A year of living dangerously: The potentials of world-wide synergy in our field

The membership of CYC-Net's daily discussion group has quadrupled in 1999.

Also, we have many hundreds of visitors to our web site and readers of this on-line magazine each month. For all that, the figures suggest that on-line Child and Youth Care workers are under-represented in our network. This line worker representation is where the growth will be in the year 2000 as we proceed with our plans to move CYC-Net beyond its present voluntary status towards a more viable and “grown-up” service to our field.

In short, the year 2000 will see CYC-Net coming of age as a significant and accessible “ideas exchange” and meeting place for Child and Youth Care people at all levels throughout the world.

The beneficiaries of CYC-Net are meant, quite simply, to be the children, youth, families and communities with whom we work, and the Child and Youth Care profession as a whole.

I wonder what the synergistic effect for these beneficiaries might be if, through CYC-Net, our profession in the year 2000 were to focus, world-wide, on an idea, a theme, an attitude “some aspect of the way we work with young people and families “so that each of us is aware every day of a common thread, a shared commitment, a connectedness, to motivate us in the work we do?

If you have a view on this, or perhaps a concrete idea to offer, send it along right now [MAIL NOW] and we will use CYC-Net's various media to discuss this over the coming weeks in preparation for 2000.

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A Thought on Synergy
The word synergy is often mistakenly understood as mere agreement, unity, a pooling of resources and skills, co-operation. These words have the soothing ring of calmness and accord. But synergy “Greek syn (together) and ergon (work) “is an altogether more complex and demanding idea. It implies the risk and effort of staying on the move within and between the opposing forces of stability and change, of engaging actively, always, with both strengths and threats, so that our course is constantly being adjusted in relation to the direction we have chosen and the realities of the real world.

In our field we are always caught between opposing forces. Some are “

the impact of personal, social and economic problems upon young people and families “and our development and application of appropriate responses
the financial inequalities and shortcomings in our societies “and our needs for personnel and resources
the policies and directives of those in authority “and our direct experience and professional values relating to clients and practice
the resistance and mistrust of clients, their families or communities “and our program resources, goals and insights

Hampden-Turner (1994) used the images of the vicious circle and the virtuous circle to draw the contrast between the immobility of rigidity (denying the facts while sticking to our beliefs) and the dynamics of engagement (openness to new experience and risking new responses to inform our practice). The former always leads to breakdown and splitting; the latter offers no more than hard work and a chance at survival and success.