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25 SEPTEMBER 2009
NO 1492
Carers
An ecological system perspective applies not only to interpersonal interactions but also to the mutually reinforcing processes and events between larger and smaller systems. Interconnectedness is part of the nature and pattern of life (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In particular, we note that events in larger systems impact as much, if not more so, the nature of events in the relevant subordinate systems. In everyday life, for example, to cite Bronfenbrenner,
a person's development is profoundly affected by events occurring in settings in which the person is not even present. . . . Among the most powerful influences affecting the development of young children in modern industrialized societies are the conditions of parental employment. (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, pp. 3-4),
The degree of work satisfaction, working hours, and take-home pay more strongly affect the degree of each parent's active and psychological availability and the nature of parent-child interactions than his or her personal qualifications for parenthood.
We note that much of a child's life is determined by secondary life systems which involve neither the developing persons as active participants nor the young persons' caregivers in their role as the children's nurturers. Significant events occur that affect what happens in the setting which contains the developing person (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 25). It is important to note that members of the subordinate settings have little power to influence the very events which tend to influence strongly their own as well as the lives of care receivers (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, pp. 255-56). As illustrated, working hours, salaries or wages, and to an extent, work satisfaction, are beyond the control of the recipients. The labor market, policy makers, and other settings of power "control the allocation of resources and make decisions affecting what happens in other settings in the community or in the society at large" (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 255). These decisions also reach into the lives of almost all individuals within their spheres-and subsequently impact the course of each family.
Applied to our immediate concerns, the nature of primary care in any children's center is strongly colored by the employment policy and the institution's pronouncements on the workers' roles within the total scheme. Such factors operate quite independently of the workers' personal and professional qualifications or the staff members' personal commitments to daily work tasks.
The ecological impact of secondary systems upon primary relationships is applicable to group care situations, regardless of whether the children are in care for part of, most of, or continuous 24-hour services. We noted in the staff meeting described above that a worker's personal readiness to adapt her/his working periods to the requirements of a particular group of children hinged on the program's readiness to adapt to particular working arrangements. One can assume with relative certainty that the decision would ultimately be made on the basis of how feasible it was for scheduling changes to be instituted within administrative considerations, in other words "making the least waves:" It is unlikely that such a decision would be made on the basis of children's and workers' urgent need for each other.
HENRY W. MAIER
Maier, H.W. (1987).
Developmental Group Care of Children and Youth: Concepts and Practice.
New York and London. The Haworth Press. pp. 163-165.
REFERENCES
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
