Editorial : The perspective of hindsight

By Merle Allsopp

I turn 50 this year! I am not suggesting this is newsworthy, but what it does mean is that I have reached the age where I can now look back over a reasonable stretch of time. So I can look back on the developments in the field of child and youth care work as I have experienced them – since 1980 when I first connected with the field. And looking back is helpful to me in times of trouble when it seems we are not ‘getting anywhere’.

Right now is one of those times! The news of the SACSSP moving ahead with auxiliary level regulations has been a great disappointment to many of us who have been striving for development of this field for twenty-odd years.

I know that for the students coming into the child and youth care work right now, and for many other starting out, that this may seem especially discouraging. But looking back gives me great hope for the future – for two reasons.

Firstly, as I look back I see how far we have come as a profession in a relatively short space of time. I remember how shocked I was when I first made contact with children’s homes, at how little so many of them seemed to really understand the business that they were in! Of course I was 20 years old at the time so my perspective may have been a little suspect! But the notion of children’s rights was then still really only understood within the context of the struggle against apartheid. When we look at how mainstream a concept are children’s rights right now , it is amazing to see how far we have come over the time of a generation.

The burgeoning of the child and youth care literature over these years, and the richness in the refinement of so many of the concepts that were really very new and foreign in the 20 years ago also gives me hope. Right here in SA, we still regularly publish new material on child and youth care work – and there really is no way of stopping the generation of knowledge in a free society.

There are many other ways to see that there has been growth in our field, but the second reason for my being hopeful for the future is linked to the quality of the people I have met in this field of ours over the years. People have come and gone from our leadership landscapes – local regional and national landscapes – as is appropriate. But what I have see is the baton of advocacy for the improvement of child and youth care work pass from one person of quality, one person of passion, to another. Our struggle has gone through highs and lows. But always there have been people who know the value of good child and youth care work, who have had the courage and determination to push on with the struggle to ensure that those who work with our country’s vulnerable and at-risk children are able to do so with skill and integrity.

These leaders may have been our trainers, our bosses or our colleagues. They may be from within the child and youth care sector, or from youth work, or social work, or the ECD sector. They may be in universities, in government, in the private sector or in NGO’s. But there have been…there are… so many people in so many places in our country , who have led and are leading in this child and youth care movement – people interested in what is right for children.

So as I look back in times of trouble I know that it is because of this commitment this movement will continue. Child and youth care workers will seek professional recognition – because it is right for children.

We continue the struggle!!!