This is our “conference issue.” The 15th Canadian National Child and Youth Care conference occurred in October 2008 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Unexpectedly for me, October in PEI is beautiful. The beauty of the island and the fall colours are particularly memorable as I write this, since I have just finished clearing yet another 12 inch snowfall from my driveway and sidewalk. In addition to the fall leaves there were still many late summer blooms in the window boxes of the houses around downtown Charlottetown. As you read this editorial the flowers will be blooming again. It takes at least 3 seasons to go from the beginning set of submissions for an issue until it arrives in the mail. I’m not going to give you a flavour of the ambiance of the conference because Garth Goodwin has done that in his column, where he describes the conference theme of Building Bridges and the “little CYC Association that could and DID.”
It was a conference that was notable for the interest that people had in research as well as in practice techniques and this issue is largely about practitioners showing off the great work that they do. There is increased attention to developing the evidence base for the effectiveness of the work that we do. Evidence-based practice and evidence-based treatment are areas I’ve been exploring in my own research lately and while I don’t want to distract from the importance of demonstrating how effective our work is, I am sometimes uncertain about whether we should fully adopt an evidence-based philosophy in our work. Perhaps more precisely, I’m uncertain about whether we should adopt the traditional psychological and medical researcher’s definition of what constitutes evidence-based. Beker & Barnes (1990) describe the experiences of Educateurs from France visiting residential institutions in the United States. The Educateurs struggled with “rule-bound” institutions which had no place for the highly trained professional discretion and judgement of the Educateurs, or the individualized treatment of the children and youth who were placed there. The rule bound agencies implied their workers were not competent to make the decisions.

Evidence-Based Treatment (EBT) requires total consistency and control over the environment in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of a treatment by controlling for all conditions but the treatment condition. This is the most common complaint placed against it by practitioners in the field. Life is uncontrolled. What happens when you have an accident or an illness that is disabling in the first 4 months at work and you need to work in order to have an income. Who else might hire you? Do you have sick benefits? What happens when you’ve got a brand new job but things are shaky elsewhere; jail time is threatening for a silly mistake you made, you’ve been kicked out of your living quarters and you need this job. Then you get sick – you are up all night throwing up – what will they think at work, you’ve only been on the job two days. None of these factors were part of the employment skills package in the 6 week course you took. The one that was guaranteed, because the evidence demonstrated that it worked!

Of course these are extreme reflections, somewhat unlikely, and the exception to the importance of developing an evidence-base. I take them as cautions that we should consider in our whole-hearted adoption of the terminology and the drive toward scientifically proving that what we do is effective. I think that the articles in this issue present a nice balance of understanding the importance of developing the evidence-base, but still retaining the legitimacy of professional discretion, judgement, and individualized stories about approaches to our work. The conference presentations and the articles presented here also speak to the importance of professional training and how it makes a difference in work with children, youth, and families. We are just starting to understand and demonstrate how those with professional education do things differently.

The issue leads off with the reflections of a multi-disciplinary team of educators at Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC). What they do at NSCC would not work at the academic institution where I teach, but I can still learn from the principles that they describe and the value base and instructional practices that they undertake are largely consistent with my own. In addition to his wonderful description of the conference, Garth Goodwin comments on the expansion of Child and Youth Care Work from residential care into other settings and the development of the field represented at this conference. Richard Kelly in his article on Restorative Justice demonstrates how this approach to working with children during conflict situations can be applied in schools, mental health programs, and summer camps – those expanded settings that Garth refers to. He also describes how this approach forms the milieu for students in a college program for Child and Youth Workers AND describes the evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention. Though he acknowledges that the lack of controlled, scientific study of the intervention means it is not officially included in that “evidence-based” category, the program was evaluated. Liz Laidlaw in her column on parenting perspectives gives us an inside look into her children’s struggles with the concepts of right and wrong, providing a small, personal example of parent’s struggle with teaching children the principles of justice. Bob Heeney and Carolyn Watters describe with great clarity the implementation and evaluation of a program to reduce the stigma attached to young people with mental illness. They have balanced scientific evaluation with the anecdotal and impactful stories of young people and teachers who have experienced the intervention. The article epitomizes for me the balance between the controlled, scientific approach to demonstrating effectiveness and the demonstration of professional discretion and passion that is characteristic of front-line workers with Child and Youth Work education (i.e. professionally trained workers).

The number 30 appears a few times in this issue and I’m not yet sure of its significance. Bob Heeney has just over 30 years of practice in children’s mental health as a CYW educated practitioner. His passion remains strong and the importance of professional discretion is apparent to me in his article. He has lead the development of the TAMI coalition. Garth Goodwin refers to 30 years of change in the field. In my column I look at some of the dreams (and the passion) of the new first year students in our Child and Youth Care program and their ideas of what they might be doing in 30 years. Bob and Garth show me that this passion from the early years can carry on.

Frank Delano and Jill Shah have previously published in RCYCP on their approach to supervision and they offer an approach to supervision that is consistent with balancing evidence with professional discretion, but most of all: professionally packaged supervision means caring about the other person and being fully aware of the role of your self in your interactions. Clearly an approach that is consistent with Child and Youth Care. Jack Phelan reviews an edited volume on residential care which clearly demonstrates some of the emerging evidence in that branch of Child and Youth Care work. Jennifer Foster and Michelle Brooks, guests in our From the Line column give us both a practical example of how good professionally packaged supervision works AND an example of how using professionally educated CYW’s changes the requirement for rules in a residential program. Their description is one that might convince some to move away from the emphasis on evidence and more towards the importance of professional discretion. Donna Jamieson in her second column with RCYCP describes the ritual and routines that are part of every family’s life and alludes to how they can be missing in the families that we see in our practice. She reminds us that chaos, with the right kind of guidance and activity can be healthy. Mark Fraser and Brenda Robinson will stretch your brain with their description of brain science and how to apply it to the work that we do. They describe a program that has blended several different evidence-based treatments, using professional judgement and discretion to create a new program, which can then be scientifically assessed for its effectiveness in changing the way children in care experience and interact with their worlds.

I’m proud to say that many of the authors in this issue are professionally educated or certified child and youth care practitioners who have been in the field for over 30 years and that the passion and commitment that I have always felt as a part of this field is very clear in the programs they describe. This passion continues to be present in the students that are attracted to child and youth care education programs now. We are respectfully acknowledging the importance of the evidence and equally respectfully demonstrating that traditional methods and professional discretion are critical to our practice.

Carol Stuart