Listen to thisChild and Youth Care Practitioners work with children and youth. OK. Profound insight, I know. But I think it is worth explicitly pointing this out to draw attention to what isn’t in the name. Although equally important in our work, what isn’t in the name “Child and Youth Care Practitioner” is the word “family” even though we undoubtedly work with the families of all children and youth we engage with.
Perhaps you are thinking, “but I work in a group care setting with young people whose plan is not to return to family and, other than reports and case histories, I never hear from or about family members of the young people I support.” The thing about family is, whether we meet and work with them directly or not, they are “ever present” (Freeman, Fulcher, Garfat, Gharabaghi, 2018, p. 31). Young people take their family with them wherever they go. As Lyn Dimitoff asserts, a child’s family is the most influential system that they develop within. A child learns and internalizes family roles, norms, patterns of communication, problem solving strategies, and ways of expressing emotion from their family (Dimitoff, 2000).
Perhaps a young person you are working with believes that he shouldn’t need to learn cooking as a life skill because, in his home, cooking was exclusively his mother and sister’s role. Maybe a young person you are supporting to develop a healthy morning routine becomes dysregulated when the program you work in won’t support cheeseburgers for breakfast (a bit outside of expected morning foods, but a weekend staple in her home). Maybe you value clear, direct communication, but your new key kid uses few words, subtle nonverbal cues, and grunts/ sighs when engaging with you because this is the way they and their biological parents communicated with one another. Maybe you’re hyper focused on extinguishing the gratuitous use of curse words by a young person who often relies on these words to heartedly express their emotions because that was how they had emotional expression role modeled in their family system. All these behaviours have the potential to be viewed as problems in need of addressing by a Child and Youth Care Practitioner who is experiencing them through the lens of their own family experience (because we take our family everywhere with us too!). But are they inherently problematic? Maybe. Perhaps, though, they are values, rules and patterns that are merely different from our experiences in our own families.
We also carry ethical responsibilities, as outlined by the CYCCB (2017) to “recognize and prevent stereotyping ...”, and to “support children, youth, and families in developing cultural competence and an appreciation for diversity.” Things are getting a little more complicated, aren’t they? Being Family Oriented can quickly become a complex journey.
We bring our own family experience to the relationships we share with families. Families bring their own experience of professionals like us to the relationships they share with us (Garfat, Charles, 2004). Practicing with a family orientation can be like putting on a pair of glasses. When we view those with whom we work with through the lens of family (their family and our own), things become sharper, like the different greens and layered textures of the leaves of a tree when those of us who need them throw our glasses on during a hike. What we interpreted as anger might become excitement. What we had perceived as disrespect, an expression of feeling safe. If we fail to put our own perspective in the context of our family experience, or if we fail to consider the behaviour, attitudes, and beliefs of young people within the context of their family experience, then the support we offer is not aligned with a Child and Youth Care approach.
The following story highlights some of the complexities tied to working with a family orientation and the ways we can have our own family experiences show up in practice and challenge our relational engagement with the young people we support. It illustrates how our values can guide our interventions, and how the attitudes and socialization processes in our own families might impact the ways in which we problematize the behaviour of young people. Being Family Oriented can help us to recognize that just because something a young person does or says makes us uncomfortable, doesn’t determine whether it is harmful.
***
Pass the Fucking Butter
“There’s corn, broccoli and carrots for veggies, Jared. Try a few of at least two of them tonight,” I reminded Jared as I started scooping some of the vegetables onto my plate. I hated carrots, but on the plate they went. You know. Role-modeling and such.
“Mm,” Jared responded without looking away from the mashed potatoes he was loading up on. He moved around the table and grabbed some light and dark meat from the chicken we had roasted. He took his seat, surveyed the vegetables with feigned interest, left them where they were, and started in on his mashed potatoes.
I took note but didn’t address it. June and I were working the floor together again, and I looked over to see her laser focus on Jared’s plate. She took her eyes off his plate and caught mine. I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head as if to say, “we can’t force feed him.”
Vegetables were a focus of our interventions with Jared. He was a classic chicken nuggets and butter-noodle kid when he first moved into the program. Honestly, the fact he had chosen the potatoes and unprocessed mound of chicken that he had was real progress. He used to be underweight back when he moved in, but the doctor said he was pretty much on the other side of that after a year with us. There were also some immunity concerns flagged in the bloodwork from Jared’s intake appointment, so the doctor referred us to a specialist and a nutritionist who offered an immuno-strengthening meal plan. It was a good plan. Lots of options, plainly laid out, lots of colors and pictures of the food spread out on fancy plates. She never did ask to meet Jared before she gave it to us, though.
Anyway, there we sat, working the meal plan, eating in mostly silence. Jared, Mia, and Isaiah eventually broke the quiet, and started to chat a bit about a new Eminem album that had just come out.
“You know,” Isaiah started, “we could all split on a stack of blank CDs and burn the album on to them. My mom gave it to me on my last visit. We could sell them at school for, like, 2 bucks each.”
“You could probably get five a piece,” Jared offered. He wasn’t at the high school with Isaiah and Mia, but he apparently had recognized a chance to impose himself on the deal. “Especially if we printed off the cover art. We could make a bunch of copies, cut ‘em to fit the case. That would look like it was worth 5 bucks. I could do that.”
“Yeah!” Mia cut in. “And I could sell them in the smoking section at school. Everybody comes to me and Carrie to get loose smokes from her anyway,” Mia said, highlighting her value to the partnership.
The three young people at the table stopped talking and looked from one to the other with quiet, subtle grins. I kept my eyes down on my plate and hid the smile that was pulling at my lips. I had to admire the plan. They weren’t wrong. And they had each found a role in a neat little team effort. It would probably be a profitable venture. Illegal, of course, but profitable, nonetheless.
June interjected, “How are you going to burn them? I hope you aren’t thinking of using the house computer.”
“It has a burner,” Jared stated plainly, looking at June.
“Not for illegal use.”
“Staff burn CDs. We listen to them in the van.”
I jumped into the conversation to head things off. “Shania Twain would probably agree with you, Jared. She’d likely rather us buy her album for the van than burn our own greatest hits CD. But June is right, too. Burning music is sort of a gray area right now. But selling someone else’s music for your own profit is not. We can’t use the house computer to do what you’re talking about.”
The 2 teens and one preteen at the table looked at one another again and rolled their eyes. “Fine,” Isaiah said, “all we need is a computer to burn them on then. Easy enough.”
A brief silence fell over the table again that was punctured by a question from Mia. “What kinds of ice cream do we have for dessert?”
“Mint chocolate chip?” Jared asked.
I was about to confirm that we did indeed have mint chocolate chip ice cream in hopes that it would motivate Jared to choke down some vegetables, but I was cut off before I could begin.
“There won’t be any ice cream if you don’t try some of the vegetables,” June stated.
Jared scoffed. “The vegetables suck, June. Come on. Get me an apple and strawberries or something. I’ve been eating way more fruit lately. It’s the same thing.”
“Your plan has these vegetables on it, Jared. You need to follow the plan,” June restated the expectation. Our intervention plan was centered around the provided nutrition plan. We were sticking to the plan.
“The plan is fucking stupid, and those vegetables are trash,” Jared said poking another chunk of chicken on to his fork and shoving it in his mouth.
“OK, Jared. Out of the dining room. You can finish supper in the kitchen,” June slid her chair back and stood up.
“For what?” Jared asked threw a mouth full of chicken.
We were being intentional about addressing Jared’s gratuitous use of what might be considered creative language. Which is to say, he said fuck a lot. Half the time he wasn’t even aware he’d said it. This looked to be one of those times. The plan to address this flurry of F-words was, in large part, developed by June. She, and most of the team, were very invested in it. I was not. It was a little to Watsonian for my practice philosophy. That’s not to say I didn’t do my best to be consistent. I delivered the same message as everyone else (admittedly with less gusto). Jared did, after all, swear too much, especially for a 12-year-old. On that, we were all in agreement. It was the particulars of the interventions I had issues with. I shared as much during our last team meeting.
“Language,” was all June offered in response.
Jared made a scene of sliding his chair out from the table, huffing, puffing, and snatching his plate before stomping away. He left the dining room loudly, but without protest and headed into the kitchen.
June sat down again and went back to her plate. Isaiah and Mia ate quietly.
I stood up with my plate and headed for the kitchen. I was prepared for some pushback from June for this decision, but she didn’t look up from her plate. Perhaps she’d accepted the way my values and practice philosophy were going to show up for me within our plan. Well, maybe “accepted” was the wrong word. Perhaps “resigned” was more apt.
“That plan is fucked,” Jared said as I crossed into the dining room and sat down. I winced at the language choice but ignored it. He was out of the common room, what more was there to do? Did he have to get further and further away from anyone else in the house with each subsequent F-bomb? “If I eat fruit or vegetables, what’s the difference? Strawberries and apples have nutrients and shit, more than that fucking corn out there. And at least they fucking taste good.”
“I can hear what you’re saying even when you don’t swear, you know,” I said with a smirk.
Jared rolled his eyes, returned the smirk and we fell into a debrief chat about what had just happened.
I sat down and held the limits and expectations the team had decided on. Jared chose not to eat his vegetables, and never did get ice cream that night, but despite holding firm to our intervention plan, I couldn’t help but agree with his reasoning.
***
“And, finally, that brings us to Jared,” Hayley, the Program Manager, said as she made a tick on her list of agenda items in front of her. “How’s he doing?”
We were winding down our monthly team meeting. We had already discussed progress and plans moving forward for all the young people except Jared. I remained silent after Hayley’s question. There was no hard and fast rule, but typically, it was the key workers that spoke first when we were talking about a particular young person.
“He’s still struggling quite a bit,” June told the team.
“His school attendance has been pretty consistent the last few weeks,” I reminded June as a defense.
“Yes,” June stated. “He is going to school. I’m still concerned about his diet, though. And the disrespectful language around the house is not getting any better. It might be getting worse.”
I had to agree with June’s assessment. Jared was still refusing to eat vegetables at almost all mealtimes, and the power struggles that resulted were compounding the concerns around his creative language.
“Is the language ‘disrespectful’?” Hayley asked the room. She had a way of focusing her questions on the language we used that we might otherwise just consider a throwaway choice of words.
“Of course,” June responded. “He can’t be dropping 3 or 4 F-bombs just to state his opinion on whatever show is on TV.”
“Why not?” Hayley offered another question. It was an interesting question. For all my struggles with June’s plan and the team’s approach, we were all in agreement that Jared had to stop swearing so much.
“Why not?” June repeated to buy herself some time to think of an answer.
“Yes. Does he need to stop for us? Or for him?” Hayley had put her pen down and looked around the table.
There were a couple ticks of silence before June was back in the conversation. “For him. If he swears like this at school, or if he gets a job when he’s older, it’s not going to fly.”
“OK. Fair,” Hayley conceded. “What does the school say? You had a meeting with his teacher and administration last week. Were they concerned?”
“The language thing never came up,” June said.
“So, it’s not a problem at school,” Hayley rephrased June’s answer.
“That we know of...” June wasn’t backing down.
“So, the swearing still needs to stop.” Nods around the room met Hayley’s statement. “OK. Consensus. How’s our intervention plan on that working?”
“Not good,” I said, maybe a little too quickly. There were, again, quiet nods of agreement from the rest of the team around the table.
“OK. Thoughts on a new plan?”
Nobody offered anything and the silence hung for 10 seconds or so. Hayley looked down at her papers in front of her and flipped to the one under the top page. “We’ve got a progress meeting with Jared’s case worker in...” she ran her pen down the side of the page looking for a date, “2ish weeks. Can we all agree to be intentional in thinking about what might work between now and then? Can we discuss some tweaks to the plan at that meeting? It won’t be all of us, but June, you and I will at least be there. Any ideas from the team, make sure you communicate them with June before then. Fair?”
Another round of nods and a few thumbs up.
“E-mail. June. Intervention. Ideas.” Hayley said to herself as she wrote down notes for the minutes document. “OK. And his diet. Jared’s come a long way since he moved in, but he’s still resistant to the vegetables, and there are concerns about his physical health because of it. We have a plan from a nutritionist, but Jared’s not following it. Thoughts?
I jumped in quickly here, because I did have some thoughts on this topic. “Yeah. About vegetables. Does he have to eat vegetables? He’s suggesting fruit at almost every meal as an alternative, and to be honest, he’s not wrong when he says it’s the same thing. Fruit have just as many ‘nutrients and shit,’ to steal a phrase from Jared, as vegetables.”
A tiny grin flashed across Hayley’s face. “I don’t disagree. Team?”
“But his nutritionist's plan outlines choices of vegetables, not fruit,” June cut in. “We can’t just change it on a whim because Jared wants to.”
“Why not?” Hayley came back again with that all-important question we so often forget to think about.
“Because- It’s-” June sputtered. “She’s the professional.”
“True,” Hayley conceded again. “Have we talked to her about it? Has Jared suggested the fruit substitute to her?”
“They’ve never met,” I said.
Hayley made more notes on the minutes document. “OK. We’re almost at time for the meeting so I’m going to be directive here. Let’s contact the nutritionist and schedule a time for her to talk to Jared and see if this plan can be amended and he can still get what he needs out of it. Perhaps she would be open to a phone meeting just to speed things up. June, can you schedule that?”
“I’m off for the next two weeks,” said June.
“I’ll do it,” I interjected almost instantly. Perhaps I was becoming a little too invested in Jared. I made a mental note to reflect on that later.
“Karla. Schedule meet. Nutritionist.” Hayley said as she scribbled down notes again. “OK. We will chat about that plan in two weeks, too.” Hayley put her pen down before concluding, “I do have one more thing on Jared. I was chatting with his case worker a few days ago. As you know, he has been visiting his grandparents every second weekend for a couple of months. Jared has expressed interest in living with them permanently, and The Department is exploring this as an option. If it happens, we will need to think about the transition, and part of that will be establishing a relationship between us and the family. To start, Jared will have weekly evening visits for supper that one of us will attend with him. The grandparents are on board, and the first one can happen this Thursday.”
“Nice!” I exclaimed. “Hopefully Jared can see us and his grandparents as a team after some of these visits.”
“A consequence I had also made note of, Karla. Thank you. June, I think given you are his keyworker it makes sense that …”
“I’m on two weeks’ vacation after today,” June stated bluntly.
“Of course. You just said. Sorry, June.”
“I’m on evenings the rest of this week,” I volunteered.
Hayley surveyed me for a minute. Perhaps she was making a note of my investment in Jared just as I had. “I may need to schedule you to attend that progress meeting with the Social Worker with these extra responsibilities, Karla.”
“Sign me up,” I said.
Hayley picked her pen back up. “Karla. Family visit. Jared. Thursday. Ok, we’re all set then.”
***
All I knew about Jared’s grandparents is what I read from case notes. He used to live with them off and on before he came into care. In his file it sounded like his mother dropped him off when she was using drugs, or just couldn’t handle the responsibility that goes along with parenting a young child. When Jared talked about ‘home’ he meant his grandparents’ house. As far as I could tell from the paperwork their address hadn’t changed since Jared was born. It made sense he called it ‘home.’ It was probably the most consistent physical space he had known in his life.
I was excited after the team meeting and leading up to my Thursday evening shift, which would include the visit with Jared’s grandparents, but as we pulled into the long driveway, bordered by thick forest, my chest tightened and shortened my breathing a little bit. These people had no reason to trust me or want me anywhere near their home. They had every reason to be defensive about my presence. I was an agent of the state that had taken their only grandchild away from their only child. I took a deep breath in through my nose before letting it out slowly. They agreed to the visit, I reassured myself silently.
“You pissed off Karla?” Jared asked from the passengers’ seat.
I was a bit startled by the question. “No,” I said. “Why?”
“You breathe like that whenever the shit hits the fan at the house.”
I grinned at Jared’s vigilance. “Just a little nervous to meet your family.” No harm in being that honest, I figured. “The breathing helps.”
Jared nodded quietly in acknowledgement.
“How’re you feeling about it?” I prodded, shifting focus back to his experience. “It’s got to be a bit weird to have a staff hang out with your family at home.”
Jared shrugged. “It’s whatever. At least it’s not June taking me. She’s such a bitch.”
I looked over. We had had this conversation about the word ‘bitch’ before. “What do you mean by that? Be specific, Jared. It’s hard for people to listen to you when that’s the word you use.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Jared said as I pulled the house van into a parking spot in the driveway. “She just always got something to say. About everything.”
I was going to push him to be a little more concrete, but, truthfully, I knew what he meant. Besides, Jared jumped out of the van almost immediately and headed for the front door. I followed behind slowly.
Jared’s grandmother opened the door before he could and met him on the threshold. I was expecting an older woman with snow white hair, a flowered dress who had left her false teeth in the bathroom by accident before greeting a guest, but Jared’s grandmother didn’t match my expectations at all. Your experience, Karla, I reminded myself. She was maybe 10 years older than I was, wearing a pair of light denim shorts and a black tank top. She pulled Jared into a tight hug and kissed him on top of the head.
“Where’s Papa?” Jared asked.
“In the living room playing solitaire. Get in there, supper is almost ready,” she told him. Jared darted out of view to meet up with his grandfather.
“Karla?” The woman turned her attention to me.
“Yup,” I confirmed as I reached the porch. “And you must be Myra.”
“Right again,” she said with a wide smile that loosened my chest. “Come on in. You can wait in the living room with Jared and his grandfather, Bennie. I need about 15 minutes to finish up the gravy and we’ll be all set.”
We sat down to eat in a dining room off the kitchen. Myra called Bennie, Jared, and I in from a game of Crazy-8s. Bennie sat at one end of the rectangular, pine table, Myra to his left and Jared to his right. I sat across from him at the other end. Myra had laid out some pork chops (shake and bake), mashed potatoes and a gravy dish that was filled to the brim and pouring steam.
The three family members started grabbing pork chops and scooping potatoes when Myra jumped up. “Almost forgot!” She exclaimed and disappeared back into the kitchen. She returned with a bowl of freshly chopped and rinsed strawberries. “Fresh this morning,” she told me. “Picked them down at a friend of ours’ place.”
I didn’t respond, only gawked at the bowl of strawberries. There was nothing wrong with them, they looked delicious. I clearly hadn’t been subtle because Myra, in response, said, “I know, I know. Strawberries for supper. It’s bizarre. Bennie never did like vegetables. When we first met, he ate fried meats and whatever style potatoes was put in front of him, but nothing else. It was a battle, but now we do fruit with our meals.” Myra looked at me after explaining this and it appeared she was waiting for my judgment on the family’s choice. I felt guilty for gawking. Clearly this family had grown accustomed to having their choices filtered through the value-lens of the professionals they met from the Child Protection Department
Bennie had started in on his porkchop, clearly less concerned with my opinion than Myra, and said, “Never did get a taste for carrots, broccoli. None of that stuff.”
“Fruits,” Myra interjected again, “vegetables. What’s the difference? Vitamins are vitamins, right?” She was still looking at me, awaiting my assessment.
“They look delicious,” was all I said. “Pass them down, please.”
Jared watched me scoop a healthy serving onto my plate and smirked at me as I passed the bowl to him.
“So, Karla,” Bennie piped up. “Jared tells me he’s been going to school every day for the last month. The school won’t tell us nothin’, not an approved contact on their list yet. I wanted to ask you. He tellin’ the truth?”
I was happy to answer the question. “Every day for the last,” I paused and looked at Jared, “what, like 6 weeks now?”
“7 after tomorrow,” He agreed. I hadn’t realized Jared was tracking his own progress so closely.
“Glad to hear it,” Bennie said leaning to the right in his chair and reaching into his back pocket. He had his wallet out and pulled a $20 bill and handed it to Jared. After he’d replaced his wallet, he said, “I been tryin’ to tell Jared he needs to take school more serious. He’s gonna end up working a job like me if he ain’t careful.”
“What do you do?” I asked Bennie, realizing how little I knew about Jared’s family.
“He runs his own business,” Jared answered instead. “He cuts grass for some of the big businesses in town. He does all the jobs by himself, too.”
“Yeah, yeah. A real solo act,” Bennie said modestly. “It pays the bills, but it’s nothin’ to dream about, Jared. I told you that. It’s hard livin’. No pension, no health benefits. I’ll be working until the day before my funeral.” He looked at me, “nearly dying to barely survive, Karla.” Bennie popped some porkchop in his mouth, chewed, then said to me, “Pass me that fuckin’ butter, would ya.”
“Bennie!” Myra exclaimed.
“What?” He asked, confused by Myra’s interruption.
Myra ignored his question and turned to me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Bennie prodded. Jared was smiling into the plate in front of him.
“Your language!” Myra told him.
“Did I curse?” Bennie asked her.
“Yes! Now apologize to our guest!”
A wave of embarrassment washed over me. All our intervention planning from the last month and a half with Jared flashed through my mind and a sickening feeling bubbled up in my stomach. The strawberries with pork chops for supper, the casual curse words from Bennie coupled with his lack of awareness he had even said what he said. Jared wasn’t pathological, he was a 12-year-old kid trying to fit into the culture his family had created. We had all missed it. Even me and my self-righteous philosophy of practice. I didn’t disagree that Jared needed to change relatively benign behaviours and choices that identified him as a member of his family, I just disagreed with how we were going to make him change. Gross.
"You don’t need to apologize, Bennie. You’re at home enjoying supper. It’s not like you swore at me.”
“See, Myra. She ain’t made of sugar.” Bennie said to his wife. “And that’s what I always say to people, Karla. Relax, buddy, it’s not like I’m swearing at you.”
Myra said, “Oh shut it, Bennie,” but I noticed the tension leave her body and she gave Jared a little wink.
“Anyway, what were we talking about?” Bennie asked.
“Your business,” I said.
“Right. Like I say to Jared, he’s too smart to end up like me.”
“But Mr. Lawerence says you’re the best groundskeeper they ever signed on,” Jared protested.
“Ack,” Bennie retorted with a wave of his hand. “You can be the best shit-shoveler in town, Jared, but you’re still just shoveling shit.”
I laughed, choking a little on the bite of pork I was working through. Myra allowed herself a grin as well.
“So, look. You call me, Karla,” Bennie started again and pointed his fork at me, “anytime Jared feels like skippin‘ out at school. You got our number?”
I nodded while swallowing the food in my mouth. “My manager does, yup. And will do, Bennie.”
“Good,” he said with a quick glance over at Jared before looking back to me. “Now, you never did pass me that butter.”
***
Jared and I left around 8:30pm after dinner and a few more games of Crazy-8s. We drove in silence for the first few minutes. Eventually I said, “Well, now I know where you get your mouth from.” I hoped Jared would interpret that as the joke I intended it to be, rather than an accusation and was happy when he did.
“I know, I know,” he conceded. “But Papa never swears at people, and he only ever swears at home really.”
“You know,” I said, “I noticed the same thing about you. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you swear at anyone.”
“It’s rude,” Jared stated matter-of-factly.
A solid understanding of context, I thought.
“But if your Papa doesn’t swear outside the home, how come you do?” I asked Jared.
“Huh?” He screwed his face at me. “I don’t swear at school.”
“No. I know,” I agreed. “But you swear in the house all the time.”
“Yeah,” he said, “the house is my home, Karla.”
And that was the second time that evening my stomach bubbled with embarrassed nausea.
***
Hayley called me into her office so we could chat about the past couple weeks before the meeting with Jared’s Social Worker the next day. June was still on vacation, so it was just Hayley and me. We sat on either end of the couch in her office. She whipped out her notepad and pen, and we were off.
“So, I’ve read in the notes about Jared’s visits to his grandparents with you, but I am curious to chat about it in more detail. How’ve they been going?”
I ignored Hayley’s question. Something had been on my mind since the end of my shift after that first visit. “Did you ever meet Bennie and Myra in person before the visits with us started?”
Hayley put her pen down and gave all her attention to me. “Why do you ask?” She challenged me.
I was ready for that. “Well after meeting them, I reflected on that team meeting we had before the visits started, and some of the questions you asked us. So, I was just wondering if you had met them in person.”
A grin tugged at Hayley’s cheeks. “I had met them. Yes.”
“Thought so,” I said.
“But,” Hayley slapped her hands on top of the note pad in her lap, “I have not spent nearly as much time with them as you have. So, please, I’m curious what you think.”
“What I think about what?”
“Jared moving in with them. Our intervention planning. Anything, really.”
I thought for a moment. There were a lot of things to talk about, a lot of places I could start. Ultimately, I decided to start with what I thought was the easiest thought to operationalize. “Well,” I said. “I think we are going to need to start buying a lot more strawberries.”
References
Child and Youth Care Certification Board. (2017). Standards of Practice for North American Child and Youth Care Professionals. Child and Youth Care Certification Board – Ethics (cyccb.org)
Charles, G., Garfat, T. (2012). A guide to developing effective Child and Youth Care practice with families (2nd ed.). The CYC-Net Press.
Dimitoff, L. (2000). Values and attitudes in family work. CYC-Online , 16. https://cyc-net.org/CYC-Online /cycol-0500-family.html
Freeman, J., Fulcher, L., Garfat, T., Gharabaghi, K. (2018). Characteristics of a relational Child and Youth Care approach revisited. CYC-Online , 236, pp7-49. CYC-Online , October 2018
