INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

20 JULY 2000
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A recent article* highlighted the inherent conflict frequently encountered between management styles and inter-personal practice in our field — offering food for thought for both management and on-line workers.

Congruence between Management and Practice

Gordon Northrup, editor of  Residential Treatment introduces the issue: 

Residential treatment centers have always steered a course between bureaucracy and anarchy. It's in the nature of the work: the various state bureaucracies that purchase our services must be sure we are safe and noncontroversial for their clients, but these same clients have had years of experience fending off our sorts of help; for us to reach them we must be creative, even surprising, in our interactions. Most residential treatment center directors are on the lookout for better, newer, and cheaper programs, and the direct care staff are idealistic and open to new ideas. Perhaps directors more easily accept changes in physical plant and program descriptions than changes in administrative style or direct care staff attitudes, but willy nilly, change is in the air.

The authors* of the article summarize: 

Bureaucratic organization of group care services has cost us ethically and pedagogically by constraining and demoralizing staff and clients and in the creation and recreation of a direct care practice in disarray. Business management theorists have been struggling with many of the same issues, and it is suggested that new management conceptions point the way towards pedagogical organization that is supportive of human development.

The article includes this paragraph:

The rediscovery of Human Development in Management Theory
The premises of traditional business management theory have long been challenged by those who recognize that management practices have not been producing either worker satisfaction or increased productivity. Thus, management theory is coming to terms with the realization that there is a "conflict between the formal structure of human organizations and the psychological needs of human individuals" (Hardy, 1991, p. 146). The principal issue is that traditional methods of management, with efficiency as their goal and employee control as their means, are undesirable because they are both ethically objectionable and counterproductive. The needed change, according to the critics, is that organizational management should be thought of as a context of human development.
Management theory is principally concerned with the management of "normal" adults in employment settings; the residential group care programs being discussed here serve children and youth, primarily those who are viewed as incapacitated in some way, and as clients rather than as employees. Is there any justification for the connection between management practices and the clients, beyond the management role of the staff? It is our thesis that the formal structure of many residential programs not only works against the development of the employees – for reasons that will become clear – but also impedes the development of the children and youth being served. This article and the volume in which it appears demonstrate that such consequences reflect the imposition of inappropriate management ideologies and are, therefore, not inevitable.

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* Read the article:
Magnuson, D., Barnes, F. Herbert  and Beker, J. (1996) Human Development Imperatives in the Organization of Group Care Programs: A Practical Approach. Residential Treatment for Children and Youth. 13.3

Residential Treatment for Children and Youth is the official journal of the American Association of Children's Residential Centers. For enquiries about orders and subscriptions e-mail getinfo@haworth.com

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In the panel on the left you will find similar brief writings
which you may have missed since your last visit.