and reach thousands of daily visitors
16 MARCH 2009
NO 1413
Training
It is easy to overlook the importance of the context when initiating an in-service training programme. To do so, however, can mean the death of a programme even before it starts. Let me illustrate this point.
As I have already said, I have done training in two different types of residential settings. My post at the children's home was created in response to a need expressed by the principal, social worker and the great majority of houseparents. Thus, the very fact of my appointment reflected a felt need for change from within the children's home, probably in response to pressures from both within and outside the home. The attitude of staff at all levels reflected the hope and expectation that they could learn from me in a way which would help them provide more effective physical and emotional care for the children. Given this context I could initiate an in-service training programme and feel confident of a high degree of involvement from the houseparents.
The situation at the place of safety and detention was very different. A national commission of inquiry into (white) child care resulted in pressure being applied from outside the institution to move from a custodial role to a role involving containment, assessment and even treatment of a vast cross-section of children varying greatly in degree of overt disturbance. In addition, new posts were created for professional staff such as myself, a psychiatric sister and an occupational therapist, who inevitably placed new demands on child care staff. While the superintendent/social worker allied himself with the pressures for change, very few of the core child care staff shared his attitude. Quite understandably, most of the child care workers (who had previously been called institutional supervisors) responded with confusion and resistance.
Like any group of people facing pressure to change from outside the group, the child care worker sub-system could be seen as changing just enough to enable it to stay the same (Keeny, 1983, 1985). The trainer therefore had to be sensitive to the forces for change and stability within the child care worker group. The forces for change within the group were partially manifested to the trainer in the form of moves by some child care workers to de-emphasise their role as "controllers" of the children and moves towards a less hierarchical, more collaborative role (Hoffman, 1986) in relation to the children. The forces for stability were manifested by the majority of child care workers who clung tenaciously to their roles as "controllers" of the children.
In order to better understand the forces
of stability within this situation, the trainer explored some of its
history. It emerged that "institutional supervisors" (as the child care
workers had been called) had been rewarded for controlling children
rather than enhancing their growth. For example, they had been held
responsible for allowing children to abscond or allowing them to create
too much noise. It also emerged that "institutional supervisors"
themselves had been "controlled" from above in the sense that they had
unilaterally been given instructions which they had been expected to
follow.
In the course of this paper practical ideas will be given on how a
trainer in such a situation may systematically facilitate the
development of new ideas and behaviour within a trainee group. I must
point out that I have not always been successful in achieving this
ideal.
PETER POWIS
Powis, P. (1988) A process-oriented in-service training model for child care personnel. In Gannon, B. (Ed.) Today's Child Tomorrow's Adult: Proceedings of the sixth biennial national conference of the National Association of Child Care Workers. Cape Town. NACCW. pp. 24-25.
REFERENCE
Hoffman, L. (1986). Beyond power and control: Towards a 'second order' family systems therapy. Family Systems Medicine, 3, 4. pp. 381-396.
Keeney, B.P. (1983). Cybernetics of brief family therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 9, 4. pp.375-382.
Keeney, B.P. and Ross, J.M. (1985). Mind in Therapy.
New York. Basic Books.
