Brian Gannon the co-editor of the International Child and Youth Care Network, CYC-Net, has been following the discussions on this page about the decision made by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to cease funding the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care and to provide funding for the private consultancy organisation Tribal and allow it to take a significant role in residential child care affairs in England. Brian sees some similarities between this and recent developments in the Child and Youth Care field in South Africa. (Child and Youth Care is a title which encompasses what is known in the United Kingdom as residential child care).
We do not claim to comment with authority on child care matters in South Africa but we have looked in admiration at some of the innovative practice in residential child care in that country and so it is interesting that although there are honours degree courses in child and youth care in South Africa - indeed people like Thom Garfat and Leon Fulcher have led a masters level programme for child and youth care workers - there still appears to be a feeling of some exasperation among child and youth care workers that their distinct professional discipline has not been given the recognition it deserves. We suspect that this exasperation is experienced in many countries and that it is epitomised by the reaction to the decision of the United Kingdom's government to cease funding England's National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.
Brian Gannon writes : I have been interested in looking over your shoulder at the recent correspondence you have been having about DCSF and felt it has a resonance for child and youth care workers in SA. To illustrate this I am quoting below something which Merle Allsopp, National Director of South Africa's National Association of Child Care Workers, wrote at this time last year in the Association's journal Child & Youth Care Work:
”The first week of May is International Child and Youth Care Worker's Week.Some child and youth care programs here and abroad will have celebrated this occasion recently, using it as an opportunity to recognize child and youth care workers and express appreciation for the very distinct and exacting work that they do.
In the context of this being the month that we especially celebrate child and youth care workers, it is rather ironic that the last week of this month will see the release of the research on the 'Demarcation of Social Services' sponsored by the Department of Social Development and managed by the South African Council for Social Service Professions. Effectively a survey of opinion, the findings of this endeavour will tell us as child and youth care workers whether we exist or not!
This is not a new experience for child and youth care workers - this being defined by popular opinion of others outside the field. The international child and youth care literature from time to time refers to similar situations arising in other countries - with concomitant protests and expressions of outrage being recorded by affected child and youth care worker fraternities.
The outcome of the research and the implications of this outcome may mean that we as the South African child and youth care field have to rework our strategies and approach to achieving recognition for our field. For we have reason to be concerned about the implications, not only of the research, but about the conditions which gave rise to the research. Why question the existence of the profession in the first place? We have an established Professional Board, and consulted-upon draft regulations which will allow child and youth care workers the dignity and affirmation that comes with registration. If we question the existence of the profession, we question the validity of people who identify as child and youth care workers, and we question the existence of the Professional Board. More than anything else, we cast doubt on the contributions made to at-risk children and families by
of some of our most active and helpful social service professionals in the country.
But as I worry about hidden agendas that may be operating in our country in relation to broadening the range of social service professions beyond social work, I think too about something Thom Garfat wrote a while back - on the dangers of letting others define us, and avoiding hooking too deeply into the views that others have of our profession. I am reminded that as child and youth care workers we must remain steadfast in our certainty of the value of our unique profession and what we have to offer young people”.
(Posted April 29th, 2010).
John Molloy of the Registered Managers' Assocation of Ireland comments I have been interested in the ongoing correspondence you forwarded concerning the politics of your services. Sometimes I feel we can be grateful here in Ireland for the "personality driven" almost parochial nature of our care services. We have our problems but we have ways of working around them. (Posted April 30th, 2010).
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