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 thisHere's an interesting question:
Do you think that residential care organisations should have a clear
policy on child discipline?
Here is some context: Should organisations who care for children have a
policy that advises staff on the approach adopted by the organisation
with regards to how to discipline children? It seems that most
policies focus on what actions are poor practice or prohibited
practices, but very few policies outline the approach that staff should
adopt. One concern is that a policy cannot detail every possible
scenario that staff should have to deal with, and that it may therefore
actually inhibit staff or child care workers from making use of their
own resources, their skills and intuition, their ability to respond in
the moment, and so forth. My argument is that the purpose of a
policy can be to formalise an approach and to commit the organisation to
such an approach. Some may prefer the term behaviour management,
or behavioural interventions, etc. I believe that from a
managerial perspective, an organisation should provide employees with a
balanced set of policies, that both prohibit bad practices, as well as
outline and encourage good practice. I think we fail miserably
when we tell child care workers to adopt a "developmental strength-based
approach" to working with children, but as organisations and management
we fail to model a developmental, strength-based approach when
working with staff.
What are your thoughts? Pro or con for a policy on child
discipline?
Werner
...
Hello Werner, yes I most certainly do!
Dawne MacKay-Chiddenton
...
If I were to guess you are new to Child Care.
There are some base consequences for certain actions that all child care
workers follow. Most are NOT written. Ie: if a child misuses a toy the
following would be ….no toy for x days/hours, limited use, or toy gone.
This is the principle that follows any person working with a child.
Whether their own child or someone else’s child under that person's care.
We as child care workers try to best stay within the natural
consequences rule. If you break it you don’t get to play with it
anymore. You will need to work and get another.
There are gray areas for special populations. Trauma informed care.
When a person hears bad, real bad, news and breaks something what more
of a consequence should be placed on that person? Or what if there was
an accident. If I go to the store and break something should I morally
go pay for it? Why doesn’t everyone? Gray area.
There is gray within the black and white. That is where the worker comes
in. You want to live black and white but with special populations there
are ALWAYS two sides (some times three) that must be looked at. Then
that worker decides whether black or white should be used or if grey is
the best.
Enjoy the grey. Embrace the grey,
Donna Wilson
...
Hi Werner,
I believe that a policy on discipline should be firmly embedded in a
clear statement of philosophy regarding the treatment of children. Your
point about integrating the organization’s approach to children and
staff is well taken. From a relational perspective the traditional ‘book
of rules’ is a complete anachronism. The challenge is to create
approaches that promote self-responsibility (i.e. discipline from the
inside-out) and this can only be achieved where staff and kids are
expected to operate from the same set of principles and values.
Many years ago I dismantled the ‘rule book’ in a ‘correctional’ program
for young offenders and replaced it with an emphasis on ‘personal
boundaries’. The training strategies involved both staff and residents.
After two or three weeks of confusion this intervention began to pay
remarkable dividends – a dramatic decrease in acting out behaviour,
reduced stress reported by staff members and a major shift in the
quality of relationships. The most notable outcome was the change in the
overall interactional climate within the unit. The golden rule was that
the invasion of personal boundaries by both staff and residents would
not be tolerated. We still had to be clear about what consequences would
apply for boundary violations but, more often than not, these were
resolved within the context of the relationship in question. Of course
there were still some specific consequences for specific behaviours but,
after three months, the list of these non-negotiable rules had been
reduced by over eighty percent. I’m offering this as an example rather
than a definitive suggestion. I should add that, in response to this
initiative, the organization had to revamp its thinking about the way it
went about its business.
Best wishes,
Gerry Fewster
...
Here is what I think on the matter. The child discipline policy is not a
bad idea. It’s actually an innovative way of dealing with child behavior
challenges. However, I believe that Child and Youth Care Workers need to
realize that difficult behaviors of children are of diverse nature and
that there can never be a tool box approach to dealing with challenging
behaviors. Behavior management involves a lot of child care complexities
like the use of oneself as a tool, promotion of self-discipline and
responsibility on the part of the individual, creation of rapport and
making use of basic principles of Child and Youth Care work, to name but
a few. In addition, given the varying degrees of inappropriate
behaviors, it becomes somewhat hard to think that a policy on
child discipline will be “the answer”. Self-awareness on the part of the Child and Youth Care worker plays a huge part in effectively managing behavior. The Child and Youth Care field is “relational in nature” and I think that sound relationships
with children also play a huge role. Child discipline, I think, is a
philosophy, a way of life that calls for child care professionals to
change themselves from within and most importantly, respond to child
care complexities in the “moment, and in the child’s life space”. It’s
easy to have a policy but if these basic human elements and principles
are absent, I am afraid we might end where we started...
Best wishes,
Vincent Hlabangana
…
Dear Werner,
My first question to you would have to be, what do you mean by
"discipline"? As a manager of a residential child care establishment in
Austria (EU) I would suggest that in my opinion it does not actually
need a complete set of policies as such.
Much more important are mission statement and guiding principles of your
work. Our childcare is based on the principles of social paedagogy and
has also strong elements of therapy. We want to provide a safe place for
children and young people in which they can overcome the traumata they
have suffered in their young lives and develop their potential. It goes
without saying that this place has be free from violence and that staff
have to be able to understand the children’s behaviours and deal with
them professionally and empathically.
We work with the theoretical backgrounds and in the tradition of people
like Marshall B Rosenberg (Non-violent Communication), Haim Omer (new
Authority), Janusz Korzcak, Bruno Bettelheim, Winnicott and many others.
A framework of "discipline" can be found in our basic house or group
rules, which have been created in a process of negotiation between young
people and staff. These are very basic and outline how we want to live
and work together. They are not set in stone or static but develop over
time. We do not use punishment or penalties, but consequences to
unwanted behaviours, which are very carefully measured, time limited and
always explained to the child, so they can understand and learn from
them. Much more importantly we give praise for prosocial behaviours,
work on the children’s sense of self-worth and achievement.
There are a lot of excellent models out there that we can all learn
from. One of my favourites in this context is the "Circle of Courage" by
Martin Brokenleg and Larry Brendtro, which I would highly recommend.
Manfred Humer
...
A slow starter I only just noticed this interesting question and
responses to your question. I notice a golden thread in all the
responses and this answers many of the challenges that are being faced
in Child and Youth care centres today in South Africa. We need to go
back and define the role of a CYCC and the role of Child and Youth care
workers. From my point of view many CYCWs have a distorted understanding
of their role as that of being substitute parents of children and
therefore expect children to behave in a manner that is familiar to
them. Once children behave otherwise that child is foreign to them,
hence the need then for guidance on managing behaviour. As stated in
many of the responses that our work is relational. One teacher in Child
and Youth care, Jack Phelan, once said that you must expect “blood” on
the floor at a CYCC, this means that we must expect things to go wrong
and that a manual how to respond is not always the answer.
What I also see in your question is that CYCWs do not really want to
respond to challenging behaviour as they seem scared of what might
happen. This comes down to organisational structure as to how behaviour
was responded to in the past and who was responsible to ensure “good”
behaviour of children. I am aware that in the past when things go wrong
the social worker must respond. The staff working in the lifespace of
the children never had to respond to challenging behaviour and many
CYCCs expect staff to respond effectively to children. A
structured manual will think for staff and that will take away the
creativity and the implementation of knowledge by staff. I will agree
with a guideline on discipline and not a manual. This will also give
staff the answer that “things do not work and this child must be removed
or moved”. I also support the notion that responding to
challenging behaviour is embedded in the vision and mission of any CYCC
and the culture that is adopted. Does the staff feel supported and
proper supervision is provided, mistakes are used as learning
opportunities and staff are not judged when they make mistakes.
Regards
Alfred Harris
