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Listen to thisSure, you've heard it all already – certainly from me, and at times from others: A “take” on what is needed to provide an effective education and training open system – and it does need to be an open system – for child and youth workers. So here goes – my holistic, systemic view of what I think would comprise it. Hold on – the list is 10 items long.
An open, or “complex adaptive system”
First of all, what do I mean by “system”? By “system” I mean an
entity that has multiple components (i.e. training components, education
components, and all the elements needed to provide these) – and that
these all are connected with, and interact with each other. This enables
the system to be coherent – to hang together as a whole so that activity
in one component relates to activity in another. As a crucial part of
this, “training” and “education” must not be seen as separate
entities, but rather as an integrally linked part of the total
system.
By “open system” I mean a system with open boundaries that can grow and change as it takes in new information from its context (known in complexity theory as a “complex adaptive system"). Training and education must be constructed as, and seen as, a complex adaptive system.
A professions goal
An ultimate goal or “driver” in the system, must be the intent to
develop and grow as a profession (that old debate again – is this work
potentially a profession or isn’t it? – comes to mind). As I’ve said
before, I definitely think the work should be a profession, taking its
side equally among other “human service” professions. Otherwise, it will
have much less clout than it and its clients need. Our challenge is not
only to comply with the current sociological concept of a profession,
but also within this structure to show how this work represents an
emergent profession appropriate for the times we live in and the
needs of others for our special services. This includes recognizing the
individual and artistic elements of the work – it is more than
prescriptively applying a specific intervention. At the same time
knowledge of such interventions is essential. The function of training
and education is to enable practitioners (this means everybody
considering themselves members of the field) to best deliver the
services we identify as “belonging to us” as effectively as possible “in other words, functioning as professions.
Avoiding unproductive “mindsets” and “belief
systems"
One of the greatest barriers to the development of a coherent training
and education open system are the contentions of some that “you can’t teach this work”, “knowledge destroys spontaneity”, “I know all I
need”, “what worked with me as a child will work with these kids”, etc.
These individuals and those that go along with these ideas will not
enhance the field. In fact, the purpose of training and education is
to challenge the belief systems of participants (we all have our
own values and convictions about child rearing based on our own
childhood and life experience) and encourage them to change in the face
of new knowledge that challenges them.
Life span scope
If we wish to be a profession, we must stop viewing our work as
delivered in just one type of setting (e.g. group and residential
programs), offered to just one type of person (e.g. emotionally
disturbed) and most particularly, to one or a few more age groups,
exclusively. In other words, (which of course you've heard before, over
and over) the focus must be on the nature of the work we offer,
rather than a particular constituency that we do it with. There is
no other profession of any kind that is age, category group, and setting
specific. Within a broad profession, there are specialties that provide
these foci – e.g. there is geriatric social work, psychiatric nursing,
adult education. It will be a challenge, of course, to make the
connections with related fields to provide the life span scope. One way
will be to design both training and education that represent a life span
focus. The message may gradually be picked up by others.
Comprehensive network
We need to have a comprehensive network of training and education
activities. What I mean by this is we have to have enough
training activities, and enough education activities, so that
they are accessible and a visible presence, widely. Certainly technology
can assist with this – although not do the whole job. There need to be
majors at colleges and universities in every state, province (or
whatever way a country is subdivided) There need to be training
activities with similar distribution. The “regional training academy” concept pioneered by Floyd Alwon could and should continue to be, a
viable and significant model for offering legitimate and effective
training. Training activities need to be connected to the higher
education system so they are recognized as having appropriate
equivalencies to education offerings.
Guidelines and standards
There need to be established, recognized and actually applied
guidelines and standards for both training and education activities.
This helps pull different efforts together under a common framework
of intent and understanding, and harmonizes activities so they are
efficiently and effectively conducted. Furthermore they provide
legitimacy and credibility to the many external constituencies who are
needed to buy into the need for training and education in this field.
The current North American Competency and Certification project is a
strong example of the kinds of external guidelines that are needed.
Their presence provides needed structure, around which there can be
flexibility.
Effective pedagogies
The teaching delivery methods, structures and pedagogies must be
appropriate to both the learners and the work. This interestingly is one
of the largest and most challenging issues in the field. Training
workshops that do not relate to the reality of the work that
practitioners do, whose applications are not supported and further
developed once the workshops are over, have little transferability or
make minimal impact on practice. Education that is centered on
sequential information acquisition likewise may have little real effect.
In fact I think, and have suggested elsewhere, that we need to radically
rethink and restructure the way in which higher education in this field
is offered. The initial classroom should be a practice site where
students get to observe and interact in real situations. Academic
information is built around questions and observations from practice
that cause dissonance in the learner. Those current curricula that focus
on self awareness and understanding as an initial scaffold to learning
are on the right track.
Knowledge generation
Relevant knowledge must be both compiled and generated. This is the role
of higher education and a reason why the field must be represented by
offering college and university programs and curricula in the work. The
question arises as well as to who will be the faculty in the future?
The fact that competition for university positions increasingly requires
new faculty to have an extensive research program paradoxically does not
totally bode well for us. Certainly some faculty need to be
researchers and able to do the kind of research that compiles and
advances knowledge, but there is a crucial need for another kind of
faculty and another kind of knowledge. Some faculty must come from the
ranks of practice as well as having academic credentials so they are
able to guide students in not only developing practice skills but also
in the empirical and theoretical knowledge that undergirds them.
Furthermore, a form of scholarship is needed that focuses on translating
the mammoth number of empirical studies in professional books and
journals into justified practice principles is greatly needed. The
findings of this scholarship must be recorded and disseminated along
with those of the “basic” researchers.
Multiple role options in the field
The child and youth work “emergent” profession must offer its
practitioners multiple role options for practice that are both
horizontal (opportunity to change populations and settings while
performing the same activities) and vertical (opportunity to change form
of practice). Role options include supervisor, administrator, director,
consultant, trainer, education. All other professions have multiple
role options. These enable the opportunity for life long careers
and for upward career mobility. Such must exist in child and youth work
if we are to overcome the turnover that diminishes the quality of the
work and prevents a stable, competent, larger workforce from growing –
those who can represent and continue to move its development as a
profession along.
New leadership
Many things occur in cohorts. There has been a cohort over the past
decade or so of people who have worked hard to advance child and youth
work towards professional status. Now these people are, as the saying
goes, “getting on”. Before they are gone to retirement, it’s important that they try to leave a legacy of new leadership – up
and coming practitioners who have the interest, energy and potential to
develop exemplary practice skills and to take on the many roles that are
now available to gain national visibility in activities that advance the
profession, e.g. organization development and leadership, training and
teaching, writing and editing, presenting, project direction, and the
like. The more there are leaders from the field in key places, both
inside and outside of the field, the stronger it will be.
Student Outreach and Recruitment
If the profession is to be created, and if there is to be a future
generation of professionals to continue to develop and carry on with the
work – and with training and education, we must ever be on the alert to
let prospective students know that educational and career enhancing
opportunities are available. Furthermore, we must do something that in
general we are really good at doing: Encouraging workers we already know
but who have spotty educational backgrounds to undertake an educational
activity, and to support and cheer them on once they have started. We
all know people who have reached new levels of achievement this way and
became wonderful contributors to both children and youth and to the
field. If we configure our training and education system and our
pedagogies to be responsive to the selves of the learners, we will
enable many fine human beings to actualize themselves in successful
careers in this field.
