Transcript Preparing Child and Youth Care Practitioners: The

Preparing Child and Youth Care
Practitioners:
The Experience of the School of Child
and Youth Care (SCYC) at the University
of Victoria (UVic), British Columbia,
Canada
Presented by Dr. James Anglin
Professor and former Director, SCYC
University of Victoria, BC, Canada
Email: [email protected]
“Let us build a world in which children can live” – Robert Corti
Pestalozzi Children’s Village, Trogen, Switzerland
Internationally, Child and
Youth Care has many names
* Social pedagogue (in much of Europe)
* Éducateur, or Éducateur Spécialisé (France and Québec)
* Travailleur Sociale (Belgium)
* Erzieher (Germany)
* Residential social worker (UK)
* Operatore (Italy)
* Social educator and psychoéducation (Québec)
* and many more local variations (e.g. resi workers in Australia)
* And in Brazil? (‘criança e cuidados juventude trabalhador?’)
But what exactly is child and
youth care?
The Essence of Child and Youth Care
1. Child and youth care is primarily
focussed on the growth and development
of children and youth. While families,
communities and organizations are
important concerns for child and youth
care professionals, these are viewed
largely as contexts for the care of
children.
2. Child and youth care is concerned with
the totality of child development and
functioning. The focus is on persons living
through a certain portion of the human
life cycle, rather than with one facet of
functioning as is characteristic of most
other human service disciplines.
3. Child and youth care has developed
with a model of social competence,
rather than in a pathology-based
orientation to child development.
Child and youth care has evolved from
(but is not now restricted to) direct dayto-day work with children and youth in
their environment (lifespace). Unlike
many other professions, child and youth
care practitioners do not operate in a
single setting or on an interview or
session-oriented basis.
4.
5.
Child and youth care involves the
development of therapeutic relationships
with children and their families, and
other informal and formal helpers. The
development of such therapeutic
relationships requires an integration of a
complex constellation of knowledge,
skills and elements of self.
6. Child and youth care involves the child
and youth care worker in a moral and
spiritual journey of self-discovery.
We are impelled on this journey by our
relationships with children and families,
who are often dealing with deep and
profound psycho-emotional pain.
While other professions and professionals
share some of these characteristics, it is
the fact that this cluster of characteristics
is at the heart and soul of child and youth
care, and is the primary focus for all
members of the profession that makes this
profession unique and valuable.
The first Bachelor’s level program in
Canada was developed in 1971 at the
University of Montréal in Québec, and
drew on various traditions from Europe
and North America to form the School of
Psychoéducation.
The SCYC at UVic was founded in 1973,
the first child and youth care program at
the university level in English-speaking
Canada.
Gilles Gendreau 1926-2010
First trained éducateur in Canada; in France in 1948-1949.
Co-founder of psychoéducation, collaborator with
Dr. Jeanine Guindon, University of Montréal
The original focus and intent of SCYC at
UVic was to educate CYCs for front-line
positions in various forms of residential
care for children and youth (e.g. juvenile
corrections, centres for learning
disabilities, child welfare group homes,
mental health centres etc.)
By 1979, when I joined the School, the
Government of BC started to close down
many of the larger institutions and began to
develop Family Support Worker positions in
Ministry Child Protection offices.
Therefore, we developed a course on
family work (based in part on Minuchin’s
structural family systems approach), and
began to orient our curriculum towards
a much broader spectrum of settings
and roles.
In a short time, our graduates were
being hired in schools (as Youth and
Family Counselors), hospitals (as Child
Life Specialists), as well as Family
Support Workers (FSWs) in government
child welfare offices.
Today, just over 40 years later, graduates
with our Bachelor in Child and Youth Care
(BCYC) degree are employed just about
anywhere children and youth can be
found, including serving as government
Child Protection Workers, as advocates
with our BC Representative for Children
and Youth (who reports directly to the
Provincial Legislature), and in private
practice working with families.
We also offer Master’s and Doctoral
degrees in child and youth care,
providing leaders in many sectors of
the field, including practice, research,
policy development and higher
education (college and university
instructors/faculty members) across
the country.
Our undergraduate (BCYC)
curriculum has evolved significantly
over the years, reflecting changes
and developments in our field
(provincially, nationally and
internationally) and in thinking and
research in allied disciplines (such as
psychology, early childhood
development, youth justice, mental
health, complexity theory, brain
research, etc.)
KSS Model of Professional Development
Knowledge (knowing)
Skills (doing)
Self (being)
We need to be self-aware of our beliefs, values and ethics
Knowledge ->
P
<- Beliefs (what I hold to be true)
R
Skills
->
A
<- Values (what I hold to be good)
X
Self
->
I
S
<- Ethics (what I hold to be right)
Some key dimensions of the curriculum
include:
•Theories that inform CYC practice
•Generic CYC practice-related knowledge,
skills and aspects of self development
•Core values and principles
•Specialized knowledge and skill
Theories include:
•Child and youth development
•Planned change (individual and social)
•Bio-social-ecological (e.g. Bronfenbrenner)
•Systems (including family systems)
•Critical theory
•Interpersonal communication
•Relationship development
•Trauma
•Specialized: disabilities, substance abuse,
social justice, mental health, Indigenous
cultures, diversity, etc.
Generic CYC Practice-related skills include:
•Fundamentals of attachment and
relationship building
•Working in the life-space
•Responsive and relational practice (as
opposed to reactive and coercive)
•Use of self in-the-moment
•Doing with, not for, or to others
•Use of everyday, ordinary activities for
developmental and therapeutic purposes
Core Values and Principles (e.g.)
•Child and youth’s best interests
•Relationship-based
•Family-involved
•Trauma-informed
•Developmentally-focussed
•Competency-based
•Ecologically-oriented
•Culturally-responsive
Specialized Knowledge and Skill (e.g.)
•disabilities
•substance abuse
•juvenile justice
•mental health
•Indigenous cultures
•diversity
•early childhood care and development
•child life (hospital-based CYC)
•school-based CYC
•child protection
Four essential elements to creating a “children’s
best interests system”
*An education and career ladder (lattice) system
for child and youth care workers with a child’s
best interests-focussed curriculum;
*Agency-based organizational development
processes based on developmental and
therapeutic principles in the best interests of
children and youth;
*A system-level framework and way of operating in
the best interests of children and youth.
*All of these elements need to strive to be
congruent and work in the best interests of each
child and youth.
In summary…
Child and Youth Care is an important
profession with a unique role in the human
services system.
It is important because it is the only
profession
•focussed primarily on children and youth
and their best interests,
•focussed on all young people ‘at risk’, and
•across all social systems and settings.
It is:
•Flexible
•Adaptable
•In the life-space of the children and
youth, and their families and
communities
•Engaged with the day-to-day life realities
of young people and their social context
•Passionately committed to the well-being
and best interests of all young people
Child and
youth care is
not rocket
science,
It’s far more
complex than
that!