Sure, you’ve heard it all already — certainly from me, and
at times from others: A “take” on what is needed to provide an effective
education and training open system — and it does need to be an open system — for
child and youth workers. So here goes — my holistic, systemic view of what I
think would comprise it. Hold on — the list is 10 items long.
An open, or “complex adaptive system”
First of all, what do I mean by “system”? By ‘system’ I mean an entity that has
multiple components (i.e. training components, education components, and all the
elements needed to provide these) — and that these all are connected with, and
interact with each other. This enables the system to be coherent — to hang
together as a whole so that activity in one component relates to activity in
another. As a crucial part of this, “training” and “education” must not be
seen as separate entities, but rather as an integrally linked part of the
total system.
By “open system” I mean a system with open boundaries that
can grow and change as it takes in new information from its context (known in
complexity theory as a “complex adaptive system”). Training and education must
be constructed as, and seen as, a complex adaptive system.
A professions goal
An ultimate goal or “driver” in the system, must be the intent to develop
and grow as a profession (that old debate again — is this work potentially a
profession or isn’t it? — comes to mind). As I’ve said before, I definitely
think the work should be a profession, taking its side equally among other
“human service” professions. Otherwise, it will have much less clout than it and
its clients need. Our challenge is not only to comply with the current
sociological concept of a profession, but also within this structure to show
how this work represents an emergent profession appropriate for the times we
live in and the needs of others for our special services. This includes
recognizing the individual and artistic elements of the work — it is more than
prescriptively applying a specific intervention. At the same time knowledge of
such interventions is essential. The function of training and education is to
enable practitioners (this means everybody considering themselves members of the
field) to best deliver the services we identify as “belonging to us” as
effectively as possible — in other words, functioning as professions.
Avoiding unproductive “mindsets” and “belief systems”
One of the greatest barriers to the development of a coherent training and
education open system are the contentions of some that “you can’t teach this
work”, “ knowledge destroys spontaneity”, “I know all I need”, “what worked with
me as a child will work with these kids”, etc. These individuals and those that
go along with these ideas will not enhance the field. In fact, the purpose of
training and education is to challenge the belief systems of participants
(we all have our own values and convictions about child rearing based on our own
childhood and life experience) and encourage them to change in the face of new
knowledge that challenges them.
Life span scope
If we wish to be a profession, we must stop viewing our work as delivered in
just one type of setting (e.g. group and residential programs), offered to just
one type of person (e.g. emotionally disturbed) and most particularly, to one or
a few more age groups, exclusively. In other words, (which of course you’ve
heard before, over and over) the focus must be on the nature of the work we
offer, rather than a particular constituency that we do it with. There is no
other profession of any kind that is age, category group, and setting specific.
Within a broad profession, there are specialties that provide these foci - e.g.
there is geriatric social work, psychiatric nursing, adult education. It will be
a challenge, of course, to make the connections with related fields to provide
the life span scope. One way will be to design both training and education that
represent a life span focus. The message may gradually be picked up by others.
Comprehensive network
We need to have a comprehensive network of training and education
activities. What I mean by this is we have to have enough training
activities, and enough education activities, so that they are accessible
and a visible presence, widely. Certainly technology can assist with this —
although not do the whole job. There need to be majors at colleges and
universities in every state, province (or whatever way a country is subdivided)
There need to be training activities with similar distribution. The “regional
training academy” concept pioneered by Floyd Alwon could and should continue to
be, a viable and significant model for offering legitimate and effective
training. Training activities need to be connected to the higher education
system so they are recognized as having appropriate equivalencies to education
offerings.
Guidelines and standards
There need to be established, recognized and actually applied guidelines and
standards for both training and education activities. This helps pull
different efforts together under a common framework of intent and understanding,
and harmonizes activities so they are efficiently and effectively conducted.
Furthermore they provide legitimacy and credibility to the many external
constituencies who are needed to buy into the need for training and education in
this field. The current North American Competency and Certification project is a
strong example of the kinds of external guidelines that are needed. Their
presence provides needed structure, around which there can be flexibility.
Effective pedagogies
The teaching delivery methods, structures and pedagogies must be appropriate
to both the learners and the work. This interestingly is one of the largest and
most challenging issues in the field. Training workshops that do not relate
to the reality of the work that practitioners do, whose applications are not
supported and further developed once the workshops are over, have little
transferability or make minimal impact on practice. Education that is
centered on sequential information acquisition likewise may have little real
effect. In fact I think, and have suggested elsewhere, that we need to radically
rethink and restructure the way in which higher education in this field is
offered. The initial classroom should be a practice site where students get to
observe and interact in real situations. Academic information is built around
questions and observations from practice that cause dissonance in the learner.
Those current curricula that focus on self awareness and understanding as an
initial scaffold to learning are on the right track.
Knowledge generation
Relevant knowledge must be both compiled and generated. This is the role
of higher education and a reason why the field must be represented by offering
college and university programs and curricula in the work. The question arises
as well as to who will be the faculty in the future? The fact that
competition for university positions increasingly requires new faculty to have
an extensive research program paradoxically does not totally bode well for us.
Certainly some faculty need to be researchers and able to do the kind of
research that compiles and advances knowledge But there is a crucial need for
another kind of faculty and another kind of knowledge. Some faculty must come
from the ranks of practice as well as having academic credentials so they are
able to guide students in not only developing practice skills but also in the
empirical and theoretical knowledge that undergirds them. Furthermore, a form of
scholarship is needed that focuses on translating the mammoth number of
empirical studies in professional books and journals into justified practice
principles is greatly needed. The findings of this scholarship must be recorded
and disseminated along with those of the “basic” researchers.
Multiple role options in the field
The child and youth work “emergent” profession must offer its practitioners
multiple role options for practice that are both horizontal (opportunity to
change populations and settings while performing the same activities) and
vertical (opportunity to change form of practice). Role options include
supervisor, administrator, director, consultant, trainer, education. All
other professions have multiple role options. These enable the opportunity
for life long careers and for upward career mobility. Such must exist in child
and youth work if we are to overcome the turnover that diminishes the quality of
the work and prevents a stable, competent, larger workforce from growing - those
who can represent and continue to move its development as a profession along.
New leadership
Many things occur in cohorts. There has been a cohort over the past decade
or so of people who have worked hard to advance child and youth work towards
professional status. Now these people are, as the saying goes, “getting on”.
Before they are gone to retirement, it’s important that they try to leave a
legacy of new leadership — up and coming practitioners who have the
interest, energy and potential to develop exemplary practice skills and to take
on the many roles that are now available to gain national visibility in
activities that advance the profession, e.g. organization development and
leadership, training and teaching, writing and editing, presenting, project
direction, and the like. The more there are leaders from the field in key
places, both inside and outside of the field, the stronger it will be.
Student Outreach and Recruitment
If the profession is to be created, and if there is to be a future
generation of professionals to continue to develop and carry on with the work —
and with training and education, we must ever be on the alert to let prospective
students know that educational and career enhancing opportunities are available.
Furthermore, we must do something that in general we are really good at doing:
Encouraging workers we already know but who have spotty educational backgrounds
to undertake an educational activity, and to support and cheer them on once they
have started. We all know people who have reached new levels of achievement this
way and became wonderful contributors to both children and youth and to the
field. If we configure our training and education system and our pedagogies
to be responsive to the selves of the learners, we will enable many fine human
beings to actualize themselves in successful careers in this field.
______