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Listen to thisHello,
Joe here from Scotland, I’m interested in peoples' views on staff gender
balance when working in the residential school setting. On a typical
late shift, it is common practice to have two female workers and one
male worker assigned to a unit that houses eight young people with a
range of complex needs which include challenging aggressive behaviour.
As much as female practitioners have much to offer the service, it does
mean that challenging “atypical behaviours” are overlooked more often
than they should be. The other variable to consider is when it comes to
entering into restraints with young people, the statistics qualify the
fact that male workers are left to perform this unsavoury part of
the service-provider's behaviour management system (CALM,TCI etc.)
There are a number of reasons why this may happen, for example, it could
be cultural e.g. “The West of Scotland male hunter gatherer attitude”.
Or some people may say female staff use other skills and this is often
the defence of some female practitioners. As a child-centred male worker
I find this defence quite insulting.
I must stress that restraint is only used as an absolute last resort
where all other options are considered beforehand. In my opinion the
current ratio of 70% Female vs. 30% Male is the exact opposite of what
it should be and is unsafe. The crux of this means that when it comes to
restraint only a small proportion of the staff group are left to perform
the worst part of the job.
In Scotland review groups are held on a regular basis where senior
managers look at patterns in reference to incidents. This is indeed good
practice; however it is more likely that the same group of males are
involved in the restraint of our young people and hence this may suggest
there may well be a problem with the said male workers' practice. In my
opinion the real problem is staff ratios are often wrong.
I would welcome peoples' comments on this matter.
Regards,
Joe Gibb
Scotland
...
I believe staff training is the real issue. I've
worked frontline for over 10 years and on the surface it seems like the
issue is gender related, and I've seen some female staff jump into a
restraint quicker than their male counterparts. The reality is that we
have both males and females protecting nations and our streets and that
is because they are trained effectively or "more effectively". The more
importance that is placed on a specific job in our world, the more we
invest in training those professionals. Training is the first part; the
second part is making sure we do it. A guy once told me "it's not
knowing what to do that's important but it's doing what we know that
creates change". I agree!
Manjit Virk
...
According to the latest Scottish Government statistics for Local
Authorities (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/276886/0083158.pdf),
a total of 2393 people is employed in residential services for children.
Of these 697 are male, 1695 female. Percentages: 29.1% male, 70.8%
female. I don't think equivalent statistics are available for the
voluntary sector (including Geilsland), but the proportions are probably
similar.
According to the latest Scottish Government statistics for all
looked-after children (http://openscotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/248579/0071293.pdf), there are 1613 children in residential accommodation. The percentages
of males and females in residential accommodation are not published, but
for looked-after children as a whole the percentages are about 55% male,
45% female. In residential accommodation the percentage of males may be
higher, but I'm not sure about this.
For an innovative programme to recruit more males into residential child
care, please visit the Men can care website:
http://www.mencancare.org/
and also
http://www.sircc.org.uk/node/192
Hope this is of some interest,
Alan Macquarrie
Glasgow
...
It would be interesting to look at what is happening before restaints
are used by males...;are they using de-escalation skills. I know that
there are mainly setting that have refrained from using restraints all
together. What would it look like if this type of policy were to be used
in your setting? Would there be varying opinions throughout staff?
Bryce and Becky
...
I am a female and am right there helping males restrain. I would like to
point out that we don't restrain much (18 years of working and only 3
restrains) but I do explain why later. Why are the females stepping
back? If I trigger a behavior I want to be in on the therapeutic
rapport. I get respected more if I can calm them down as well as trigger
aggression. Females are looked at differently than males by all of our
youth. I use whatever advantage I have so do the males I work with. We
have a special group of coworkers that deal with the youth when times
are tough. They are all male and they love their job. These are the
veteran staff that can see a youth for the first time at the youth's,
shall we say, less than happy time and de-escalate that youth within
minutes. We also have the advantage of numbers. When we need it we can
call about 5-7 staff to one spot for a short period of time. With those
numbers all focused on one youth it doesn't matter what is going on,
they usually comply without touching them. I work with very few females
but the females I work with are great at the same job the male coworkers
are.
It might be your facility or maybe it's you? Are you the male type that jumps before you try talking? I would like to ask, "Why do you have to jump in, make contact?" I have a lot of patience. I can wait longer than most people if the event calls for it. If they are not hurting themselves or others what is wrong with waiting/talking/listening/arguing? I do things much different than my male staff but even though I am a large person and can be intimidating if I need to be, I prefer to rely on my brain. If I had a male or female staff jump to touch before I was ready I would have to discuss this later with them. Always follow the leader as long as the leader is going in the right direction the journey can be any pace that is needed.
Maybe the facility restricts the females from restraining? Maybe it is the females that you work with that shy away? I have worked with a few males that create the anger and walk out or in some cases run away from the problem. These type need to be helped in how to talk to youth and not AT youth.
You are a team and it seems you don't think of
females on your team as equal? Maybe you should be talking to your
female team and let them know your feeling instead of looking for
back-up on the net? Find the solution and fix it. Sorry if I said things
you didn't want to hear. Some people are not cut out to be youth care
workers (male or female) even with the best intentions. Don't just bash
females. I can tell you there are great female workers out there very
upset you placed them lower on the pole. You do know there are female
correctional officers now. And from what I read some are better than the
males.
Donna Wilson
...
Hallo
Charles from South Africa here. What you are saying Joe is almost
an accepted practice in residential facilities, especially those that
house mainly boys between 14-18 years. Yes I also want to agree
that female staff do bring another dimension to the care aspect, however
this is not the whole package. Restraining young people is definitely
not the "nice" part of the job. I do believe this can only change if we
start to socialize ourselves differently with the understanding that the
job at hand is more important at times than your gender. This argument,
could be taken to the arena of women in construction, where the
expectation is that they perform the same duties as their male
counterparts.
Regards
Charles Harris
...
Hi, I am a male staff that works in CBT with teen girls ages 14 -18 in a residential facility. Gender is definitely an issue in the forefront of my mind at work. I am the only male staff on my shift (2nd) and there are certainly moments when unfortunately, a resident needs to be contained. My facility does not use any kind of restraints, but use SAMA containments and then de-escalate the resident. When containment is imminent, I do not hesitate to act, but I am also acutely aware that I need to use more caution when involved in a containment due to boundary issues that may arise.For the resident it is often an issue of feeling safe, or being assisted in recovering control of themselves with the help of staff. For me rapport and trust play a large role in containment along with patience, and often processing or prompting win out over a containment.
George Bouton
...
I’ve been meaning to join into the discussion on physically restraining
kids for awhile…
When I was in direct practice, I physically restrained a lot of kids.
There were also some kids I physically restrained a lot of times.
This was something I always thought a lot about and talked a lot about
with fellow colleagues. Why we did this, how we could avoid it,
whether we had actually initiated the restraint to meet the young
person’s need or our own need. We also spoke things through with
kids as much as possible…what was going on for them, what was going on
for us, how we could make sense of what happened together, what we might
try to do to avoid it getting to this point in future.
Since then, I have done a large study of the views and experiences of
front line practitioners and kids related to physical restraint.
I’ve written about it in a couple of chapters and a journal article,
with more to come. I think part of why I have put off joining this
conversation is that there is so much say about this subject that I knew
it would be difficult to keep my contribution to the discussion to a
reasonable size.
In the interviews with practitioners, the subject of gender came up
often. Men spoke of being shunted into a bouncer type of role and how
this created an expectation of physical restraint occurring. A few
study participants spoke of how this expectation can somehow create the
necessity, or perhaps the perception of the necessity, for physical
restraint. One particularly reflective participant spoke of the
co-creation of the need for restraint—-co-created by the young person,
the teacher in the residential school who called him to come assist, and
himself as he walked down the corridor to the classroom—-fully expecting
to have to use a physical restraint with this young person in that
particular situation.
Conversely, I spoke with practitioners about how women were seen as
having the ability (or having to have the ability) to de-escalate more
effectively to avoid restraint. Perhaps some of these women’s
belief that they could manage the situation without resorting to
physical restraint (or had to)-—perhaps along with a similar perception
by the kid involved--helped to create that reality. However, some
women also spoke of being pushed out of the way when things escalated,
communicating to kids that women were incapable of keeping them safe.
A few also spoke about having to do a restraint when a young person was
much more physically powerful. I have also been in this situation,
and what I took from it was that there are other types of power being
exercised than just physical power during a restraint.
Psychological power and even the power of relationship are also
dimensions to be considered. For me, there were times when I had
the distinct impression that the young person, on some level, needed to
let me overpower and control him. It always left me feeling
extremely uneasy—-any time I overpowered a kid. And, I think we
have to be honest with ourselves, we subtly overpowered kids often
without ever laying a hand on them. I suspect that this is still
the case.
I have deep reservations about physically restraining kids. I also
have deep reservations about completely eliminating the practice of
physically restraining kids, particularly when I see the use of drugs,
locked rooms or beds with straps as a replacement. I also worry
about the abandonment of kids in our efforts to avoid physically
restraining them. The clear bottom line is that decisions about
physically restraining, whether in the moment or larger decisions for
our sector, need to be child centred. However, I think too often
decisions are self-serving—- to meet a personal need/want (e.g. for
control, counter-aggression) an agency need (e.g. to reduce property
destruction or avoid litigation) or even for ideological reasons. And,
it’s not always easy to see clearly whose needs are being served and how
they will be best served in the face of fear and all the other
heightened emotions stimulated by this issue.
To further compound things, I am becoming more
convinced that our belief in the necessity of physical restraint
contributes to it being necessary—though I’m not convinced that by
simply believing we can meet all kids’ needs without holding them when
they are escalated that we can therefore do so. It’s so difficult and
complex.
Kids’ and practitioners’ needs for a sense of containment, sometimes met
through holding, is relevant here, as well as issues of touch, but I’ve
already gone on too long. Another day.
Laura Steckley
Glasgow
...
I have gained a great deal from the submissions to
this thread which seems to have been bounded by gender, by the physical
restraint, by the need for control and by the fear of loss of control.
I still wonder if there is a place in our work for conscientious
objectors to the physical restraint of children and young people in our
work. If there is would their ideas carry influence or would they be
considered as well-meaning but wrong. If there is not room for them what
does it say about our profession, about the philosophy that underlies
our practice and what does it say about our society ?
Screaming babies and toddlers need to be physically held by their
mothers and their unacceptable terrors absorbed and processed by the
mother and returned to the infant in a way the she or he can tolerate.
It seemed to me that Thom Garfat describes how this process may be
facilitated with an older child in his article Sitting with
Jason in this month's CYC-Online. In this, in my view, important
article (which I would add is not about physical restraint) Thom is
talking about a boy who lives with his family, but had the event Thom
describes occurred in a number of residential child care settings I have
known Jason would have been physically restrained because of the damage
he was doing to property. I cannot speak for Thom
Garfat, I don't know what his feelings are about the physical restraint
of youngsters, but it seems to me that by showing immense patience at a
time when he must have been tempted to 'flee or fight' he came to
understand that the child's anger represented a terror of being out of
control and his need for someone to hold him emotionally. I am not
certain that this insight would have been gained by the youngster or
indeed by Thom if he had used physical restraint upon the boy.
I may be wrong.
Best wishes,
Charles Sharpe
...
No Charles, you are not wrong. Even back then restraint was a
distasteful option for me – and it is even more so today as I
understand, perhaps, some of the reasons why I think so. Being
with, I think, is the greatest 'container' that we have. I do
understand why sometimes it seems – yes, I know I said 'seems' – necessary to resort to restraint. But I think there are more therapeutic
options available – always.
Thom Garfat
