Listen to thisAs I am enduring the seventh hour of my 11 hour flight from Cape Town to Amsterdam (to be followed by another eight hour flight from Amsterdam to Toronto), I am reflecting on my experience in South Africa; it’s still early for me to reflect on this experience since I have barely left. Over the past ten days, I had the opportunity to visit service sites and CYC-involved individuals in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. In each of these cities, I was able to visit several Children's Homes and other types of services, and in both Durban and Cape Town I had an opportunity to sit down with the leadership of South Africa’s National Association of Child Care Workers. In Cape Town, I had the enormous privilege of visiting with the individuals responsible for bringing us Child and Youth Care Net, and I even got to watch Brian Gannon sitting in front of his computer uploading the Daily Features section. Although I just left, I am already anxious to write about what I have seen, heard and sensed in this land of contrasts and painful memories for a vast majority of its people.
The legacy of apartheid is everywhere around me. I see it in the restaurants, where the patrons are white and the servers are black. I hear it in the language, where groups of people are identified as blacks, coloured or whites. If I didn’t know that blacks form the vast majority of the population here, I would have never guessed by looking at people at airports; almost everyone is white there, which aptly indicates not only who has access to physical mobility, but also who has access to social and economic mobility. And while each of the three largest cities in South Africa have beautiful places and peaceful spaces, these cities are marked much more so by their informal living spaces, the squatter homes and the abundance of individuals who appear to have no home at all. Perhaps most symbolic of the current South Africa is the issue of security; wherever there is wealth, even moderate wealth, there is barbed wire, elaborate physical barriers to access, and an abundance of security guards and other kinds of security systems.
Apartheid was without a doubt a brutal system of oppression and South Africa will be marked by it for generations. But oppression, even on a mass scale, is certainly not unique to South Africa. My current home, Canada, has its own ghosts to face with respect to the First Nations and Innu peoples. My trip to South Africa was not to explore the nuances of apartheid and its legacy, nor does a ten day journey lend itself to gaining even a modicum of appreciation for such a complex history and still unfolding psycho-social dynamic. My trip was really a beginning of exploring my profession in an entirely different context than the one I am exposed to every day. Child and youth care, as I have come to know and love it, is very much a profession at the cross roads in Canada, and I suspect in the US, Ireland and the UK as well (and perhaps elsewhere too). In all of these places, much work has been done and progress made to advance the principles of the profession and to entrench these principles in the every-day experiences of children and youth facing special challenges. And that work certainly continues as academics, policymakers and practitioners carry on their daily arguments and debates about next steps. While it is not my intention to dismiss or minimize the excellent work that has taken place already, I confess to feeling a little tired from the technocratic and often mundane tasks required to keep the profession on track and moving forward. And I also confess to being perhaps more than a little pessimistic about the prospects of Child and Youth Care to consolidate the many advances in thought, research and knowledge that have been achieved in the past couple of decades. My pessimism stems from this: I am not hearing anyone screaming; no one is fighting these days, few are protesting, nothing is said or done that causes anyone to take notice. Child and youth care in Canada just unfolds, every day and everywhere, but in so doing it carries with it the baggage of mediocrity in far too many places. Sure, practitioners have made a world of difference in the lives of countless children and youth, but as a field, much less as a profession, we have no presence. Policymakers almost never consult child and youth workers when turning their attention to the plight of children in our society. Conversely, neither Child and Youth Care practitioners nor their representative bodies have all that much to say about the politics of the day. It seems we are content, perhaps even complacent, with respect to the status quo.
This is where South Africa comes into play. Without a doubt, South Africa has not solved anything that Canada hasn’t solved. Child and youth care is facing many of the same problems here as it does in Canada and probably most other places around the world. And children's services in South Africa are far behind their counterparts in Canada in some areas (residential care), and perhaps a little ahead in other areas (community work). Yet, ten days of talking with Child and Youth Care professionals at many different levels and in many different contexts in South Africa have given me a feeling that has largely been absent for me at home: hope.
In writing this, I need to emphasize again that I claim no expertise whatsoever on the South African context of Child and Youth Care practice. All I can comment on with some assuredness is the impact, on an emotional level, that my experiences over the past ten days have had. With that in mind, let me articulate three observations in particular that I think bear enough cause for the field in other places to pause for a moment and reflect on what it might mean for the rest of the world.
Child and youth care in South Africa is much more than a job; it is an expression of a spirit of hope, of collectivity and of a shared sense of responsibility for those left vulnerable by the ravages of history. The child and youth workers I have met give not only their skills but also their presence, and they give this without an expectation of mutuality. Their work is an expression of duty, but it also reflects their ambition to develop their careers and to seek out more and greater opportunities for personal and professional growth. They respect their clients and their position of relative privilege (in South Africa, being employed is a privilege). Perhaps most importantly, they respect themselves, as is evidenced by their on-going commitment to practice the principles of the profession every day and always in the children's life space. Each and every child and youth worker I spoke with was able to reference the core concepts of our profession more extensively than what I have heard from child and youth workers I have spoken to in Canada in quite some time.
The leadership in the field is radical when necessary, pragmatic when prudent and committed to creativity and the imagination beyond anything I have seen at home for many years. The representative body of Child and Youth Care, the National Association of Child Care Workers, does much more than representing; this body also initiates projects, serves children, youth and families directly, actively develops and executes formal education curriculums as well as informal training for practitioners and advocates on their behalf at every level of government relentlessly. The individuals involved with the NACCW spend much of their time planning and executing the latest attacks, battles and initiatives in the context of a seemingly hopelessly paralyzed bureaucracy. They seem to get energized by the slightest sign of hope, and they drive forward even as they are being pushed back. A few days at their offices in Durban and Cape Town left me with no doubt whatsoever that they are a force to be reckoned with.
Child and youth care practice is situated clearly and concretely within the context of national development. Far from being limited to a peripheral intervention when nothing else has worked, the profession is a core component of pushing South Africa forward as a community of very diverse peoples. Everything that happens within the field forms one component of national development and identity formation. Practitioners and leaders alike are politically aware and astute. Child and youth care is about saving the nation by empowering the children. It is a battle against Aids, poverty and oppression. The profession is integrated into the every day experience of living in South Africa, and the professionals involved seek nothing less than a new dawn for all South Africans, one small step at a time.
Perhaps it all sounds a little too idealistic. I likely would have thought so before coming here. But I don’t think so anymore. The energy I witnessed while observing my hosts in Johannesburg, my new friends at the NACCW and my friends and colleagues at the South African headquarters of Child and Youth Care Net have convinced me otherwise. They have what I have missed at home for some time: that twinkle in the eye, the “it” that makes this profession special. They talk, argue, debate, seek out new perspectives and challenge each other from moment to moment. They take risks and analyze their mistakes, only to set out again with yet another assault on the unacceptable suffering of the vulnerable and abandoned. And they do it all with a fraction of the resources that we have come accustomed to in Canada and many other places. In short, they inspire, even when there is disagreement or questioning amongst their ranks. In fact, part of the inspiration comes from their ability to disagree and question without this mitigating their mutual respect and even love for one another.
This is not to say that the future of the profession lies in South Africa. Quite to the contrary, so many of the accomplishments of Canadians, Americans and practitioners from all over the world are badly needed to be replicated, customized to its unique context, in South Africa. Some of what I experienced in South Africa hardly corresponded to my sensibilities about how care for children and youth ought to unfold. Residential Child and Youth Care appears underrepresented in national initiatives, community Child and Youth Care reinvents the discipline in ways I am not sure will ultimately strengthen services for very marginalized communities, and the Child and Youth Care discipline has not yet made any notable in-roads into the education sector, where it is arguably needed the most. But these shortcomings simply reinforce that we all have much to offer to each other. I do think that we could all use a little South Africa to freshen up and re-ignite the spirit that has driven our profession this far. Re-discovering the concepts of collective action, spirited engagements with the barriers we face, and a resolute confrontation of all the issues and themes impacting those less fortunate in our societies can only help us grow stronger.
As the holidays approach this year, this is what I wish for: a little courage to think big, to believe in our capacity to change the world once again, and to join with our friends from around the world in a united chorus: we must all be present in the life space of our children. It is there where they will lay us to rest one day.
