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28 JULY 2010

NO 1608

Community programs

Historically, a key development leading to increased involvement of Child and Youth Care workers in the community was the realization that the post-discharge environment is perhaps the key determinant of successful adaptation after institutional placement (Allerhand, Weber, and Haug 1966; Taylor and Alpert 1973). Outcome research suggests that regardless of success during residential placement, what happens after placement will determine whether gains will be maintained or existing problems overcome. In the light of these findings, institutional programs began to develop aftercare components designed to make the post-discharge environment more supportive to the youngster. Child and youth care workers were frequently involved in aftercare programs, continuing their involvement with children individually and in groups and offering their services to parents, especially in the area of child management. The involvement of Child and Youth Care workers in aftercare services was a logical expansion of their role, as it built on the relationships formed with young people in residential care and took advantage of workers' expertise in child management.

A related development has seen the helping professions increasingly favour ecological rather than child-centred approaches. Recognition of the potential hazards of institutional care (Shyne 1973) and the related prominence of the normalization movement (Wolfensberger 1972) have also been factors in this trend. As a consequence, services have been moved closer to the child’s natural environment (Whittaker 1977), thereby increasing the opportunity for influencing key systems such as the family, school, and peer group.

These professional trends have also influenced legislative and policy developments. In 1978, the Family Support Worker Program was established in British Columbia, primarily as a means of reducing the need y for specialized forms of services (British Columbia 1978). Subsequently, in Ontario a consultation paper issued by the government prior to the drafting of the current Children’s Act (Ontario 1982) declared that one of the principles of the new act would be that ’services to children should support, enhance, and supplement the family, whenever possible, rather than compete with the family by providing alternative care and supervision.' The Child Welfare Act (Alberta 1984) in Alberta also states that community measures should be tried first: ’If it is not inconsistent with the protection of a child who may be in need of protective services, the child's family should be referred to community resources for services that would support and preserve the family and prevent the need for any other intervention under this Act' (SA-4). Provisions such as these have had a major impact on Child and Youth Care, legitimizing and encouraging family-oriented and community-based g programming.

In the Child and Youth Care field, this move towards the community has resulted in two types of program changes. First, institutional programs, which have traditionally tended to be relatively isolated, have increasingly given way to group home programs. In Ontario, for example, the number of children in institutional placement declined by over 27 per cent between 1970 and 1980 (Ontario 1983). Second, and perhaps more profound, a new class of programs — community-based Child and Youth Care programs — have developed to take their place beside the more familiar group care programs, in some cases as adjuncts and in others as alternatives to the latter. For example, the move to group homes has meant that children were more likely to attend schools in the community rather than remain in in-house school programs. This change has prompted the creation of school liaison programs, which help children adjust to the community and, in turn, assist the community to improve services for children with special needs. Similarly, life skills and community activity programs have been developed to help children function more effectively in the community while continuing to live at home; these programs also increase the resources the community can offer youngsters who might otherwise need group care placements. Family support programs, too, have become prominent, with their goals of helping families as a means of strengthening their ability to maintain children in the home.

In the late 1960s, more and more adolescents left their homes, and most sizeable cities in Canada have seen the establishment of a permanent core of youth living on their own with marginal resources. Many of these young people have left behind abusive or otherwise unsatisfactory home situations; they are often unprepared to make constructive use of their independence. Consequently, they are not only vulnerable to such dangers as prostitution, drug and substance abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases, but they also tend to miss out on their education and on developing age-appropriate work, social, and life skills. A high proportion of these young people are in need of social services, and a range of community programs offering both emergency and long-term services has developed in response to this need. These programs include runaway and street worker programs, life skills training programs, and outreach. The people who staff such programs are not always clearly aligned or identified with any recognizable professional group, but many staff members have been designated as Child and Youth Care workers.

Another trend which has had a strong impact on the delivery of Child and Youth Care services has been an increasing focus on the prevention of problems, a distinct shift from the earlier preoccupation with cure and treatment. Associated with this trend are the efforts aimed at encouraging appropriate development and enhancing well-being and competence, an outlook Maier (1988) has described as 'developmental child care.’

Institutional and other group care approaches concern themselves primarily with reducing the seriousness and impact of already identified problems, referred to in the public health field as a tertiary prevention approach. More preventive approaches involve interventions in the environmental systems in which people live. Such interventions may involve identifying problems early in order to minimize consequences, or they may focus on working with high-risk groups to prevent the occurrence of problems in the first place. ln public health these approaches would be considered secondary and primary prevention, respectively. These efforts normally take place in the community and aim to help people make more effective use of their social environment. Community Child and Youth Care programs can in many instances be viewed as operating on the secondary and primary prevention levels. Contract workers and runaway services are examples of secondary prevention programs, while street worker and AIDS information programs serve primary prevention purposes.

Finally, Child and Youth Care work has been affected, no less than other social services, by the increased cost consciousness which has accompanied the recent troubled economic times. More and more, funders scrutinize the costs of services and seek less expensive alternatives. Group care programs tend to be relatively costly because of the need to staff around the clock. Funders, hoping to realize savings, have, therefore, increasingly favoured community Child and Youth Care models. While community programs are usually less expensive than are group care programs, it is important to recognize that not all community programs can be viewed as alternatives to group care. In fact, community projects come in many different forms and vary greatly in costs, ranging from relatively inexpensive recreation programs to highly sophisticated ventures providing intensive services. lt may be legitimate to compare some of the latter programs to group care, but a comparison of costs will likely reveal that the community alternative, while less expensive, is still a relatively costly operation. Thus, while economics have favoured the development of community Child and Youth Care, the arguments and comparisons have often been simplistic, comparing the costs of different programs providing different services. Funders have often opted for less expensive alternatives without due regard for needs. As a result, in many jurisdictions, the continuum of child welfare resources has gaps in the area of more intensive, treatment-oriented programs and a proliferation of less expensive programs.

PETER GABOR AND VALERIE KUEHNE

Gabor, P. and Kuehne, V. (1993). Child and youth care work in the community. In Ferguson, R.; Pence, A. and Denholm, C. (Eds.) Professional Child and Youth Care, 2nd Ed. UBC Press. Vancouver. pp. 188-191.

REFERENCES

Alberta (1984). Child Wefare Act. Statutes of Alberta, Chapter C8.1.

Allerhand,M.E., Weber, R.E. and Haug, M. (1966). Adaption and adaptability: The Bellefaire followup study. New York. Child Welfre League of America.

British Columbia, Ministry of Human Resources. (1978). The family and children's services policy manual. Victoria.

Maier, H.W. (1988). Developmental group care and practice. New York. Haworth.

Ontario, Ministry of Community and Social Servies. (1982). The Children's Act: A consultation paper. Toronto. 1982.

Ontario, Ministry of Community and Social Servies. (1983). Three decades of change; The evolution of residential care and community alternatives in children's services. Toronto.

Shyne, A.W. (1973). Research on child-caring instituions. In Pappenfort, D.M., Kilpatrick, D.M. and Roberts, R.W. (Eds.) Child caring: Social policy and the institution. Chicago. Aldine.

Taylor, D.A. and Alpert, S.W. (1973). Community and support following residential treatment. New York. Child Welfare League of America.

Whittaker, J.K. (1977). Child welfare: Residential treatment. In Encylopedia of Social Work. Washington, D.C. National Association of Social Workers.

Wolfensberger, W. (1972). Normalization. New York. National Institute on Mental Retardation.

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