academic treatise to opinion. Some of the child and youth care worker's voices for indigenous practice sound somewhat like calls in the wilderness.

It's not at all new...but an interesting renewal of the call to move away from the dominant Euro-centric, North American  theories and practice. And it is so. Our South African practice is Euro- technocratic rather than culturally African.

Blame gets bandied about. Blame the early missionaries. Blame colonialism.  Blame the churches. Blame academics. Blame the continuous importing  of  overseas key-note speakers to our conferences. Blame our Westminster form of parliament. There can be no doubt that the scarcity....No!.. lack of South African literature and research exacerbates our European, Canadian and North American practice. And it doesn't always work. This IS Africa. We ARE African..and so are the children and young persons in our system.

It all sounds as if we are afraid to apply, in practice, what we know.  Are we trapped in organisational cultures that want to look good in a child and youth care world for fear of ridicule or being labelled as unscientific and merely superstitious? No-one is sying that proven theory is  worthless in Africa. There is just a call to apply it in the unique ways of Africa. 

Our experience may provide a candle-flame glimpse of our distance or proximity to real, indigenous African child and youth care work here.

I say this often.  I always thought that residential care in child and youth care facilities ( Centres, or Treatment Centres ) , the methods approach, and practice was the sort of Grand Prix of child and youth care work.  BUT, when experiencing community based care first hand, my opinion changed. I now think that residential facilities can learn from community based child and youth care.  In the Isibindi project in Bethanie village in the North West Province, when the community or a family experienced a problem, especially with its young people, they called the police. The police were really good. They sat with the family or neighbours and tried to get everyone reconciled.They used a restorative justice approach. If that didn't work, they assisted to arrange a restorative justice meeting with and at, the tribal authority, I'm told in Setwana it is called rerabolola kgetse. If the chief or the queen was not available, elders in the Tribal Committee would facilitate restorative discussion. The basis of this is "It takes a village to raise a child" within the African cultural roots of u'buntu. Some say u'buntu is dead. But I experienced it in Bethanie.

Strange that we don't see it happening in the residential facilities that much.

In 1995, when the transformation of the South African Child and Youth Care system policy was published 17 principles of practice were listed. I was told that the then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, added that last 17th.....African Renaissance. It was his thrust - we had to ride above the dominant culture and practice who we were.......African in heart mind and soul. So, in the Cabinet Enquiry of 1995/6  child and youth care Centres practice was measured also against African Renaissance. In general, there were somewhat weak, superficial responses. Food, celebration of heritage day, consent to circumcision if requested....and that was problematic for some.....Nothing central. Nothing spiritual.

Again, I go back to this frequently,  ..."Thom Garfat's " an intervention is only as effective as it is experienced to be effective." When Prof Norman Powell, a black American, said, " Young people learn to play the system", this resonated with me. In the gap between what we actually do in the Euro-centric system and the African reality, young people "play the game". It pays.

We constantly engage within ourselves and with young people in the search for meaning. What do we, and young people believe are the "roots" ....the CAUSE of their NOW situation? Probing around,  through engagement and trust building, we can sometimes pierce the game playing. Allowed in, for a moment, "I am being used by the ancestors as a message to my parents. Through what has  happened to me, they were meant to realise, that the ancestors are not happy." Rites and rituals either not done, or not properly performed. Some slaughter not done. Names not properly chosen. Catching these little moments of African meaning were much easier in the community based setting. 

Divination it was believed would confirm much of this
.
At the tribal place, the rerabolola kgetse, tribal elders and community could well also perhaps set out reconciliatory acts or rites to make good. 

I did say that this would be no more than an experiential candle flame glimpse to help us see if we are distanced from or approaching indigenous child and youth care in the African context.

Are we ready in our facilities to engage with white chickens, circles of elders, grave sites, beads, cords, herbs and goats sheep and divination. Maybe we are and do, but the cries for indigenisation suggest that we have a journey still to go.

It looks as if we will not get it right until we think Africa, problem solve Africa, Find African meaning. Break the African silence, Act Africa. Be proudly African.


  


  

SEXUAL ACTS CHILD ON CHILD........CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

The theme for this week's blog arose from a query on Social Media calling for names suitable to use when referring to children involved in sexual "abuse , child on child. Names that are not labeling, stigmatising or harmful. This is not an attempt to answer that question. It is to talk child on child sexual activity from a child and youth care perspective.

The website blog called "Defending Innocence" quotes statistics from "Darkness into Light", Finkelfor, Stallok, Broman, Fields et al. They say more than half (55%) of 501 adults interviewed said that they had sexual experiences before the age of 15 years. One third of all penetrative sexual incidents in the USA are between children under the age of 18 with a peak at ages 12-14. They do admit to a caution...an orange light . They say that "hysterical warnings"by parents, caregivers,teachers and guardians against "no go" experiences can lead some children to misinterpreting "hands off", "no sexual objective in mind" experiences as intentional violation and so .....allegations. 

Only yesterday UNICEF put out on Facebook that over 50% of all reported cases of sexual abuse in South Africa involve children. The statistics for child on child incidents was not given.

Other sources confirm what I think child and youth care workers know. Over 50% of so called "offenders" have themselves been sexually violated. There is a very high incidence of "victims"becoming "offenders". The more vulnerable children being the intellectually challenged, those with low self esteem, the disconnected, the previously hurt and those willing to please.

Many messages for child and youth care workers in all of this..... The very nature of many children in our residential facilities fit the profile of both the vulnerable child and the initiator. There were certainly some children in the group residential care facilities I directed who exuded a kind of victim attraction. I called it "the perpetual victim syndrome"  It's like  "once a victim always a victim". The "cruisers", always on the lookout, are very quick to pick up the signals.

Then we have, as child and youth care workers, to to differentiate between normal sexual play and experimentation verses intentional violation....we called it "sexual hurt"

Our South African Criminal Law ( Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment ct. Amendment Act No.5 of 2015 sets out important distinctions..its intentions are, and I quote:

"So as to ensure that children of certain ages are not held criminally liable for engaging in consensual sexual acts with each other

to give presiding officers a discretion in order to decide in individual cases, whether the particulars of children should be included in the National Register for Sex Offenders or not. ( my italics).

no criminalisation of consensual sex between adolescents". 

What it does, bottom line, is to remove the possibility of Statutory Rape charges against children for consensual penetrative sex, if the age of the child is 12 or above providing that the age difference between one and the other is no more than two years.

KEY WORDS; penetration, criminalisation, consensual, age difference.

As child and youth care workers, what do we encounter apart from normal sex play experimentation and adolescent dating? I must say that it is tempting to describe actual, individual incidents, but that is ethically problematic in a blog. So, in general terms:
Sexual Games: There was a story on Facebook recently of a gang related game in which older children would play a game called "treintjie" (little train) Anal penetration of young boys was part of the game after watching porn.. (or not watching porn). This game is neither new, nor is it only related to Cape Flats gangs. I encountered this one when giving consultancy a few years back in a residential facility. It was even then called "treintjie".
Initiation: all manner of sexually unacceptable and inappropriate activity can occur as a compulsory . "We all went through this. It was done to me. Now its my turn". Especially young new admissions. Anything from beer bottles pushed into the anus to genitalia being fondled and aroused with a feather duster.
Mutual Masturbation: This one was a shock for me when I learnt that the boys had a sexual activity they called "circle jerks". They would sit or stand in a circle, cross arms and masturbate each other until ejaculation. In one form or another mutual masturbation happens between boys and girls. Girls also experiment with grinding.
Transactional sex: consensual, but with a possible tacit or open agreement that there will be ongoing benefit to one of the parties. Can include the wives in gangs.
Now a list with no comment: Deliberate seduction, inappropriate exposure to sexual activity, voyeurism, exhibitionism, rape allegations following consensual sex, and then again, actual rape with or without force or violence. 

As child and youth care workers in group residential care settings it is a given that we WILL encounter it. There is probably nothing that compares with sexual incidents to trigger, shock, morally outrage, reaction and sometimes even child rejection and disgust in child and youth care workers. Thing is.... if we know that we will encounter it, that it WILL happen, then we can plan professional management responses for it. Interventive planning is done at three levels. The preventative level, the moment of crisis and the post incident level.  Planning is done at an organisationally as a full multi-disciplinary team.....  and this of course will always also involve the young people and the children. We all have to know what to do and what to expect. Some of the broad principle issues and then some of the specific issues warrant talk   

Consideration has to be given to the two PRIMARY underlying issues in sexual violatory activity......   POWER And SECRECY. What this , I think means, is that as professional child and youth care workers, and as organisations we have to guard against using anything in our response which validates,or replicates the the use of power and endorses silence.

Then we have to engage with the issues of....and this is again but a list: the use of technology like video, movement detectors, microphones to central security systems. (privacy versus safety), varying levels of supervision ( has staffing implications), Mixed sex cottages (can mean the separation of siblings), confidentiality versus secrecy, the involvement of parents, the role of the trusted person ( the person chosen by the child as the one to whom to break the silence).

If, as a child and youth care worker, you are the trusted person, or the primary worker, or one or the other is your focus child.....and I hope you are using the "focus child" approach, THEN you are a key professional in all of this. Of course there are other professionals involved in an integrated professional team approach, but these children are still in the life-space and at every level the child and youth care worker is a KEY, CORE role player. 

OH WOW!!! By the by... I favour "initiator"and "survivor" as a way of naming children in acts of violation. 



    

HIGH STAFF TURNOVER .....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA

This is a response to a question posed on Messenger this week. "Mr B, I know that you directed quite a number of Child and Youth Care Centres. I would like to find out from you....what are the main challenges that have caused a high staff turnover in your tenure and how did you you address those challenges with your staff?"

The first response to this is to say that staff turnover was different from one facility to the next and that the differences tell a story in themselves. 

In 1983 when I first directed a residential facility, the then National Director of the National Association of Child Care Workers             ( NAACCW) had researched the rate of staff turnover across South Africa. Brian Gannon's statistics put the AVERAGE stay of a child and youth care worker at two and a half years.The average stay of a Director was five years. For a child and youth care worker, this made a short stay about two weeks and a long stay about 5 years or longer. The story was always..If you can make the first three weeks you can make the first three months. If you can make the first three months, you can make three years. Those first three months were critical. Many left before.

I do not know of any current research. It would be very interesting to do this....especially in government residential facilities.

In those early dormitory styled facilities for boys and/or girls, staff turnover was much higher than in the cottage (village) styled settings. We all know. child and youth care workers were called "house mothers" and "house fathers". They lived in. It was a 24 hour day with meals from a central kitchen. They were given, perhaps, 2 days a week as "days off ". The living conditions, the setting and the hours with little cash emolument was, obviously, in itself, a formula for quick turnover. Those who stuck it out were those in need of the accommodation more than anything else.

Staff turnover, and so, staff retention was a major cause for concern for me as a Director. The issue was that the children and young persons experienced a stream of different faces. People with no training at all. Each new person went through, what I called, a "baptism of fire" ..serious testing times as the children and young persons sought to establish, "Will this one last?"  In fact the VERY FIRST question I faced on entry was. "OK, Mr Lodge, so you're here. When are you going to leave?"

The behaviour of the young persons was a shock to  starting out workers. Newcomers found out very rapidly that this is not what they thought it would be. One came in, put down her handbag on the girls floor (..handbag!...girl's floor!) to wake them up. Before the end of the day she picked up her handbag (luckily) and walked out. On passing my office..."It's a den of snakes up there!"  Period of stay....less than 24 hours.!!! In and out.

What am I saying? Expectations not met, motivation for entering child and youth care work not realised, lack of proper training, the extraordinary life style attached to the job, the troubling behaviour of children and young persons with troubles and trauma, the small monetary compensation. These were the challenges and causes of rapid staff turnover, I wonder if these may inherently still somehow be lingering in our systems.

Live out staff on predicable shifts, at that stage.. in-house training, meal allowances for use outside of routine meals with the children, lots of opportunities to talk, share, plan and contribute to policy....All this was needed to slow down the exodus.

Then came a new curved ball. It was when we started our first child and young person's forum. Once they learnt that it was safe to talk out about the treatment they experienced, the otherwise secreted punishments and rule of fear surfaced. Some clearly abusive. Staff  ( without being named by the children) recognising themselves exposed and confronted in the descriptive grievances, left fairly rapidly.They just walked out of the door never to come back. Nothing developmental in that. Problem was, they had to be replaced. Frequently leaving a vacancy for far too long.

Sometimes there were fairly young graduates with psychology or education majors who applied to work in the facility. They wanted to have the experience between their first degree and going on to Honours. They always however put out the message that they wanted to make child and youth care a career. But what they really wanted was to chalk up practical experience on their CV's to gain easier access into the advanced degree. They hardly ever stayed long. They saw themselves as having knowledge which elevated their status. This was no doubt true, but the longer serving, hard core, child and youth care workers without any training, persistently quoted their experience as the key to better practice. They quite frankly, frequently, undevelopmentally, made the working life of these "young upstarts"quite untenable. Teamwork broke down. Not able to "get on"with other members of the team was reason to quit.

Then came the introduction of daily logs, compulsory training, reports, incident reports and assessment checklists. All of this was regarded as "Not what I was employed for". ... and the young graduates were further distanced as they were comfortable with all the writing.  Attempts to sabotage innovation largely failed as child and youth care practice grew in professionality and slowly there was an exodus of the "old guard"....often to the dismay of the children and young persons. 

There were times when, obviously I was compelled to terminate employment. Not a frequent occurrence, eg Drunk on duty, bringing marijuana into the facility, stealing from donations.

In my second appointment many of the same challenges were there. but there were some very different elements at work. Different dynamics altogether. Staff were established, It was a male dominated environment, as if women should or could not work effectively with boys.  This was the 10 year or longer end of the statistical turnover range. And this brought about its own set of challenges....As a start, a much bigger resistance to change. Now, as the new boy on the block, I frequently became the reason to leave. It was a top-down army styled hierarchical system. It HAD to change.

The approach here was to shift the power from the top down system into a system that was as democratic as possible. EVERYTHING was discussed. Weekly staff meetings, committees for everything, forums for everyone, Also weekly staff training, weekly interpersonal supervision. It was an attempt to get "buy in", to own and to understand the need for change. Some left. Again more especially when the young persons were given the same SOCIAL RIGHTS as the staff, (The right to be heard and the right to make choices... among others) and again when they became part of the democratic process. All this coincided with the legal abolition of corporal punishment. Too much change !!!!

Staff left because of not fitting with the dynamics of the system, the philosophy and approach of child and youth care as against being a 'House Master" as in a boarding school. Also lack of career pathways. There was this thing... "Once a child and youth care worker, always a child and youth care worker." To mitigate some of this, a system of levels and grades tied to scopes of practice  was introduced with raised key performance areas on a scale of  competencies from 1 to 4 with salary increments ( even if small ) to go with them. It worked to slow down the tempo of staff turnover up to a point. The group who called me the "educated idiot" tended to move out.

I hired a younger group and I hired for intelligence. I needed people on the staff that had a greater capacity than I. The idea was that I could do my job....and that was to manage and to direct. The democratic approach sat more easily with these incumbents.

My last management function was a period of one year in a semi-rural village community-based model of care . The Isibindi Model. Back to hiring off the streets . This time with a contract to be learners in a training programme from the get go. Reasons for leaving this setting were....Not able to meet time frames for the assessments...so "giving up". Support groups for assessments helped. I had left before the State took over the programme, but from what I was told the turnover accelerated. Issues arose, I was told, in the shift from a democratic approach to a top-down approach and apparent negative attitudes toward child and youth care workers as being lesser social practitioners than others. It was explained to me as a shift to power based management styles.

Taking an overview now. It seems that management styles, approach, over-riding philosophies and organisational dynamics and staff dynamics play a a seminal role in the challenge of staff turnover. As child  and youth care workers, we have a particular way of doing things. "Nothing for ANYONE without them," "Nothing for us without us". Child and youth care workers have a deeply built in belief that as employees we should be managed in the same developmental democratic way we practice.

I hope this helps.