22 AUGUST 2008

NO 1337

The context of relationship

The most telling difference between child and youth care work and other helping professions is that child and youth care work takes place where and as people live their lives, in the context of the relationship between the young person, his/her family, and the child and youth care worker. From the moment the young person and his relatives meet the child and youth care worker a relationship starts. The young person’s interaction with the worker will be influenced by previous relationships and interactions with other child and youth care workers. The family too will bring their previous experiences into this one, if previous child and youth care workers treated parents as if they are the cause of their child’s problems the parents may be defensive and resistant. Thus, the relationship begins even before they meet.

The child and youth care worker has to put aside all his/her experiences of children, youth and families who have had similar problems and respond to this child and family in a unique and genuine way. There has to be individuality of approach and the worker has to be pro-active but these are secondary to the relationship. The relationship is the container, the vessel, in which everything else takes place. If the container is fragile and breaks easily then the other stuff, like the hanging out with other, and the intentions will have less impact. The intentions will lean towards control as the relationship will be unable to contain the strong, intense emotional expressions that the child and family experiences. If the container is strong and able to withstand the ravages of the relationship it will be easier to take an individual approach, focus on the present and explore the meaning the other person makes of events or experiences.

It is not possible to separate child and youth care work into neat compartments. When one applies a child and youth care approach one works in the life space of the child which includes his family and community; there is an interconnectedness of all these domains that the child and youth care worker has to take into account. The fullness of the approach is tied up with the quality of the relationship, the vessel that carries it all. This work occurs from ‘moment’ to ‘moment.’ The success of this interventive moment (Gar fat, 2003) is dependent on the strength of the relationship between the child and the intervener. As Fewster (2001) so succinctly put it: “all that we are, and all that we will ever be, stems from our relationships with others from the moment of our conception to the time of our departure.”

Working in the life space accentuates the relationship between the child/youth and the child and youth care worker. There is nowhere to hide. The feelings towards, and the experience of, the other are immediate and responses in that moment affect the relationship immediately and in the future. In order for the child and youth care worker to be effective in the life space there must be a conscious awareness by the worker that his/her own personal experiences, history and perspective affects the relationship as much as the child’s history and previous experiences do.

Fewster (2001) argues against that oft used expression, ‘use of the relationship.’ He points out that there is nothing else. The life space catapults us into relationships whether we want to be in them or not, by virtue of our proximity to others. A child and youth care approach brings the relationship into the spotlight, magnifies and zooms in on it. This approach intensifies people’s contacts with each other and transcends the safe sphere that methods like behaviour modification offer us. We need to respond to children/ youth in a real way, not setting up artificial boundaries under the guise of professionalism.

KAREN HECTOR

Hector, K. (2005) The South African context for child and youth care practice. In Garfat, T. and Gannon. B. (Eds.) Aspects of Child and Youth Care Practice in the South African Context. Cape Town. Pretext. pp.19-33.

REFERENCES

Fewster, G. (2001) Going There From Being Here. Retrieved from CYC Online, Issue 25.CYC-Net.

Garfat, T. (2003). Four Parts Magic: The Anatomy of a Child and Youth Care Intervention. CYC-Online, Issue 50. CYC-Net.