March 2007

Editorial : Child and youth care work and politics

By Merle Allsopp

Developmental approach or not, we have to accept what we are not good at. Then we can work on identified developmental approaches. Child and youth care workers in South Africa, it seems, are notoriously bad at tuning into the 'bigger picture' - to policies and processes happening on a macro level which ultimately affect the work of individual child and youth care workers at the coal face.
But we are making progress on this collective developmental area of ours. Just look at how colleagues around the country have responded to the research on the demarcation of social service professions. Child and youth care workers have actively spoken up for the profession, helping sceptics to understand what it is that they do not see - that child and youth care work is a profession because of the unique ways in which we do things to help young people and families.
We have also seen colleagues readily make themselves available to contribute to the public hearings on the Children's Bill. In almost every province child and youth care workers have been explaining the practical role to be played by this social service profession in realising the aspirations of the Bill. So perhaps we are to be acknowledged for the progress we are making in engaging in the political arena, and speaking up for ourselves. Indeed, I heard a good number of comments from other social service professionals after these processes on how organised, professional and articulate we are as a profession!   
Let's then take the compliment - and let it spur us on to greater involvement in these macro processes. In this month's edition we print, in full the submission made by the Council for Social Service Professions to the Portfolio Committee on Social Development, following the Minister of Finance's budget speech. Read it for yourself. Read it carefully, think about it, talk about it in regional meetings. And write to the Council if you would like to respond.
As I read about it I found myself feeling disappointed. We are undoubtedly pleased that the budget has made bursaries available for social work students. But why are we not asking the Minister "where the bursaries are for child and youth care workers"? Throughout the document we see references to "other" social services (other, that is, to social work) and an attempt to be inclusive of other professions. But doesn't the cause of social work come through more loudly and clearly than a powerful commitment to broadening the stable of social services professions? Does this really sound like a document from the Council for Social Services - that body whose responsibility it is to speak up for all social services - or does it sound more like a document one would expect from a Professional Board for Social Work?       
The document does very encouragingly list as one of its challenges the "registration of child and youth care workers - acceleration of the consultation process to enable the finalisation of the regulations and database to be able to register them". I came to this last sentence with some relief, noting that we are a concern of Council. But in the context of the document as a whole, is this level of concern satisfactory? Would we not be expecting more support, more active lobbying for our cause from that body whose function it is to act in our interests?
The bottom line for me is that we as the child and youth care profession should think very hard about working on our developmental area - as hard as we can, and as quickly as we can. For it seems that there is yet much politicking to be done before we get to where we want to be as a profession.