Educating the educators: Only in Child and Youth Care...

Carol Stuart

I recently had the opportunity to sit in a room with 72 Canadian Child and Youth Care educators while they listened to seven graduates from different educational programs speak about what they had learned and what advice they could provide to enhance the education of future Child and Youth Care practitioners.

Before I get to what I learned from them; let me just point out that 30 years ago this would never have happened. Forty years ago there were no college or university Child and Youth Care programs. George Brown College in Toronto began a two-year child care worker diploma in 1966 making it the oldest Child and Youth Care education program in Canada. Today there are Child and Youth Care college or university programs in every province in Canada (none in the North, as yet). This hallmark of professionalism has been firmly established, at least in Canada. We are challenged to keep it personal though, as this is critical to the field.

One of the graduates spoke about her first job. It was a job obtained, not as one might hope or expect, upon graduation from a Child and Youth Care program, but rather prior to beginning. The superintendent of the school district led her to a desk in the corner of a large, cavernous room in the basement of an inner city school and said “This is your space, you are the first and only youth worker in this Board, if you make this job viable, we’ll hire more; if you don't, we won't.” Smart woman – she realized that she needed to learn more, so she went to college and then to university and got her Child and Youth Care education. She worked for the Board during that whole time – they did hire more – at least until the budget cuts came.

We may have education, but as a profession we are not yet considered to provide an essential service, one that is specialized and unique enough to require that education prior to hiring or to not be eliminated.

You may read some of the full contributions to this evening amongst the pages of this journal. I didn’t take detailed enough notes to give credit to the speakers for the thoughts that stayed with me, and for that I apologize.

There were several things throughout the evening that illustrated the uniqueness of this profession and the basis upon which it is built.

In particular, the theme of mentoring and relationship came through, not just between students and educators, but also between students and the children and youth they work with.

One graduate put into new perspective the hated “paperwork”. “It’s such a powerful thing to be recording someone’s journey. When I think about a youth reading their information and the fact that I’ve written some of it, it all becomes very important.” Put this way, paperwork is more than a part of the work, it’s a part of the relationship. It is the part of a relationship that is carried forward and re-discovered much later when a youth has become an adult, or moves on to another centre. It’s a way of transferring that relationship to another worker and just like any other introduction it creates the first impression. It forms the basis for the initial relationship.

Someone emphasized the core of our practice, self-awareness. “Learning has little breadth or depth without my understanding and reflection of myself.” So often learning is skills-based or knowledge-based and, in our practice with children and youth, as we ask them to learn about themselves and grow and develop we must also do the same for ourselves. Self-understanding and reflection have become a part of the educational process.

The educators listened in rapt attention to the thoughts of the graduates. They noted the consistency in knowledge and reflection across the programs represented. They were proud of the graduates and honoured to listen to them. They noted with envy the fact that the graduates had this opportunity, to go to school, to learn together, to share with each other and to forge relationships that would last throughout their professional careers.

The opportunity to hear these graduates speak was important. As the profession develops this capacity for strength in relationships (that helps sustain the professional development of the field) is paradoxically weakened as more people enter. Relationship is one of our distinguishing features and sustaining it is critical. We must welcome and get to know new members of the profession, introduce them to each other across the country and around the world. Build upon their strength and energy to carry us forward. Imagine the “personalness” of the graduating class at George Brown College 35 years ago; expand that 1000 or more times across a country the size of Canada. Only in Child and Youth Care should we “expect” that such a level of personal encounter will be retained among those that join the profession.

This feature: Stuart, C. (2004). Educating the Educators: Only in Child and Youth Care “Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 17, 4. pp. 67-68