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Ask Charlotte

Gerry Fewster

Dear Charlotte,
I’ve been in Child and Youth Care work for almost six years and I’m tired out. It’s not the kids or their problems that send me home exhausted, it’s the system. Time and time again I see my work being undermined or wiped out by decisions that seem to have nothing to do with the needs of the children. I’ve worked in four different agencies, and no matter what they say about their programs, it always ends up the same way. What can we, as front-line workers, do to change the system?

Jenny D. Portland, Oregon

Dear Jenny,
You are “the system” – we all are. Whether we sit at board meetings and carve out “policy,” stand up in classrooms and theorize about how things “should” be, hang around after staff meetings and bitch about our salaries, or sit in case conferences and mutter about how cruel the world has been to our favourite client, we are all participating in this delicately negotiated reality we call the “system.” And, of course, the kids who make it all possible are part of the creation.

One way or another the so-called “system” serves us all. When our personal aspirations are being supported, we see the system as a functional arrangement that mobilizes resources toward some generally agreed-upon objectives and we use it to our advantage. When our efforts are being thwarted or go unappreciated, it becomes a conspiracy, riddled with inefficiency and injustice, and we scream with indignation, sink into apathy, or mask our collusion with half-hearted gestures of subversion. Then, when things go wrong and blame is looking for a place to land, its broad shoulders are there to carry the burdens of any disaster or discontent. Whatever words we choose, these are all ways of using the system, and our actions attest to our membership in it, if not our commitment to it. Secretly, we all know that it is a wondrous labyrinth of smoke and mirrors, and, when the chips are down, very few of us really have the heart, the inclination, or the creativity to change “it” – and for very good reasons.

What we call “the system” is a reality shrouded in illusions. To the degree that it defines our roles, routinizes our behaviour, and keeps us in check with selectively dispensed information, the system is real. The illusion is con structed around the shallow expectation that the design has been created to serve more noble objectives with strategies that enhance the effectiveness and well-being of all participants. In reality, the primary objective is power, the strategies are about power distribution, and the life of the organism is about power relations.

To the degree that a system is effective in impacting upon human lives, it is real. The illusion is that, in some way, it should “care” about the lives caught up in its web. But systems don’t care. What we collectively create from our personal ambitions is an impersonal abstraction that has no heart and no soul. In order to go about its business, the system must transform people into objects and treat them accordingly.

To the degree that the parameters of any given system define a piece of the territory, it is real. The illusion is that it exists as a separate entity – an independent reality that can be modified or revolutionized to suit the pur poses of either the aristocracy or the proletariat. In the broader reality, however, every system is a sub-system and, depending upon its location in the scheme of things, each configuration is energized and constrained by the whole and particularly by the sub-systems that impinge upon its boundaries. Take the group of systems that most directly influence the lives of children, for example. Family systems, educational systems, welfare systems, mental health systems, and correctional systems are all constructed within the broader ethos of society and operate together in such a way that no significant change can occur in any one without the impact being experienced by the others. Given that power is the underlying motif, it is only to be expected that all changes will be regarded with suspicion and the other systems will work in concert to preserve the status quo, while hoping to gain some marginal advantage along the way. To see this effect in action, one has only to observe a gaggle of bureaucrats from different jurisdictions going through the cloak-and-dagger manoeuvres of interdepartmental collaboration. That alone would be sufficient to send any zealous agent of change scurrying back to the safety of his or her established place in the scheme of things.

Many people refuse to see power as the driving force because they find it morally incorrect or personally offensive. And the closer it comes to home, the more offended they become. But if we examine those systems that most affect the lives of children, we cannot fail to recognize the power dynamic in all its overt and covert forms, beginning with the family.

Short of blatant neglect or abandonment, all parents hold on to some ideal about how their kids should be. The dedicated ones carefully select strategies designed to promote this ideal. The less committed resort to ran dom interventions of punishment, reward, and deprivation to bring about the desired result. In some cases the ideal is one of making the parent “whole,” and the child is cast in the role of making up for perceived deficits or unfulfilled ambitions. When the child becomes angry and rebellious (a necessary process for individuation to occur), the system is threatened and the forces of control are unleashed. If this should fail, then the other “child care” systems may be called upon to take responsibility, beginning with the school system.

Is there any public school system in North America designed to follow the natural curiosity of the child? I doubt it. For the most part, their clear intention is to control natural impulses, sort out the kids to play particular roles within the pecking order, dispense whatever information is deemed necessary by those in power, and, finally, evaluate the “products” according to their level of assimilation and obedience. When this fails, the school system looks outside to the specialists, beginning with the children's service systems.

And here we all stand, in our own little sub-systems, ready to make our contribution to the collective effort. However much we might focus on the particular needs of the particular child, there is no escaping the fact that our general task is to ease the discomfort by bringing the deviants back into line – for their own good, of course. Correctional workers struggle to control delinquency; mental health workers are specially trained to cure diseases, disorders, and syndromes; and Child and Youth Care workers are expected to complete the cycle by getting the kids back into family systems. In all of this, the distribution of power remains essentially unchanged.

If you find this picture absurd, I would invite you to look again. If you find it depressing, then I will willingly join you in your discontent. But if you scream for others to “change the system” or if you sink into helpless apathy, then you will find yourself with the majority, waiting for the kids themselves to make the next move and for the behaviour modifiers to take up the challenge.

There is one system that has not been discussed thus far – the one system capable of transforming all of the above. I refer to the system that exists within each and every one of us – the Self systems. It is here that our insatiable desire for power has its roots, and unless we are prepared to make transformations at this level, we will continue to perpetuate the status quo, regardless of our personal philosophy and noble intentions. This is a distinctively individual task that begins with the pain of awareness, moves through the agony of self-responsibility, and opens up the possibility that we are, indeed, the architects of our own lives. When enough people have endured this transformation to establish a “critical mass,” then the nature of the system will change. Of course, we will create yet another system, but it is unlikely to stem from the insecurities that urge us to affirm our lives by exercising power over others.

Sincerely, Charlotte

This feature: Fewster, G. (2001). Ask Charlotte. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 15, 4. pp. 53-55.