Two staff members consider a common problem often encountered by adults living and working with children.

taff teams, like parents in families, are prey to splits and divisions, and there are few child and youth care workers who haven’t been subject to this phenomenon. To illustrate in concrete terms how splits and divisions can operate, look for a moment at the family. Louise asks her father if she may go to the shop. Father forbids her. “It’s almost suppertime”. Louise then approaches her mother behind father’s back. Mother permission. As Louise is on her way gives out, her father spots her. “I told you you can’t go to the shop, Louise. ” Louise replies: “But Mom said I could go”. Father feels undermined, ineffectual, and impotent as a parent. Conflict occurs between the parents.

Does this sound familiar? This drama plays out in group homes and such centres too, except that here the situation is significantly more complex and fraught with difficulties due to the artificial nature and larger size of the “parental” group (the staff team) and the “sibling” group (the children and youth).

Splits and divisions between staff members occur also for reasons which do not directly involve the children: discordant conceptual frameworks, conflicting value systems, conscious and unconscious feelings of rivalry, incompatible work ethics, to name a few. Such staff divisions and tensions, while inevitable, are frequently aggravated when carried into transactions with the children as exemplified above.

The boundaries between different members of the staff team and the children can vary, with one care worker preferring diffuse boundaries and being more enmeshed with the children, another preferring rigid boundaries and staying under-involved with the children, a third enjoying clear boundaries and affiliating appropriately with the children. These different styles of relating can provide a rich breeding ground for splits, divisions and tensions.

Often, coalitions and alliances among staff and children proliferate because of this uncertainty over appropriate borders and lack of clarity as to where over-involvement or under-involvement begins. Clear, well-defined borders, allowing for well-balanced, appropriate contact between staff and children, are essential for a functional system. To state the obvious: It is important for the staff team to prevent splits and divisions as far as possible and to restore staff relationships damaged by splitting as soon as possible. Any dysfunction in the team negatively impacts on the children. They sense it quickly.

Prevention
The staff team ought to provide a model to the children and youth about the nature of  relationships in general, as well as about intimate relationships and transactions between men and women. The dynamics of this adult team are likely to affect the child’s relationships later in life. How, then, can care workers prevent splits, and restore relationships damaged by splitting?

1. Awareness of the dynamics of the phenomenon of splitting, as they present themselves in your context. This is half the battle won.
    

2. Three C’s — Consultation, Collaboration and Communication. Returning to the example we started with, had Louise’s mother asked Louise whether she had already asked her father, things might have happened differently. Louise’s parents could have consulted with one another and come to a joint decision. In this way, no one feels undermined and no strain is placed on the marital relationship.
    

3. A sensitivity group for staff. Because of the stressful nature of child and youth care work, it is difficult for staff members to nurture relationships between themselves. One solution involves the setting up of a weekly group for staff led by an outside consultant. The objectives of such a group would be group cohesiveness, and to create an opportunity for child care workers to experience each other as people rather than only in their team roles as happens during work hours. Ideally, this group would provide staff members with a supportive, nurturing and regenerative time together which would contribute to the quality of work time.

In conclusion, children in residential settings, especially, are walking a tightrope between childhood and the adult world. They are prone daily to slip and fall, and it is important that the safety net of the staff team be intact and not have any weak links. (Forgive the cliché, but the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.) The team needs to inspect and mend any damage to the safety net continuously — for the children’s sake as much as for themselves.

Bibliography
Minuchin, S. (1974) Families and Family Therapy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Satir, V. (1967)Conjoint Family Therapy.
 

This feature: Roberts, A. and Brunyee, J. (1990). Splits and divisions in the child care team. The Child Care Worker. Vol.8 No.11 p.3