November/December 2008

Contents

• Editorial - Merle Allsopp
• Child and Youth Care Workers Speak - Katrin Auf der Heyde, Thesesah Khosa and Tshepo Phuthane
• Residential Child and Youth Care is fundamentally about team work - Leon C. Fulcher
• On courage and Commitment- stories from Isibindi projects - Lucky Jacobs
• Personality Profile - Kobus Yawa
• How is Child and Youth Care work unique- and different - from other fields - Karen Vander Ven
• Financial Control and Accountability - Janet Shapiro
• Johanna’s Healthy Baby - Johanna Ncala
• Khululeka - Grief Support for Children and Youth - Brendah Gaine
• ACTIVITIES
• Childrens Act-Fact Sheet - Joan van Niekerk
• The Social Service Professions Bill and the Social Service Practitioners Advocacy
• Network - Lucy Jamieson
• Dear Doctor - Dr Michelle Meiring
• Memory Work - Healthlink Worlwide Students - Jackie Winfield
• NACCW Vision for 2009
• Reflections about Training - Kathy Scott

Editorial : The Year that Was…

By Merle Allsopp

In reflecting on this year, three seminal events stand out. Firstly it was a year of gearing up to implement the Children’s Act and the Children’s Amendment Act. Having been passed by parliament in December 2007, the latter Act (which deals with aspects of the legislation for which provinces are responsible) was applauded this year as heralding a new era in children’s rights in South Africa. This year saw consultation processes happening on the regulations to the Act, which are now in final form. The national Department of Social Development launched the implementation phase of the Act at a conference in May where representatives from civil society and government committed to working together to see the tenets of this legislation impact on the lives of children. Unlike any previous gathering of this nature, the atmosphere at this event was exuberant, with a sense that the way is now clear for what Dr Mabetoa called ‘business unusual’ in the field of children’s services. Clearly the implementation of such a radical shift in policy will take many years, and the sector should gear itself for a marathon of a race rather than a sprint. Many technical aspects need to be seen to by government. A national monitoring and evaluation process needs to be put in place, and the National Policy Framework as required by the Act must be developed.

But many in the child and youth care sector, I think, will find that ‘business unusual’ is not that foreign. For the past decade the sector has been grappling with, internalizing and working to implement the recommendations captured in the 1996 “Interim Policy Recommendations for the Child and Youth Care System”. The paradigm-shifting stuff of this document – so refreshingly new a decade ago – has become for many, the order of the day. Now encapsulated in the Children’s Amendment Act, many of the key concepts introduced in the 1996 document are already being implemented in the sector. The specialsed role of residential care as a short-term goaldirected therapeutic intervention, custom-designed for each child is not new to many operating children’s homes – now child and youth care centers under the new Act. The need to provide community-based interventions for children is not new to many – and in fact a number of organizations have scaled down on residential care to focus on innovative non-residential child and youth care services. Others have added to their portfolio of services, and we already see more options for children other than residential care than we did a decade ago. But of course there is much more to the Act than this, and some challenges will need to be faced. How, for instance, do shelters for children with experience of living on the street meet the requirements of the chapter on child and youth care centers? How do child and youth care centers accommodate children with disabilities? How do child and youth care centers with limited resources be creative in setting up programs for addicted youth? Can a program for psychiatrically challenged young people really be accommodated within a traditional children’s home? Challenges these certainly are, but ‘nice’ challenges surely? For they are challenges to further realize the rights of children. Challenges to do what we know needs to be done for children. And challenges to implement the first piece of legislation for children that any of us in South Africa have ever been a part of making!

And then there is the Child Justice Bill which has also been passed by parliament this year and will shortly be enacted. This too holds no surprises for those in the children’s sector who have been moving with the times. Effective diversion programs are needed at both residential and non-residential level to channel young people away from the criminal justice system,and efficient processing of children through the counrt system is prescribed. This is what we all want to see. In the context of such progressive, optimistic and child-centered happenings, how do we understand the actions of the South African Council for Social Services this year? This legislative framework for children clearly calls for skilled person-power. South Africa’s skills deficit is sorely felt by the social services sector. It is sorely felt by children whose grants cannot be processed because social workers are overwhelmed by unmanageable case loads. It is sorely felt by children whose child and youth care workers cannot ‘hold’ the convoluted complexity of their emotions and behaviour. It is sorely felt by NGO’s seeking skilled social service professionals of all ilk. The implementation of these Acts clearly rests on having skilled workers to do the work!

So what happened on the matter of regulating child and youth care workers this year? For those who have not been following developments, SACSSP communicated to the constituency the submission of regulations to the Minister allowing for the regulation of child and youth care workers – at auxiliary level only. It is not an overstatement to say that the field of child and youth care work reacted with outrage – and many took up their democratic right to air their views by writing to the Minister, protesting on the basis that the regulations submitted to him had not been consulted with the field, and that they did not reflect the level of functioning of many child and youth care workers who had worked hard to obtain diplomas and degrees in child and youth care work.

In a year of great movement forward, this is clearly a disappointing set-back for the child and youth care field – and in the opinion of many – for a sector which must develop as many practitioners as fast as possible to meet the needs of our client base. Indeed the position taken by Council seems at odds with a groundswell of opinion supporting the development of not only child and youth care work, but a range of other social service professions. There is no doubt that the crisis in social work must be addressed. But the development of other social service professions can complement and support progress towards rectifying the difficulties being faced by the social work profession.

At the conference launching the implementation of the Children’s Act, for instance, a resolution was unanimously taken by the house to ask the Department of Social Development to support the development of child and youth care work at both auxiliary and professional levels. Clear commitment to the development of other social service professionals was evident. The Minister has asked the Department of Social Development to intervene in the matter – to the extent that the NACCW was given an opportunity to present the position of its members on this controversy directly to the Director General of the Department of Social Development. And in a further collaborative effort to see effective human resource provisioning in the children’s sector, the Social Services Practitioner’s Advocacy Network (SSPAN, see page 26 for a full report) has been initiated to advocate for improvements to the Social Services Profession’s Bill which currently determines the composition and functioning of Council.

The experience of receiving this unexpected news on the position of Council on the regulation of child and youth care workers, and attending Council’s provincial meetings was a shock to many child and youth care workers. It was not expected, and the tone of some of the information-sharing sessions was reported to have been combative rather than constructive.

But the field of child and youth care is no longer alone in this struggle for professional recognition. Many people from within and without the social services sector have seen the importance of child and youth care work. Many recognize the complementary nature of the work of social workers, child and youth care workers, early childhood development workers, youth workers and community development workers. Many people working towards the realization of children’s rights have seen social service workers working in professional harmony. Many therefore challenge Council’s current position on child and youth care work for the sake not of us as workers, but for the sake of children! It is therefore not a fantasy to look forward to the resolution of the issue of the regulation of child and youth care work in 2009.

We go into the new year appreciative of what has been achieved for South Africa’s children this year. We go into the year confident that the work of child and youth care workers is being recognized across the country. We go into the year sound in our professional identity. And we go into the year continuing to work as “complementary social service professions, integrating to serve children and families”. Roll on 2009!