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Since it's founding in 1997, the CYC-Net discussion group has been asked thousands of questions. These questions often generate many replies from people in all spheres of the Child and Youth Care profession and contain personal experiences, viewpoints, as well as recommended resources.
Below are some of the threads of discussions on varying Child and Youth Care related topics.
Questions and Responses have been reproduced verbatim.
Listen to thisLooking back on recent postings ... Peter asked
about home visits having to be "earned" by having enough points. This idea
has really worried me because it appears to contradict basic integrity in
the relationship as well as the ethics of our work? If a program is willing
to grant a home visit, then clearly they have no basic objection to the
visit. To then withhold the visit (which is surely a key element in the
whole treatment plan) on the grounds of insufficient points, seems
manipulative and vindictive. That's my personal reaction – maybe someone can
explain.
Mike
...
I am not sure that there is an explanation other than justification for
being manipulative and vindictive. Why should kids have to earn treatment?
Peter
...
Just a few thoughts on the subject an as ex- care worker at Boys Town South
Africa. For the majority of boys at a Boys' Town there will be no doubt that
their interest will be best served by efforts to sustain or create links
with their natural families. Contact in the form of personal meeting is
generally the most common for both families and children and the most
satisfactory. Furthermore, contact reassures the child that he has not been
rejected at separation which helps him feel to secure within his placement.
The underlying ethos is that if the child sees his parents regularly, he
will have an increased understanding of why he cannot live at home, which
helps to minimize fears of rejection. This participation of the parents is
actively encouraged at a Boys' Town. The exchange of photographs, letters
and gifts between the family and child is a useful way to keep memories for
the child. However, what is more important is to find a way of helping the
child and the parent in more real relationships with each other. Maintaining
links with the family and family reconstruction work has become an important
aspect at a Boys' Town. Placement at a Boys' Town is seen as a necessary and
effective way to treat both family and the child, so as to restore family
function so that the child can return to the natural parents. Frequently
when a child is admitted to a residential programme, the referral agency and
its social worker exclude the family members from continued involvement with
the child. The basic value-laden assumption is that the family and parents
in particular must have failed, or are inadequate as parents because their
child is in institutional care. Home visits must be seen in terms of the
child's integrated treatment plan which considers the following:
a] to minimize the alienation of family members whose child has required
admission.
b] to include family members as equal partners in the treatment process.
c] to empower and encourage the family to learn effective ways of meeting
their responsible towards their child.
Finally, family visitation at a Boys Town is not seen as a privilege but as
a non negotiable right.
Tom
...
We have parents that totally reinforce our program, which is based on
points. If the youth is not getting the points based upon their behavior and
participation in the program then the parents don't want them home. It is
their wish to see the youth working in the program and generally when the
youth sees the home visit as a reward for hard work they tend to buckle down
and participate in the program in the week leading up to the visit and they
see success. From experience this success carries through into the home
visit as well and the interactions of the family seem more positive than if
they were to go home on a lower level with behavior exhibiting that level.
Neil
...
I clearly disagree with point systems. I worked in a group home once that
did point systems. I would not do this and one time I nearly got fired. But
what I found (not purely based on point system) is that the kids trusted me
more, I did not hold points over their head. And I am not saying that is
what your program does, but the workers at the program I was at seemed to do
that. I read an article on the CYC-NET website about point systems, the
article was called" The Case Against Point Systems and Grading in Behavior
Programmes"...I am not sure but I think it was written by Karen VanderVen. I
also agree with Mike on the home visit issue.
Jennifer
...
In Scotland, it would not be possible to restrict home visits as a result of
any reward system etc. – national standards and inspection systems ensure
that this is not permitted. Home visiting is vital to the care plan of any
child or young person in residential care, unless this is specifically
proscribed because of risk. In addition, abuse scandals within residential
care have been associated with enclosed environments, in which the outside
contacts the child has have been limited. Home visiting has a protective
function for the child in such situations. Limiting home visiting for any
reason other than the protection of a child from an abusive home is a
dangerous practice.
Meg T
...
The whole idea of earning points to visit your own family is one of the
reason I feel residential programs should be shut down (not all) . I find it
difficult with the knowledge we now have that awarding visits due to good
behavior is still even considered. Residential programs and residential
staff need to make some serious paradigm shifts when it comes to working
with families. I think programs should be looking at how to use parents in
their programs on a daily basis that allows parents to make decisions for
their own kids and the type of program that best suits their needs. Please
don't read into this note as residential bashing, there are many excellent
residential programs out there that encompass the whole but I do have
concerns when I hear of these types of treatment modalities.
Jon
...
Here's a thought to ponder when it comes to "home visits" Just a change in
mindset from a child being considered a visitor when they come home. Is it
not instilling a further sense of institutionalisation, if the child is
considered a "guest" on a "visit" when they come home, or should we not just
say they are simply living at home for those two days (or whatever the time
frame). As far as earning that right (to live at home for a short period of
time), I find it very hard to maintain the parent's commitment to involving
themselves in the treatment of their child. If we only send them home when
they are doing well, how do we help the parents practice dealing with them
when they are not doing so well. It would seem that we would be providing
them more of a service if we were to send them home during the trying times
and offer all kinds of support to help them get through it. I have seen
cases where the child going home was dependent on their behaviour and see an
increase in negative before the visit in order to get out of going
(especially when there was fun activities planned on the weekend, or if
their motivation was not high to go home in the first place).
Curtis
...
I agree with all – treatment shouldn't be earned (right on, Peter), home
visits shouldn't be dependent on having enough "points", and point systems
are.... well, Jennifer mentioned my article. There are a few more too – let
me know anyone if you want the references.
Karen
...
Hi Mike, I can see how earning points for a home visit could be seen as a
means of incentive; however, what if this goal is unmeasurable to the
client? I personally do not believe in withholding a visit from a client – imagine how you would react if your visit was cancelled due to poor
behavior. (Sometimes the visit is the only thing they look forward to.) I'm
sure this "intervention" may appear in some policies but not all. In this
home I worked in, a client's home visit was shortened on one occasion and
another cancelled. I had mixed feelings on this as the whole point of this
client being in care was to eventually return home. What I did see between
the other staff and the client was a constant power struggle – I mean this
child had a hard time following any directions and when redirected, he would
explode. Knowing this and seeing how desperate the staff were to give him a
consequence I began to feel this intense power struggle and this was a means
to end it and send a message to the child as to who was boss. I know you
were looking for a contrast reply but I totally agree with your points!
Stephen
...
As a director of a facility that has a point system for home visits, it has
been interesting reading all of the responses about the subject. We work
with older teenage boys and in most areas of the program we are focused on
building successes wherever we can get them. Earning a home pass is just
another success that a resident will experience twice a month. Rarely will a
resident fail to earn his home pass points. The system is measurable and the
points are graphed everyday so there is never a question where a resident
is. Points are earned for doing normal things that we all take for granted,
but may not be so for the residents. Getting up on time, brushing teeth,
washing hands before a meal, eating a meal, doing chores, getting to bed on
time, etc., are all point getters. The system is important in motivating a
behavior that can become a habit for the future. We do have demerits;
however, we try to handle any problems outside of the home pass point
system. And we always offer opportunities to earn extra points with extra
duty. If a resident wants to go home, he can. However, there are times when
a youth will not want to go home and we are not aware of his feelings. He
will self-destruct and fail to get his points so he will not be allowed to
go home. But this action is often healthy. It gives us a springboard for
counseling, which under these circumstances often yields good results. We
are able to find out home problems that we never knew existed and be able to
help the young man learn ways to deal with his problems without missing his
home visit. As with any approach to working with youth, the system is not as
important as the child care workers that enforce the system. When a child
care worker looks at a point system as a way to help youth achieve
successes, that worker will be looking for ways to reward youth. But if a
child care worker looks at a point system as a way to exert power on a youth
to get him/her to do what he/she is told, it will ultimately fail. If you
love the kids, most systems seem to work. If you don't love the kids, I
don't have any idea what system will work.
Brian M
...
In this discussion on `earning points to go home', Peter raised the
question, "Why should kids have to earn treatment?" I think this question
raises the discussion to a broader level than just ‘going home’. I wonder
how many other ways there are in which we require `good behaviour' from
young people in order for them to access the very things they need in order
to overcome some of the issues and struggles in their life? What about the
young person who could benefit from learning a particular skill, but is not
allowed to join the activity (e.g., basketball), or go to the course (e.g.,
music lessons), until she `behaves'? What about the young person who is
excluded from community participation because she or he doesn't know how to
behave in the community'? What about the young person who is not allowed to
continue with an academic activity at which he or she does well, because of
poor behaviour in another area of the school? Or what about the young person
who is expelled from a social skills group because of poor interpersonal
skills? And how does this fit with the Child and Youth Care goal of helping
young people to learn to live their live differently, in the areas of their
life in which they experience difficulty? What happened to teaching? It
seems to me there are numerous ways in which we exclude young people from
many of the areas in which they are, or could be, successful because of
their problems with behaviour. Usually the justification for these actions
is something like, 'she/he has to learn'. I would be curious about other
peoples thoughts about this process of `taking away things therapeutic' in
the name of treatment. And why we choose this approach.
Thom
...
Responding to Thom: Although I am involved in a program that revolves
little about "taking away" for therapeutic purposes I am wondering about the
value, if any, in the approach. I also need to understand my reaction to
such an intervention for treatment before I can manage it properly. As a
youth care worker if I do not try to be great at my profession I can be
fired. (Job taken away). As an "abusive" parent I can have my child "taken"
away. As someone who speeds in my car (very rarely :0))I can have my licence
taken away. The tornado that rips through my town can take away lives and
property and dreams. "Taking Away" is part of life as is "Giving". Why do I
not have things taken away? Well my care givers didn't have a point system,
I wasn't spanked, I experienced a healthy amount of "guilt and shame", I was
nagged to death, I was loved even though it didn't seem fair sometimes in
what it looked like. I am not a fan of eliminating ways to love anyone.
Having said that we don't have a phase or point system (anymore). When
children and youth leave our programs that have a point system lets hope
they go into a program or home that has a point system because what happens
if things are not so clear? Or love is defined/expressed differently?
Lorraine Fox rings in my ears when she said to us "give the kids something
they can really take with them when they leave". "Behaviour", I believe, is
neither good or bad it is just behavior. How I internalize the behavior of
others creates the reaction. My gratitude for the gift of the experience of
the behaviour will create my approach. Learning and experiencing "Giving and
Taking away" will occur for children and us whether it be in a program or
not. Utilizing either for treatment for purposes of creating change is a
position of privilege and power and responsibility. Experiencing your own
program is often fun to do. Stay a night or two or a week to find the value
in your treatment and approach. Experience yourself?
Ernie
...
What I have missed in this very interesting discussion on "points" are some
crucial developmental considerations. One is the generalised application
within a program of a behavioural/points model across the whole client
population without some clear discrimination being made between those who
may benefit from such a model and those who might have moved beyond the need
for the model. Any externally mediated system of stimulus, motivation,
punishment and reward, must inevitably be moving towards a youth's
self-determination and internal locus of control. I can understand the use
of "unusual" approaches to engage with a particularly unsocialised,
barricaded or destructive kid. But the questions which now arise are:
(a) how do you define the point at which the unusual approach must give way
to a more normative approach, and hence,
(b) how can a whole program be run on external control approaches rather
than being strictly confined to individual kids' plans?
BG
...
I am the program supervisor of a small 18 bed treatment center for
adolescent male offenders. We are a very short term program, 4 to 6 months.
We provide family therapy and other family oriented services which all
families are expected to participate at some level. The bottom line is that
a home visit is a treatment issue not a privilege that a youth can earn. Yes
they do need to demonstrate the ability to be safe and legal in the
community so all first time home visits are house arrest home visits and are
determined some what on program behavioral expectations. You can not earn or
lose home visits. they are arranged based on specific treatment issues. We
find this much more productive and alleviates the anxiety that comes with
earning a home visit. Years ago kids could earn a home visit but then they
could lose it the day before they were to leave also. If a home visit is not
tied to treatment and objectives and goals associated with treatment I
believe a great opportunity is lost. Also it brings the family into
treatment. Every home visit has a parent youth contract which has both
privileges and responsibilities built in along with a means for obtaining
feedback from both the parents and youth. Over 70 % of our families are
involved in family work and having the home visit as a part of treatment has
had very positive results.
Larry
...
I am struck by several points (no pun intended) that Brian M made.
1) If, in fact, the home visit "points" are so easy to earn, why have them
in the first place. Just how many hoops do we need to have our kids go
through?
2) I would want to know what the program is doing to help the child use
his/her voice in order to express feelings and thoughts about home visits as
opposed to creating a system by which the child feels they need to
"self-destruct" in order to not go just because he has the points to do so.
This is a common error with level systems. Often the youth does not want the
privilege associated with the level they are at so they feel a need to
exhibit behavior which will drop them a level and therefore remove the
reward which they never wanted.
3) In regard to the system creating habits for future functioning ... Where
will the child be going to where there will be such a clear and complex
system of points and levels. Most of our families will be unable to
duplicate such a system at home and the real world is never quite that clear
cut. When we create point systems in our facilities, aren't we just training
the youth to excel within the program with no connection to the outside
world. I would like to know what the program is doing to help the parents
ensure that the child gets up on time, brushes his teeth, washes his hands,
etc...
4) And with all due respect... I do not feel as though the degree of love
one has for a child is in any way an indicator as to how well someone will
use or misuse a point system. Some of the worse staff out there are ones who
truly believe that all a child needs is love.
Peter
...
BG raised his concern about "... the generalised application within a
program of a behavioural/points model across the whole client population
without some clear discrimination being made between those who may benefit
from such a model and those who might have moved beyond the need for the
model." Are you suggesting that this is where we should begin with all
children? Start with points and phases and then go beyond it?
Karla
...
Replying to Karla who asked whether "points and phases" is where we should
begin with all children.
This IS where we start with all children in normal families. With little
kids we do bargain, cajole, reward, threaten ... but by the time most kids
are five or six they have already moved to what Kohlberg called the second
stage of moral reasoning. That is, instead of complying to avoid our wrath
or to respond to our external control, they comply because they value us and
our approval. They reach a level of interpersonal identification and trust
which they value.
Our problem is that most of the kids we work with have not experienced
trustworthiness, consistency and reliability from the adults in their lives.
So they are often not amenable at an interpersonal level and we find that we
have to re-do some of the wheeling and dealing which parents do with "the
terrible twos" or threes of fours. So for such kids we may well have to
begin with: "If you want to go to the movies on Saturday you have to earn
that by ... (make your own shopping list here)." What we are doing here (and
this is crucial) is realising that we need to "lend some ego skills and
strengths" to kids who don't have enough of their own, while we are busy
working with them on the (re)building of their ego. This means reflecting
and acknowledging and building their sense of worth as individual people ...
to put this another way, building a relationship in which they feel
significant ... so that they "buy into" our socialisation role because they
value us and our approval. They reach a level of interpersonal
identification and trust which they value. They get to Kohlberg level 2.
But then we have to stop the points and levels thing. Developmentally we
have been busy moving their locus of control from the external towards the
internal. By the end of adolescence they should be well into Kohlberg's
Level 3 in which they operate within their own tried and tested set of
values – this is the task of adolescence. This is the preparation they must
do for young adulthood, the time of risk and commitment.
This is what I meant when I said that I missed some developmental aspects of
this discussion on "points and levels". An essential task of Child and Youth Care workers is to work out where the new kid is developmentally, what
perceptions and strengths he or she has for autonomous function and
responsible behaviour ... and to plan what we must do as the next sensible
thing in building this. Often this may a temporary and "unusual"
intervention. We need to be careful about trying to build the third storey
of a building before we are confident about the first and second storeys. We
may have to go back and re-build the first or second story. (This is what I
meant when I said that I understood the use of "unusual" approaches to
engage with a particularly unsocialised, barricaded or destructive kid.) The
central act of Child and Youth Care work, namely building the relationship,
is precisely our attempt to help a youngster move from Kohlberg's level 1 to
level 2: to reach a level of interpersonal awareness, trust and sensitivity,
to negotiate the "latency age" work of working with trusted adults in
building their own world view and personal set of values with which to enter
their (delayed) adolescence and then adulthood.
BG
...
Asked to clarify my previous point: What I meant was that when children have
not had the opportunity to engage in the whole developmental journey through
their involvement with satisfactory parent figures, we often have to "go
back" and re-do some of that work with them when they are older. We are
familiar, for example, with children who have had poor attachment
experiences in infancy, and with whom we may have to build basic trust with
"attachment repair work" when they are ten or sixteen! Such reassurance and
bonding work will seem "unusual" between a care worker and an adolescent,
but is no less essential for that. Paradoxically, we establish close bonds
of trust so that the youngster can "leave us" more safely. It is often said
that to achieve a good independence a kid needs first to have achieved a
good dependence.
So with a youngster who, for similar reasons, has made no progress in socialisation, in experiencing the give-and-take of inter-personal relationships and responsibility, it may be necessary to establish this by "unusual" means. One such method might be a "points" system. Paradoxically, this aims at getting the kid to take internal responsibility for hisdecisions by imposing external demands and conditions. In fact, there is not much difference between points systems and logical consequences – so long as the process is intended to help with development and to teach internal control. You say that in your program no-one ever gets off the points system. I would say that such a system is not helping development but is simply maintaining external control. It's like forcing a child with a broken leg to use crutches for the rest of his life. The crutches are "unusual" but are only used to help the child to walk unassisted again. And the use of crutches is specific to one particular child and his treatment; to make all children walk with crutches all the time is ridiculous. So with a "points" system.
In teams I worked with we never used a "points" system which limited a
child, which reduced his standing or prevented him from participating in
anything. We occasionally used "points" (for dry nights) privately with
enuretic kids with whom we had tried everything else – but these were
celebratory, achievement-based points, not the same thing we are discussing
here.
BG
