Expectations of experienced child care staff

Michael E. Holtby

There is a lack of clear-cut expectations regarding the skills Child and Youth Care workers should possess. This is equally problematic for supervisors who are charged with the responsibility of setting standards for their staff and having some criteria of accountability for those they supervise. With many of these expectations not explicitly stated or sufficiently specified, conflicts often arise out of the confusion.

Out of this need grew the list that follows. It is designed to be an itemization of expectations for staff who have a year’s experience or more. It may be best characterized as a goal for staff to work towards, and not a listing of minimum skills. Its usefulness should be three-fold; first, as a guideline for the staff themselves; second, as a training tool to raise the quality of child caring relationships with children; and thirdly, as a supervisory tool to evaluate staff effectiveness and assess deficient areas in work performance.

The list specifically addresses itself to relationships with children, recognizing their place of primary importance in the work of child care. It does not attempt to deal with other aspects of the work which are better delineated by the separate residential settings themselves.

Expectations of experienced staff in their relationships with children

A. Control
1. The utilization of relationship for control: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can utilize relationships with individual children to maintain control of the group. They do not rely on structural controls.

2. Use of counseling for control: The Child and Youth Care worker utilizes frequent conversations with a child. The child is often times talked with about how he is doing, both negative and positive, and about long and short term goals. In the event that the child acts out, Child and Youth Care workers can often correct the child sufficiently by simply saying, “Now Tom, you remember what we talked about.”

3. Preventative awareness: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers know where the group is and what they are doing at all times. Rarely does the question arise, “Where was the Child and Youth Care worker?”

4. Control without support: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can control a group without the support of another Child and Youth Care worker.

5. Setting expectations: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can set expectations and know the significance of doing so. For example, before the start of any and every activity the staff briefly outline the expectations or boundaries for that event.

6. Ability to individualize: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can individualize. They do not necessarily rely upon “The Rule”. They can make judgements about handling individual youngsters and stand firm against the protestations of the other children saying it’s not fair.

7. Individual consistency: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are individually consistent, not only by policy but by their personal style. The children know where they stand and how far they can be pushed, and they have little need to test.

8. Giving the “I care” message: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers have compassion. Their handling of the control situation shows concern for the child, and does not feed into the child's anger or provoke it. The message “I care” comes across.

9. Tone control and verbal delivery: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are good at using voice and approach to their best advantage. Inherent in giving the “I care” message is the projection of their voice. If a Child and Youth Care worker is sounding harsh and impersonal the message doesn’t get across, even if the words are there. Generally, the tone of a Child and Youth Care worker would project warmth and support even in rough times (and by doing so calm down the children). Experienced Child and Youth Care workers do not come across in an abrupt or curt manner with children and rarely escalate a situation by shouting or nagging.

10. Maintaining objectivity: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can maintain objectivity in most situations, they do not become upset and loose their cool. They do not over-react to the child's behaviour. Child and youth care workers are not phony by hiding feelings, but good Child and Youth Care workers are not over-burdened with strong emotions when handling children.

11. Allowing expression and recognizing feelings: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers stop to ask a child, “What is the problem?” They do not use structure entirely, like an automatic “Go to your room!” response to every problem. They allow the children to express their anger with a reasonable amount of tolerance. They can also acknowledge the child's feelings without compromising their own control. They can verbally recognize with a child that they have a reason to be angry and still help the child to appropriately handle his/her anger.

12. A balance between over and under control: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can maintain a good balance between over and under control. They are neither rigid nor marshmallow. The majority of their interactions with the children are of a positive nature. They don’t have talks with children just when they've done something wrong. On the other hand, they do not try to be “the nice guy” who is everybody’s friend.

13. Guilt inducement: Good Child and Youth Care workers do not maintain control by producing guilt reactions in a child, with the message of “Look at all I have done for you, and you let me down by doing this”.

14. Perspective: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers do not view a control situation as an isolated incident. Instead they take into account the on-going process with a child and the projected developmental rate and treatment goals.

15. Depth: Much like perspective, experienced Child and Youth Care workers view a control situation in terms of the underlying dynamics involved. They often view the incident as symptomatic of a deeper problem. They do not take the child's behaviour at its face value.

16. Focus: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers do not become pre-occupied with daily events and routine. Their goals are not directed toward clean cottage as much as a well-adjusted group of children. For this reason, they do not place undue focus on how a child makes his bed, or whether his shirt is tucked in. They are aware that much of this is simply just surface behaviour, and do not make it their paramount objective to correct the child.

17. Physical handling of children: Rarely do experienced Child and Youth Care workers have to resort to physical control. Experienced Child and Youth Care workers do not find the need to physically threaten children, or provoke a fear response from them to gain control. In instances where force is unavoidable, they use only that amount which is necessary to regain control. In these situations, the Child and Youth Care workers can remain calm, do not hesitate to take action and are not intimidated.

18. Ability to assess the group atmosphere: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can tell what the mood of the group is and respond to it appropriately. They are aware of the noise level and the quality of the noise in the living unit. They can sense when the interaction among the children is tense or potentially problematic.

B. Counselling
1. Staff vs. caseworker role: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are not caseworkers. They do not use their time with in-depth talks in the office with one child while leaving a group unsupervised. Rather they talk for short, effective periods with the children.

2. Creating a comfortable atmosphere: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers can effectively create an atmosphere in which the children feel comfortable in approaching them with their concerns. They are good listeners and respect the feelings of the children. The children feel they can come to the Child and Youth Care workers for protection, support, and ego enhancement. They enjoy talking with the Child and Youth Care workers. The Child and Youth Care worker do not lecture children or burden their talks with advice. They are aware of when they are being tuned out by the child.

3. Sensitivity to the child's needs: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are sensitive to the needs of the children. They pick up on a youngster’s feelings and discuss them. They try to encourage the child to discuss feelings but do not cross examine the child, neither do they pass judgement by saying conclusive remarks like, “You've got a bad attitude.”

4. Counseling technique: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are fairly adept at individual counseling with children. They are always asking themselves, “What is this child really saying?" They are aware of gaps and inconsistencies in what they are being told by the child, of indirect and nonverbal signals, of themes which show up in the conversation and so on. The Child and Youth Care workers have a good memory for these type of things and use this to constantly evaluate the child and their relationship and interaction.

5. Positive interaction: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers utilize every opportunity to seek out children and interact with them in positive ways. They do not wait for a child to act out before they have a talk with him/her.

6. Regulating relationships: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are able to place limitation on their relationship with children and their role is clear. The child does not become confused about the nature of the relationship. For example, an experienced Child and Youth Care worker working in a girl’s cottage rarely has to deal with overt seductiveness from the girls. What the child can expect from the Child and Youth Care worker is not vague to the child. Another example would be that a child does not ask an experienced staff to hold unrealistic confidences (like the child's plan to run away).

7. Group counseling: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers have enough confidence and ease to adequately handle group meetings, participating freely and directing when necessary. Experienced staff would not hesitate to call an impromptu meeting to settle group problems.

8. Awareness and use of diverse counseling opportunities: Experienced staff know that formally structured counseling opportunities are not the only counseling which is effective. They can utlilize certain group and individual activities for counseling purposes. They can effectively use this time to create an atmosphere in which the children can talk about things that have meaning to them, and do so without doing all the talking.

C. General interaction
1. Status management: Experienced staff are aware of the relative status of each child within their group, and are aware of how this can lead to friction and conflicts over power. They do not feed into the power structure by favouring high status youngsters, nor do they allow provocative children to be scapegoated.

2. Reaching out: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers do not wait for children to come to them but seek out children who may need their attentions the most, but cannot ask for it. They are not put off by rejections or outward statements that children do not want help.

3. Active involvement: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are actively involved with children. They participate in their sports, games, etc, and also in their assigned work around the living unit and do not simply oversee their tasks. They do not resist scrubbing a floor alongside a child if the situation indicates the need.

4. Use of projects and activities: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers know how to best use the free time of the children. They can effectively organize the group and involve them in some type of game, craft, project or physical activity. Although they do not keep the children going all the time, the children get bored or knock around with nothing to do for long periods of time.

5. Responsibility: Experienced Child and Youth Care workers are aware of the dangers of institutionalization and do not make the children overly dependent upon them by usurping responsibility from them. They allow children to make as many decisions for themselves as is possible. They actively avoid passive manoevers which make them responsible for what is rightfully the child's problem.

This feature: Holtby, Michael E. (2003). Expectations of experienced child care staff. Child and Youth Care, 21, 10. pp. 10-13.