June 2007

Editorial : Connecting the profession to itself

By Merle Allsopp

Organizational development guru Margaret Wheatley says that in order to enrich an organization you need to "connect it more to itself". Very simply here she means that opportunities must be found to allow members of an organization to talk, to exchange information, to share ideas - to influence one another. In the electronic age we often think we can access any information we may need on the net or in a book or journal. Obviously regular reading of professional literature is vital to our continuous professional development, but Wheatley says something very interesting in these five words. She says that from time to time we must physically come together, to be in one another's orbit, to rub shoulders with one another - we must connect. The power, she says, of connection cannot be replaced by anything else. In coming together we are more than the sum of our parts.

This was borne out recently as a delegation of child and youth care professionals from the western part of the country participated in an exchange visit to Durban, visiting three child and youth care centers in the city. A report on the exchange program is found on page 14 of this issue, but what we have all learned from the program is really interesting. Participants could have read about the programs they visited on the net, and had been exposed to the literature on the models they visited. But there is something about first hand experience that has a power to affect us that should not be underestimated. Some colleagues described the Exchange Program as 'life-changing'. Is it not wonderful that we have the power to influence one another so dramatically? And shouldn't we expose ourselves to this kind of influence if we wish to grow as professionals and if we wish to grow our profession?

The coming NACCW Biennial Conference provides a wonderful context not only for the organization to connect to itself, but because this is a professional association, for the profession to connect to itself. With so many rich experiences of national conferences behind us, we tend to take these biennial events rather for granted. But it has recently been announced that the Department of Social Development intends funding a national conference for social workers - in order to try to establish a unified professional association for social work. Perhaps we ought to be more appreciative of the fact that as child and youth care workers we already have this regular platform for connecting with one another, this opportunity to interact with other professionals and to be enriched by one another in our quest to do well by the children and youth we serve!

In the run up to Conference '07 it seems that some organizations and some provincial departments either do not see the value of what is to be gained by child and youth care workers attending such an event - or see the value all too clearly and deliberately avoid facilitating staff attendance. But on the other hand the NACCW was recently asked by an organization if their delegation could share beds at conference as funds only covered three delegates and they desperately wished to send six people.

We are happy to say we found the funds to cover the costs of this delegation - for is the profession of child and youth care not so much the richer for quality of the people in it? And as we come together at this year's Biennial Conference we will for the sixteenth time be enriched by our connection.