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Since it's founding in 1997, the CYC-Net discussion group has been asked thousands of questions. These questions often generate many replies from people in all spheres of the Child and Youth Care profession and contain personal experiences, viewpoints, as well as recommended resources.
Below are some of the threads of discussions on varying Child and Youth Care related topics.
Questions and Responses have been reproduced verbatim.
Listen to thisWe are starting a male support group for our
male staff. We are a residential program that works with adolescent girls,
and our male staff face some difficult situations at times. I was wondering
if any other programs had done some work on this, and if so, whether they
would help us out.
Thank you,
Brett Tyson
Director of Residential Operations
Germaine Lawrence Inc.
...
Hi Brett,
I'm senior author on a government funded national study here in Ireland
(along with Brody Cameron, Susan McKenna and Ashling Duggan Jackson) looking
at gender takeup issues in Child and Youth Care with a particular focus on
males. We're doing focus groups in five Irish Colleges and distributing 500
questionnaires. Results should be complete in October of this year and we
would be happy to share the findings with you. I wrote a paper on CYC-Net
titled Males: An Endangered Species in Child and Youth Care** and
that's exactly the landscape in Ireland at the moment. In out pilot study we
found only 4.1% males studying Child and Youth Care across Certificate,
Diploma and Degree programmes in a major training college. Good luck...
Niall C. McElwee, PhD.
SocSci Consultancy,
Ireland
...
Hello Brett,
I'm not sure what kind of problems you are referring to regarding men
working with female clients [and co-staff], but I can guess. I have been in
that situation myself. I noticed that there is a tremendous need among kids
for attention from men. The same kids who want that attention have reasons
to mistrust men, as it is men who have abandoned them more times. I try to
be as predictable to those kids as possible, making great effort to be a few
minutes early for scheduled visits, for example.
Many clients, more often females, have been molested by males who were in a trust relationship. This has awakened their sexuality, and attuned it to be indiscriminately receptive and/or aggressive. These girls misinterpret affection from male staff at times, and yet, still need large doses of non-sexual affection in order to de-sexualize touch, and reclaim/rebuild a healthy orientation. They also need to be trained to have appropriate boundaries.
The strong need for male staff to model both good
boundaries and therapeutic touch is complicated by the prospect of
allegations which a client can make either in malice or misunderstanding.
Some group-care facilities handle this problem by adopting a "no-touch"
policy. I challenge that policy for group-care because I think it puts the
[legal] needs of the worker ahead of the child, and leaves the tail wagging
the dog.
Perhaps you smell a compromise coming... I hope there is a good solution to
this problem. I have a few thoughts to throw into the ring. It may be
possible to satisfy the worker's need for legal protection and the child's
need for affection by making wise choices about the manner in which we
demonstrate that affection.
1] Limit touch to age-appropriate styles. Physical play
should be different with a 7-yr-old than with a 17-yr-old. [Duh]
2] Pick your locations wisely. It would be unwise, for instance, to spend
much time waking a girl in her bedroom, even with the door open.
3] Hugs, grooming, or play should have the consent of the child.
4] With hostile clients, or those with a history of allegations, it would be
smart to have other staff around when in close proximity.
I guess I skipped over the question of re-traumatizing sexually-abused children, even by non-sexual touch that they initiate or welcome: Is it presumptuous of me to assume that some internal struggles may be a necessary part of reclaiming a healthy sexual identity? Sexualised children need to learn that not everything is sexual.
I have heard that a way of reducing a girl's likelihood of future promiscuity is for her to get lots of affection, particularly from her father. I have heard of numerous studies which link fatherly affection of daughters to a plethora of benefits to the girls. I am making the leap that workers can stand in that gap, to some extent, when the father is absent.
Let me know how your research goes please...
Patrick
P.S. What are the stats in Canada regarding CYC's and allegations of abuse?
...
Hey, I found this great model for team building called Partnership
Accountability that comes out of the Dulwiche Center (I think in New
Zealand) written by Rob Hall. It is really amazing to look at this model in
terms of building team support when there are different levels of group
power tracing the arenas that we work in. The basic premise is to give voice
and power to disempowered and even neglected or disempowered groups. It is
focused on how to overcome sexism in the workplace but I have applied it to
conflicts in which a group of individuals were controlling air-time and
decision making in Teaming sessions by setting up a model that we could all
plug into and change our roles. IT honors reflective listening and is very
solution oriented. You could say that is a very "pro-feminist" model of
communication and relationship building.
Check it out.
Pete DeLong
...
Sounds very interesting Peter. Our organization mimics the macro system in a
micro way – it brings an interesting focus to the challenges presented to
the child & youth field in general – can you provide more information about
how, where to access this information – on the net? phone numbers?
publishers? agencies?
Thank you
Judith Ryan
