Listen to thisPhilosophy, vision and mission
The success of every organisation depends heavily on the way it is
structured and managed in terms of its policy and philosophy. Today we
all need a vision. Visions are the road-maps of the mind; they are the
destinations towards which everyone is travelling. Without vision, we
must depend on others for motivation and guidance; without it, we wander
in the dark.
Organisations themselves need visions. It is essential for everyone in the organisation, from top to bottom, to share a vision of where it is headed and how it plans to get there. Visions are sometimes called mission statements. It is the responsibility of each administrator to lead others towards the organisation's vision. Your job as a leader is to help others to see the vision, to want it and to reach it. You must do this because all members of the team are needed to contribute to its success. As a leader you must be able to describe accurately the vision of your organisation in words that can be understood and passed on to others: your organisation is strong when all team members strive for a common goal.
Role management
A primary task of the administrator is to manage the various roles of
team members. With a thorough understanding of what each role
contributes (potentials, skills, specialisations), and of the
differences between roles, the administrator promotes effective and
professional team functioning.
Administrator's role
Child
care administrators (directors, department heads, supervisors, etc.) are
generally seen to be middle managers, people who concern themselves with
policy decisions, resource development, programme formulation, planning
and maintenance of organisational systems, as well as with middle
management functions such as negotiation, advocacy, reporting and
recommending.
Child care workers' roles
The quality of child care practice is the mainstay of any child care
organisation. Whereas child care administrators provide overall
organisational management, child care workers provide the direct,
specialised service in the management of the children's development and
treatment programmes. While the child is resident, the child care worker
assumes the role of 'significant adult', ensuring that the physical,
social, cognitive and spiritual needs of the child are met. Theirs is a
professional role. They work with difficult children and youth. They
have great responsibility and accountability to the children, the
parents and the community. They are under tremendous pressure to be
successful life space practitioners and good role models. They are
certainly not 'glorified nannies' or housekeepers waiting the in
background to make tea and sandwiches for visitors!
Interdependent roles, shared tasks
Despite their different roles, administrators and workers are
interdependent. Child care workers have to do their jobs according to
the mission statement and their stated roles and tasks. But they cannot
do this unless they are provided with the tools of their trade, with
information, and with support. The administrator provides the budget,
the facilities and the programme in return for performance and
cost-effectiveness. In fact, the more these tasks are shared and
mutually agreed and understood, the more efficient is the organisation.
Unfortunately, with most organisations, budgets are drawn up (often on a
simplistic basis such as a percentage increase on last year's costs) by
people far removed from the direct work with the children and families.
Child care workers would have much to contribute to the budgeting
process, with their hands-on experience and their front-line
responsibility. Certainly in residential child care facilities,
budgeting is not a purely economic process, but integral to the
weighting, valuing and emphasis of direct programmes. (See the box “Iron
hearted" at the bottom of this page.)
Administrators, your Child and Youth Care workers
are skilled and interested: involve them to the advantage of all
concerned, the organisation and the children. Child care workers also
have clear expectations of you, the administrators. Try to hear these,
and make it possible for them to express them. Often workers feel that
managers have no understanding of the demands of the job on the ground.
For example, “Take this child to the hospital" is not just a single,
simple task. The transport arrangements, the time spent waiting with the
child and collecting medicines, the ripple effects on the duties and
timetable of colleagues back home, relief staff arrangements ... these
are all things which we expect the administrator to understand and help
with.
Staff development: The L.E.A.R.N. principles
We child care workers would like to be managed in terms of the five
'LEARN' principles: Leadership, Expectations, Acting as though you care,
Respecting employees as professionals, and Never stifling personal
growth
Leadership
Leadership includes leading by example, and by teaching staff to think
for themselves. A manager who is inefficient lowers all standards of
excellence and creates mediocrity in both organisation and staff.
Employees respect excellence and efficiency – which includes being
competent, skilful, capable and productive. Efficiency not only saves
time; it makes more time to satisfy the other levels of employee
satisfaction. Good leaders don't order subordinates around; they build a
positive climate of responsible decision-making and responsibility
throughout the organisation. Instead of saying “Do this" or “Do that",
rather ask 'What do you think! Try it and let's see how that works."
Over time both staff and children treated this way will learn to think
for themselves, to ask questions, to examine alternatives and learn yet
more from their experience.
Expectations
Knowing what you expect from them gives most people a desire to
contribute. Show them the finish line. Not knowing where this is makes
many people unfocussed and ineffective. More, let them know the value of
their contribution. Can you expect them to put out a high level of
productivity if they do not feel involved in determining and planning
towards the end result? Allow your child care workers to participate in
setting expectations. When they learn to ask questions like “What do we
need to happen here?", “What do we have to do to reach that goal?" and “How well did we do?" you know you are building motivated and satisfied
child care workers. Rewrite job descriptions, rearrange work flows, give
more responsibility for problem solving, and provide recognition for
work well done. Loosen up and liberate the potential of your child care
workers, and you will be rewarded with higher morale and productivity.
Act as though you care
When employees feel that they come first with their managers, the
children will feel that they come first with their caregivers. It is
much easier to give when you are receiving. Get people involved and
listen to them; there is no better way to make them fed that they
belong. When employees are not asked for their opinion (or worse, when
they are asked and then not taken seriously) they become disconnected
from the vision. They don't participate in the future of the
organisation. Keep staff informed, so that they always know what is
going on. Without this they won't know of the organisation's progress,
and they won't know how to help. Worse, they will feel left out and
disempowered – exactly the opposite of what you want in your staff.
Respect workers as professionals
As you respect individuals for their contribution to your programme, you
create a more respectful environment We respect people by acknowledging
their field of knowledge and experience, their special skills and
achievements. Every encounter, meeting or consultation is an opportunity
for this. Respect can also be shown by upgrading the workplace. The
physical environment you create can be interpreted as a measure of your
respect for those who work there. A fresh coat of paint, more light and
interesting artwork, are always good ideas. So is asking people if there
is anything they would particularly like in making their workplace more
pleasant. Respect can best be shown by treating people as professionals.
Hire them professionally, talk to them as professionals, ask opinions as
of professionals. When you provide a professional atmosphere, employees
will act and respond accordingly.
Never stifle personal growth
A final step towards motivating staff is to create opportunities for
personal growth. Never let them feel that they are at the ceiling of
their career or profession. In those circumstances people lose personal
vision; they stagnate and languish. See in which directions they feel
like growing – it could be a direction in which your programme needs to
grow. If you spend all your energy containing people and keeping them
from growing, you have spent all your energy. The exciting thing is that
when your staff grow and your organisation grows, you have to grow. When
you create growth for others, you create it for yourself too. So when
you have provided the first four steps in this LEARN process, just keep
on going.
Conclusion
All of the above discussion emphasises the responsibility we share – not
only for the continuing growth and healthy functioning of the staff, but
also of our whole organisation – for the sake of the children. The
children continue to change, too. Many institutions (both administrators
and staff) are unwilling to work with new “categories" of troubled
children and young people. Most people who are not trained are fearful
of working with difficult youngsters who present with problem or “challenging" behaviour. The result is that many children remain
unhelped, kept unnecessarily long in places of safety or even in
prisons. The demands made upon the child care service in our country
today are serious enough for us to take child care teams seriously.
Listen to what they have to say about the realities of practice on the
front line.
| Iron-hearted Child care workers are most easily frustrated when administrators are seen to put the organisation ahead of its real function. Children are sometimes treated as though they are there for the sake of the institution, rather than the institution being there for the children. This scenario may sound a bit petty. In fact, it is. The clothes iron in the cottage is broken. Before it can be repaired or replaced, the child care worker has to go through a long cross-examination as to how this has happened, who broke it, how, why ... This procedure may involve two or three people in the administration and then even go to the Board and its Finance Sub-Committee. It comes all the way back to the child care worker who gets lectured on how much irons cost, being responsible and accountable if ever it breaks again, etc. All this can take weeks. In the mean time anxiety in the cottage goes sky-high – there is more conflict at peak periods, the children try to borrow the iron from the next-door cottage who are fiercely reluctant in case they have to go through the same process ... Too late! The driver has become impatient and the kombi has left for school. For the second time this week children are late for school. The headmaster punishes them and complains to the director of the children's home. Angry and embarrassed, he calls in the child care worker and the children, and there is talk of spoiling the good name of the programme. The cottage is pronounced 'unstable', and both staff and children are alarmed. Because the iron broke! |
