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 thisHow do we as youth workers reach seemingly
uncooperative parents? If anyone has any advice it would be greatly
appreciated!
Thank you,
Katie Buffa
...
Katie,
Never consider a parent as uncooperative, always consider them the best
expert you have on their child. It will give you a very different
perspective on the work you do.
Jon DeActis
...
It is imperative that the Child and Youth Care reaches out to the parents while carefully
listening to their fears, concerns and sensitivities. When parents
feel they are being heard they may become more open to listening to your
open ended questions of "how things are going (factually)". It is
important they not feel attacked and judged. Of course,
parent's readiness to co-operate are often directly related to their
readiness to look at themselves. Everyone is on a life long journey.
Jane Lunney
...
Katie,
As always in our work we want to approach anyone with the idea that all
parents care about their kids and have done some very good things for
them. When approaching a parent I like to immediately compliment them
for the job they have done raising their child. Statements like, " I see
you have raised your son/daughter to stand up for themselves" or "Your
son/daughter was very polite to me when we met, I'm sure that is
something you taught them."
Parents whose son/daughter has come to the attention of school
administrators or juvenile courts etc. can easily jump to conclusions
that these people blame them for whatever their child has done to have
put the spotlight on them. I have never found a parent who would not
find a way to cooperate with what is in the best interest of their
child. The idea of resistance or uncooperativeness should never
interfere with our mutual goals.
Steve Bewsey
...
Tell them if they don't cooperate things will get much much worse...lol.
Just kidding.
My professor always said that there are two main forces involved in
motivation: a push of discomfort, and a pull of hope. You need to
figure out what is their push of discomfort (what they want to get away
from – i.e. unhappiness, conflict, etc), and what is their pull of hope
(how would they like their family to be like?).
If the push of discomfort is not strong
enough, you have to add more discomfort (by techniques such as
unbalancing, and if the pull of hope is too small, you have to
strengthen it (by reinforcing that they CAN have a better life, they ARE
able to make improvements, etc). Your worst scenario is where the
push of discomfort is big enough for them to complain, but too small to
motivate movement, and the same for the pull of hope, small enough so
they complain about what they don't have, but not close enough within
reach for them to move. Then they are stuck in the middle between
the two, in the comfort zone. They are in a state of dysfunctional
homeostasis. If you increase the push of discomfort, and the pull
of hope, you unbalance the system, forcing movement. Sometimes
things get worse before they get better, or rather, you have to make
them get worse, before they can get better. May sound a little
controversial, but see the family therapy techniques of Salvador
Minuchin, and specifically the technique of unbalancing. Not as
easy as it sounds, but good luck.
Werner van der Westhuizen
Port Elizabeth
...
Gotta meet the parents where they are at too. Often they perceive
that they are being blamed by the system for their kids behavior
(sometimes for good reason and sometimes not). "The apple doesn't fall
to far from the tree" is one assumption underlying much of our work with
families that I think gets in the way of us building helping alliances
with families. Parents are often hostile and reactive for good
reasons and if we can get them to talk about that pain and hurt and
feelings of inadequacy or responsibility we can get them talking about
other things. Families are inherently conservative because it is
their job to put aside their own individual lives and start living for
their kids lives. Good stuff. When we youth workers and
social workers invade these family spaces (often for good reason) we
create an unnatural relationship (how many of us have social workers in
our lives?). It goes along ways to acknowledge this.
I'd love to talk more.
Peter De Long
...
I often find parents feel that they have lost control of caregiver
decisions regarding their children. Suddenly...the family is faced
with a service provider who often times is perceived as being able to
better manage their child. Parents feel like they have failed to
be the caregiver that their child requires. Parents do know their
children better and are the experts on them. With this knowledge,
parents may have power struggles with service providers who are now
telling them what their child needs. Giving up the power and
control over decisions regarding their child has to be absolutely
agonizing for parents. Although parents may appear to be
uncooperative at times...they are really often trying to grasp at just a
little something that they control. I find it helpful to identify
something that the family can be involved in. Sometimes they just
need a little something to hold onto. We cannot take away the pain
that they are dealing with...but we can try to understand how hard it is
to let go of your most prized possession.
Letting go can be one of the most challenging obstacles in
life...regardless of what you are letting go of.
Tonya Boudreau
...
Katie,
We have to remember that these parents are usually uncooperative as they
either have their own issues or see Child and Youth Care workers as the bad guys. I think
it is important to establish a good rapport with these parents as they
do know their child better than anyone else and will have a lifelong
connection with their child in one form or another.
I think the approach is important when your trying to build some form of
relationship with the parents. Also expect them to have their guards up
and will be defensive. Try to reassure them that their cooperation is
important for the assistance to help better their child. Think of it
like build a relationship with one of your youth. They are a vital part
of the treatment team.
Hope that helps
Dave Zimmerman
...
Just to add to the conversation – when the home that I was managing
changed its focus from the child to the family and the preservation
thereof we found that change occured. The change resulted in the way we
as staff perceived parents and their role and hence we began to inlcude
them in every point of the child's life.
This led to the parents becoming a true part of the team and staying
actively involved in their child's life. Their previous negative
attitude changed as they began to also feel valued and not rejected.
This resulted in
more successful family reunification.
Kathy Scott
