Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care

James P Anglin, Jerome Beker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780866568913
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317773351
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Professional Development
• Index: Social Sciences

Here are the information, ideas, and inspiration that will help child care workers in their daily struggle to provide better care for children, youth, and families. Perspectives in Professional Child and Youth Care is a much-needed sourcebook of readings on the current state of the art of professional child and youth care in North America. Some of the leading practitioners, academicians, researchers, and administrators provide a "child care perspective," writing about what they--on the front lines--perceive as the most pressing issues and significant topics in the field today, including the nature of child and youth care, current issues in education and training, therapeutic program issues, key support functions in child and youth programs, the changing work environment and new roles, and developing professionalism in the field of child and youth care. This enormously insightful book will be valuable for use in academic courses and training workshops, as well as for individual child and youth care professionals and practitioners from related disciplines.

Section 1:
The Nature of Child and Youth Care

Introduction

It is fitting that Henry Maier leads off this collection of perspectives by introducing what he identifies as “the developmental perspective.” Maier has been a recognized leader in the field of child and youth care for many years, and this chapter represents his most recent thinking on an essential core of knowledge for child and youth workers. As he himself observes, “this chapter introduces a developmental perspective decisively different from the child and youth field’s previous alignments with psychodynamic, behavioral, or cognitive psychological stances.”

In this foundational contribution, Maier interweaves several of the strands of lifespan developmental knowledge and ecological understanding with the experiential threads of daily child and youth care. It is characteristic of Maier’s writing (and teaching) that he is able to knit together so deftly the grand universals of human growth and development with the “minutiae,” the critically meaningful yet apparently insignificant moments, of human interaction. We encounter here the real world of messes and mistakes, of “heated disputes” and “temper tantrums,” so familiar to child and youth workers. At the same time, we are inspired to develop our creativity, our sensitivity, and to renew our commitment to “that which is valuable in human existence.”

In a companion piece on the nature of child and youth care, Gerry Fewster brings his extensive experience to bear in an intensely personal (in his words, “idiosyncratic”), yet broadly applicable, exploration of the worker-child relationship. As he vividly illustrates, this particular relationship becomes a unique crucible of growth and development for both parties. Fewster suggests that “the personalized relationship continues to be the greatest challenge in professional child and youth care” and, in so doing, reveals the reason why so many of us become hooked on child care, even if we only stumbled in to it “by accident,” or began by thinking “it’s just a job.”

Only through relationships can we really come to know who we are and what we are to do with our lives, and for us, as child and youth workers, we oftentimes discover the most important parts of ourselves in what Fewster refers to as the “mystery” of our interactions with children. He reminds us that to be truly professional, at least in our profession, is also to be intensely personal. Perhaps more importantly, he offers us practical ways, through introducing us to “presence,” “making judgements,” “role-taking,” “keeping things clear,” and “establishing boundaries,” to make this ideal into a reality.

These two pieces, by Maier and Fewster, set the tone for all those that follow. To quote Fewster himself:

The words that express these thoughts come easily.
The actions that the thoughts imply demand courage, commitment, creativity, and, most of all, discipline.

Note

© 1990 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

1
A Developmental Perspective for Child and Youth Care Work

Henry W. Maier

Henry W. Maier, Professor Emeritus, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195.

ABSTRACT. Child and youth care work is presented within a developmental perspective. Spelled out are a wide range of care activities, reflecting grounded (empirical) research and conceptualized by an ecological lifespan orientation. Such an approach is acknowledged as decisively different from the care fields’ previous alignments and is seen as the most appropriate scientific source for child and youth care work.

Care work is very much akin to the subject matter in the discipline of child development, more correctly designated as human development. Human developmental knowledge emerges out of studies of the interpersonal and ecological life experience of children and adolescents, especially growth and development within family and communal matrices. Care work with children or youth requires an intense interpersonal involvement at whatever level of development a child or youth is operating. Consequently, human development knowledge can provide a solid backdrop for care workers engaged in revitalizing children’s and adolescents’ development (Beker & Maier, 1980; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Gilligan, 1987; Maier, 1987; VanderVen, 1986; VanderVen, Mattingly, & Morris, 1982). Simultaneously care workers respond to ongoing contextual conditions in order to assure salutary life experience.

This chapter introduces a developmental perspective decisively different from the child and youth care fields’ previous alignments with psychodynamic, behavioral, or cognitive psychological stances. Carol Gilligan cogently pointed out this factor more recently:

Two approaches currently characterize the response of professionals to… [young people’s difficulties]. One relies on the imposition of control, the effort to override a tortuous reason with behavior modification and biofeedback, to focus attention simply on physical survival by teaching skills for managing stress and regulating… [behaviors]. The other approach reaches into reason and joins the humanistic faith in the power of education with the insight of modern psychology. Positing human development as the aim of education, it turns attention to the question: What constitutes and fosters development? (Gilligan, 1987, pp. 17–18)

The perspective advocated here relies upon lifespan developmental knowledge, grounded in empirical research and buttressed by an ecological orientation as the most appropriate scientific source for child and youth care work (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981; Maier, 1979).

What is a Developmental Perspective?

Human development, especially child and adolescent development, is a universal process and at the same time, highly individualized. Studies of human development zero in on basic human functioning: the way a person grows and develops and what people do under various circumstances within their relevant environments. Development is viewed for a person’s physical, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive functioning (Ivey, 1986; Maier, 1978). Developmental change is studied and understood for the reciprocal interactions between an individual and his or her active context. Just as the context changes the individual, so the reverse is true. Human life experiences are bi-directional (Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981, p. 9). In essence, by being both a product and a producer of their contexts, individuals effect their own development (Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981, p. 3). Human development is known as orderly and empirically predictable. Although they occur over time, few changes emerge simply as the result of the passage of time; instead, changes emerge out of relevant experiences.

Studies of human development are constantly expanded by new research data enlarging or replacing previous findings (Skolnick, 1986, p. 7). Various details of knowledge about human behavior and development may, for the present, be in a state of flux. Nevertheless, what is currently known provides ample backdrop for on-the-spot certainty and actions. In fact, in the behavioral sciences, lifespan developmental psychology is presently assuming the foreground (Balter, Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980; Gilligan, 1987; Kegan, 1982, p. 298; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981; Maier, 1986; Schuster & Ashburn, 1986), superceding previous commitments to other earlier “schools” of psychology. Many of the research findings and concepts of these earlier formulations are now conceived as complementary rather than contradictory (Ivey, 1986; Izard, Kagan, & Zajonic, 1984; Maier, 1978, p. 7–10; Skolnick, 1986, p. 107). Contemporary helping orientation seems to foster a holistic approach where each person is recognized as a unique being functioning as a total entity (Maas, 1984).

It is reasonable to postulate then that no other spectrum of knowledge incorporates so closely and completely the very essence of professional child and youth care work. That is to say, a perspective which appraises what is happening in an individual’s life and how interpersonal interactions and environmental alterations can change what is happening in order that children and youth can experience integrative growth in their development toward adulthood.

Illustrative Selections of Developmental Findings Applied to Child and Youth Care

Several areas of developmental knowledge out of a vast “bin” of useful possibilities are presented to illustrate how such material can directly be applied to child and youth care work. They are: (1) attachment formation and “beginnings” early or later in life; (2) rhythmicity as the underpinning for the mutuality of personal interactions; (3) transitional objects and how they are utilized in facing of new life situations; (4) trial-and-error learning as a fundamental learning mode; and (5) personal value acquisition.

Attachment Formation – and “Beginnings” Early and Later in Life

Basic to all child care is the formation of a solid interpersonal relationship between care giver and care receiver. Studies on attachment formation are useful here as an extension of that effort (Ainsworth, M.D., 1972; Sroufe, 1978). They also amplify processes of beginnings in human interactions. Attachment has to be nurtured through direct and predictable care giving. In the process of attachment formation in the beginning of a relationship, and at moments of crises, the support of attachment striving is particularly crucial. Interestingly, the more an individual feels certain of support (attachment), the less demand there will be for reinforcement of such support (Maier, 1987, p. 121–128).

It is useful to distinguish between attachment and attachment behaviors. Attachment behavior occurs whenever a child, or in fact a person at any age, wishes to strengthen an attachment or feels the ongoing attachment in jeopardy. At that point, the individual will manifest attachment behaviors (e.g., physical or verbal contacts such as holding on, embracing, or clinging). Attachment behaviors are really efforts to maintain or increase attachment, they have to be seen and responded to as such.

Need and demand for attachment succorance is more apt to arise at points of personal stress, especially in periods of life transitions such as moves by the family. The need is particularly accentuated by a move from one environmental experience to another (e.g., change of school, homes, friendship groups, or other personal life reorientations) (Ainsworth, M.D., 1982; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Maier, 1987, pp. 22–23). In turn, attachment behaviors lessen as an individual feels more assured of the wanted attachment (Ainsworth, M.D., 1982; Sroufe, 1978).

These accounts of ordinary attachment formation speak to professional child and youth care work where nurturing care enhances the possibility for attachment to the care worker. This is a fundamental for effective work and is a stepping stone in “permanency planning.” Workers will need to welcome and actively support attachment strivings, hoping to normalize attachment behavior (Ainsworth, M.D., 1982; Maier, 1987, Ch. 5).

Rhythmicity as the Underpinning for the Mutuality of Personal Interactions

Recently, novel and prominent research at a large number of developmental study projects have concluded that both care givers and care receivers experience challenging mutual interactions of giving and taking, of coping together and apart, in an interweaving of rhythms (Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). This potent force found in joint rhythmicity seems to enhance the very energy which links people together. It can bring about a symphony of human actions with a joint rhythm and fine tuning one to another (Maier, 1987, pp. 46–48).

With this concept in mind, the worker may attempt in the daily care tasks to energize a joint rhythm with each child and the group-as-a-whole in order to assure full engagement as a symphonic totality. Recognizing the developmental components of rhythmicity may encourage workers to search out activities and play with built-in rhythmic interactions. Rhythms in music, song and dance, push-and-pull playful activities, the rhythmic exchange in throwing a frisbee, ball or pillow, waving goodbye or exchanging solid handshakes have a strong potential for bringing about sensations of spontaneous togetherness (Maier, 1987, Ch. 1).

The Use of Transitional Objects for Facing New Life Situations

Studies describing the use of transitional objects (Maier, 1987, pp. 57–58) in crucial experiences requiring change in the childhood period, can cast light on the essence of making transitions later in life when a change to a new situation seems overwhelming for an individual (e.g., being with an unaccustomed care giver, having a room change, or whatever) (Maier, 1987, pp. 57–58). A “transitional object,” as the blanket for Linus in the Peanuts cartoon, can give a person the extra symbolic assurance needed to ease the adaptation.

Workers can utilize such understanding and assist youngsters to manage severely uncertain conditions, whether momentary or long-term transitions. By supporting and incorporating the individuals’ very special objects, the worker recognizes that these items serve as linkage to previous places, people, and memories of good as well as tough times. These items, possibly a scrap of paper, a piece of clothing, a picture, or remnant of a once stuffed animal might be clutched closely, slept with, etc. The transition objects may be worn out, possibly smelly or sometimes bizarre; but they are essential to the owners and are a source of strength. In addition, care workers themselves must plan to be on hand and available as vital and tangible links in transition.

Trial-and-Error Learning as a Fundamental Learning Mode

Developmental knowledge offers rich possibilities for understanding mastery of incremental and novel experiences. Progressive trial-and-error learning is the basic cognitive mode in infancy and childhood, and on occasions of substantial new learning later on in life. This developmental fact establishes that new learning has to be first concrete, visual, and open for experiment. Initial learning must follow the cognitive process of trying out where individuals see for themselves how something works or what it means. Above all, the person needs latitude to err without that being regarded as a devastating mark of failure but as a consequential step toward learning (Maier, 1978, pp. 36, 156 & 244).

With such understanding, care workers are challenged to foster and to invent situations so that what must be learned can be tried out, experimented with, to provide those opportunities where new behaviors or understanding can be attempted, failed, and tried again. Eventually the young people themselves may experience these tasks as manageable and safe. At this point, learning takes place and is eventually integrated. Actual learning rather than temporary compliance has the potential to occur with this model (Maier, 1987, Ch. 3). For instance, to learn “to wait for one’s turn” can be acquired in specially created situations where youngsters can play out their capacity to wait. Later such playful give-and-take can be built-in into more and more daily life situations of waiting. Children can be playfully engaged in getting their “proper” turns in receiving their treats while being assured that no one is to be left out (Maier, 1987, Ch. 6).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• SECTION 1: THE NATURE OF CHILD AND YOUTH CARE
• SECTION 2: THERAPEUTIC PROGRAM ISSUES
• SECTION 3: KEY SUPPORT FUNCTIONS IN CHILD AND YOUTH CARE PROGRAMS
• SECTION 4: DEVELOPING PROFESSIONALISM
• SECTION 5: CURRENT ISSUES IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING
• SECTION 6: THE CHANGING WORK ENVIRONMENT AND NEW ROLES FOR CHILD AND YOUTH WORKERS
• Index