International Child and Youth Care Worker’s Day

“Why on earth do you need an international Child and Youth Care workers' day?” my friend John wanted to know last Sunday at lunchtime on the terrace. Taking a drink from his tankard of cold lager, he looked the thoroughly normal, down-to-earth, sensible fellow that he is. I scrabbled around in my head for the beginnings of an answer, but he beat me to the draw: “I mean, we don't have an international dentists' day or an international plumber's day! If everyone had an international day we'd none of us ever get any work done!” It did seem a reasonable point, and I was relieved when were all called inside at that moment to fill our plates. Why indeed?! The question occupied my quiet moments for days afterwards.

This annual focus/celebration/remembrance “whatever it is “is essentially an internal thing. We are not really drawing the attention of the world to what we do; rather, we are turning to each other, our fellow Child and Youth Care workers, paying our respects to our colleagues who find themselves in the same line of work. The world is not really interested in Child and Youth Care workers. More often than not we bear the brunt of the world's hostility, their blame, their judgement. I think that we represent to them the darker side of our humanness, of human failings, the things that go wrong, the errors and mistakes of societies and familes and upbringing, things they don't particularly want to be reminded of, let alone be responsible for. When we are unsuccessful (or worse, when we seem to make things worse) the world is quick to say “There! You were no better at this than we were!”

When I look back on fifty years in this field I am haunted by the abiding memory of young people on the day of coming into care “their confusion and vulnerability as they are “passed on” to new caregivers, connected with new adult figures, their shame and fragile bravado as their rap sheets are shared, their own feelings (whether justified or not) of guilt and responsibility, of resignation to an unknown future ... And their trust, their belief and hope that what we have to offer might be better for them than what has gone before. That when they go out for any reason in these first days, they come back, they throw in their lot with us!

We Child and Youth Care workers rely on each other, as together we take on these huge responsibilities, to convey welcome and reassurance and dependability. And as we come to live and work with the youngsters we Child and Youth Care workers rely on each other to reflect the attitudes and knowledge and teamwork that keep us to the tasks at hand. We recognise in each other the commitment and the values we need and share in our service to these courageous kids.

And how often do we express our gratitude to each other for this reliance? Someone said that the best “Thank you” we can get lies in being taken for granted. But such non-verbal and undemonstrative gratitude doesn't travel well between different departments and different levels in the chain of command in our programs. Or in our profession as a whole. How often do we look across at our colleagues on the floor, our administrators, activities personnel, ancillary staff, and recognise in them the qualities that brought them into the field and that keep them there as our colleagues?

Well, John, that's the beginning of an answer! We are not the same as dentists and plumbers. Our jobs are not brief encounters which have a beginning, a middle and an end, but generally longer-term commitments which ask something altogether different. Our relationships are not simply serviceperson-client relationships but changing, developing human relationships in which the whole gamut of adult-youth needs and conflict and love and teaching may be called for as required.

So once a year we have this “structure” of International Child and Youth Care Workers Day when we are reminded of our admiration and reliance and appreciation for fellow Child and Youth Care workers everywhere who, at heart, are people like us and who validate for us this odd and beautiful vocation that we have responded to.

Thank you!

Brian