JACK PHELAN FROM ALBERTA  

How do you do?

This is my first column here and so I want to introduce myself and provide a focus for both you and me. 

I have been a Child and Youth Care practitioner for my whole career, and have not found any other job that is more interesting.  My earliest full-time position, almost 40 years ago, was in a Group Home agency in New York City, where I was told that I was expected to get a Masters degree (with some tuition assistance from my employer) because Child and Youth Care practice took a lot of brains.  About five years later I was hired as a supervisor in a large residential agency, in charge of more than 50 Child and Youth Care practitioners.  This agency refused to pay me for having a graduate degree, saying that the job didn’t require that level of education!

We still struggle with this issue today.

I hope to use this column to create a description of the professional complexity and sophistication needed to do our work.  You can help by sending me comments and suggestions or good material. My e-mail is phelanj@macewan.ca.
 

Ralph Kelly
On a different note, I want to note the recent death of a colleague and mentor of mine, Ralph Kelly.  Ralph went to the University of Pittsburgh to get the only graduate degree in CYC work available in the late 1960’s and came back to New York to help start a professional CYC association.  He later spearheaded the creation of the National CYC Association in the USA and continued throughout his career to be a CYC professional.

This isn’t the place to list his many accomplishments, but I want to acknowledge a leader in our field and an outstanding advocate for the Child and Youth Care profession.   (Here is a recent online bio of Ralph.)
 

Jack Phelan,
Grant MacEwan College
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada