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13 JULY 2009
NO 1460
Defining Child and Youth Care Practice
One of the great mysteries for a child and youth practitioner is what goes on in the ‘therapy hour’. Trieschman, Whittaker, & Brendtro (1969) titled their seminal work The Other 23 Hours and they didn’t explain what the psychologist, the psychiatrist, or the social work therapist does during ‘The One Hour’. I’ve come to realize that the mystery regarding what we do as child and youth practitioners is equally as strong among most members of those professions.
A frequently expressed frustration is an ongoing sense of being undervalued and misunderstood; of having a clear identity, but not being able to explain it to the professionals that we work with. We are the invisible part of the multi-disciplinary team. I no longer think that we are undervalued; I think that what we do is a mystery to our colleagues because, in the education that they receive, they don’t learn about our roles and responsibilities as we learn about theirs. Since those who first wrote about Child and Youth Care were psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers I suppose I assumed that members of those professions were aware of our roles and functions and that this knowledge was conveyed to new professionals entering those fields. I now realize this was merely an assumption. We need to educate other professionals, not just in the field and on the multi-disciplinary team but within our educational settings as well.
Students in Child and Youth Care need, from the start, a clear understanding of their roles and functions that can be conveyed to classmates from other disciplines. Instructors need to find opportunities to cross pollinate as well. This is not for the purpose of creating a unified way to doing things, but rather to create an appreciation of the uniqueness of Child and Youth Care that can be understood by other professionals. With this aim in mind I offer some thoughts on previous attempts to identify our uniqueness and a synthesis which I hope will receive further comment.
Definition
The 1992 meeting of the International Child and Youth Care Education
Consortium adopted the following definition of Child and Youth Care
practice:
Professional Child and Youth Care practice focuses on the infant, child
and adolescent, both normal and with special needs, within the context
of the family, the community and the life span. The
developmental-ecological perspective emphasizes the interaction between
persons and the physical and social environments, including cultural and
political settings.
Professional practitioners promote the optimal development of children,
youth and their families in a variety of settings, such as early care
and education, community-based child and youth development programs,
parent education and family support, school-based programs, community
mental health, group homes, residential centers, rehabilitation
programs, pediatric health care and juvenile justice programs.
Child and Youth Care practice includes skills in assessing client and
program needs, designing and implementing programs and planned
environments, integrating developmental, preventive and therapeutic
requirements into the life space, contributing to the development of
knowledge and professions, and participating in systems interventions
through direct care, supervision, administration, teaching, research,
consultation and advocacy.
https://www.cyc-net.org/profession/pro-definitions.html
As well-thought out as this definition is, it is not widely published or circulated and it is still not helpful to me as I try to explain (concisely) to my educated colleagues what the role and functions of child and youth practitioners are as they can be differentiated from the role and functions of the psychologist, the social worker, the nurse, the teacher; all members of the multi-disciplinary team.
CAROL STUART
Stuart, C. (2005).Multi-Disciplinary Education: Start Early and Nevr Stop. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice. 18(1), 70—73
Reference
Trieschman, A. E., Whittaker, J. K., & Brendtro, L. K. (Eds.). (1969).
The other 23 hours: Child care work with emotionally disturbed
children in a therapeutic milieu. New York: Aldine Publishing.
