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 thisHi. I'm working with a practicum student who is having issues with a client. The client is a sex offender, and the student has stated that she cannot get past this "label", and any interactions with him are predictably ineffective. I have several thoughts on exploring different options with her, but I could use some help.
The bigger question posed is: How do we, as Child and Youth Care counsellors, move beyond our feelings of dislike/abhorrence of clients, for whatever reason, to become effective in our relationship with the child?
Thanks,
Pati Chrusch-Page
...
I am sure there will be many answers to this query and let me just take a
moment to thank Patty for raising a very tricky question. I have asked
myself this question many times over the past 15 years and the answer that I
use today (it has changed over the years) is as follows: why should we as
child and youth workers need to move beyond feelings of dislike for certain
clients? The field of Child and Youth Care work is so vast with such an
enormous spectrum of clients that it is foolish to assume that we will
"like" everyone. Shouldn't we know our limitations, explore them in
supervision, and – when necessary – refer client's elsewhere? Sometimes the
latter may be as simple as having someone else within the agency work with
the child instead of you. Clearly, all must be treated with professional
respect; and it is crucial that we distinguish between the mildly annoying
and the truly abhorrent, yet why must we "like" everyone? Why must we work
with everyone? Do we as the professionals ever get to say "no"?
Peter Rosenblatt
PS: I wonder if Patty's question would be different if any other issue were
substituted for Sex Offender?
...
Hi Patty, My husband who has been a Child and Youth Care for more than 25 years, has in the
past ten years be working with teen male sex offenders. I could not do the
work, but, I'm glad that he does. I will ask him if he could speak to you on
this topic. He does individual, group (both youth and the parents), consults
with agencies in the community, and trains staff in a group home. I'll get
back to you with more information.
Donna Lewis
...
I have run into this problem with the parents of the kids I work with. What
I find helps is to focus on the philosophy that as helping professionals we
need to come from a mindset that all people, regardless of what they have
done, are deserving of our unconditional positive regard. Always assume that
the person is doing the best they can with the resources that they have at
the moment.
Also, in the Loving Kindness Meditations that I have
shared with you, you may recall that a person can simply 'plant the seed'
and move on, i.e. don't get too enmeshed emotionally either way (hate or
love). This helps to protect our personal and professional boundaries.
Leona Doig
...
Hi,
I kind of hear where you are coming from. I just completed my second year
practicum placement in a residential center and I also worked with a
resident who has similar issues.
My first semester with him was quite adventurous to say the least, and it
reached a point where I needed to detach from the situation and re-evaluate
my own belief and value system and reflect upon what I could do to make this
experience more positive for both of us. To be honest, this took an entire
month, so show yourself as much patience as you give the kids. That in
itself helped a lot. I also found a three part series* on the CYC-Net that
talks about working with juvenile sex offenders and that gave me more
understanding into what issues he is dealing with, and what approaches are
effective. I then did some research and found out what approach the center
and other agencies were taking when working with him and found that what
they were doing made a great deal of sense, so I took that information and
applied it to my own approach. This created a far healthier atmosphere
that's far sure and then I felt more comfortable. Then, and only then, I was
able to engage in one-to-one activities with him. After the break we were
able to reestablish the relationship and it was much more therapeutic for
him, and even though sometimes it was still difficult, it was much
healthier.
...
* See this three-part series by Grant Charles and Jennifer Collins:
The
Treatment of Adolescent Sex Offenders: Growth Promoting Premises of
Residential Care
— Eds.
...
We can not like or be able to work with every youth that comes our way. That
is just a fact of life. We do need to know our limits and who we can or can
not work with. Sometimes we need to look at ourselves and ask what gets in
the way of working with some youth. This is important for self growth, it
does not mean that we have to work with youth we just can not work with.
Like I mentioned in my response to Patty, I am glad that my husband does the
work he does, but I would not do it. However, I have learnt a lot about sex
offenders from him, and this has helped me to see young sex offenders in a
different light. Still would not work with them though.
I know very few who would and I am happy to know that there are people who
can.
Donna Lewis
...
There are times, for many different reasons, that we are not able to work
with a particular child. It is just as important for an individual to
recognize this, as much as it is to learn how to work with this particular
type of client. Bottom line is I would have another individual work directly
with this child and have the staff who is not able to, perform other duties.
If I informed you that you must learn how to work with an abusive male when
you are threatened no matter what your experiences, you may eventually leave
the field or continue to be submissive or ineffective with addressing your
concerns.
Ron Moore
...
Maybe you need to see the client as a youth first and foremost, who happens
to have committed a sex offence? If you can't get past it – get out and do
you and your client a big favour. S/he deserves someone who can set their
own prejudices aside. Not to do so and to continue to work with this client
is abusive to both of you.
Mary Jo Arnold
...
This question reminds me of the emotional (almost 'spiritual') demands that
are placed on Child and Youth Care workers at times. It's been a while since I worked
first-line, but my recollection of this is that trying to see the young
person as a suffering being and finding just one thing to like about them
usually helps.
Mike Burnett
...
Read the book Being in Child Care, especially chapter named What is
There to Learn? You may be surprised what you learn about yourself by
working with children. Each of us has a child inside us and if we haven't
dealt with issues this child has, how can we deal with issues the youth we
work with have. We are all guilty of what you have described at some time
and if you think you aren't then look again. We often need someone else to
help us to find that child and help us identify why we don't like a certain
youth we are working with. Good Luck in your quest!
Ruth Wood
___
Query 2:
I have recently been working with a family (only father and son, mother's
whereabouts unknown) where the father who seems rather bitter adopts a
sneering and hostile attitude to me and the son seems to have the same
attitude. I can't get past this personally and find myself disliking both
clients, which completely blocks my motivation and ability to be of help – or want to be of help. How do other youth and family workers cope with this?
...
When working with clients that you do not like you need to remind yourself
that this is not about you. You need to try and see how they view the
situation. It is not surprising that the son acts like the father as it is
probably learned behaviour. If you find that you can not work with this
family you need to step back and allow some else to, and reflect what is
going on for you.
Kathleen Hains
...
I think you need to ask yourself what could be going on for them to make
them react the way they are. Be curious, rather than personalizing their
attitudes. I would acknowledge the attitude you are sensing from them and
genuinely ask what's happening for them, and acknowledge that maybe they've
had bad experiences with professionals in the past and talk about those
experiences. Find out their expectations. It doesn't say whether you are a
male of a female; if you are a female there could obviously be some
transference issues happening.
Tania Brzovic
...
When this happens I step back and remind myself that nobody kidnapped me and
drove me to work this morning--not to be flippant but it really helps to
remember that I made a conscious choice to do this kind of work--so why am I
concerned personally when clients can be hostile or difficult since I chose
to work with people who are coming in for help with exactly such issues? It
has helped me remain as positive about the work I chose to do, and our
field, after 26 years working in residential care working as a child care
worker right on up the ladder to Director.
Frank Delano
...
It's hard to respond to your query without knowing much about the
circumstances involved in the referral process for this family. Is your
service voluntary or are these folks mandated to participate?
Either way, one avenue to approach your situation would be to open up a
conversation with the father and son about what their expectations are for
your work together, how they see the relationship ... as well as being very
open about what your role is with this family ... especially around
encouraging them to discover and own the solutions to their issues.
If they are completely negative about participating, you can put the
question back to them as to why they are continuing your working
relationship and explore other possibile ways for them to access service.
I think often this type of hostile behaviour is defensive, i.e., when
clients perceive uneven power dynamics between themselves and their worker!
...
I think that the word "hostile" which you used is probably very accurate. We
know that people who have been habitually hurt or rejected, get to the stage
where they generalise an expectation of the worst from any relationship.
Therapists like Rogers and Kelly suggested that "hostility" is a rigidity in
our negative world view (e.g. nobody cares about me) and a rejection of any
incoming experiences which may question our "stuck" world view. Instead of
allowing new data to influence our position, we force the data to confirm
our position. So our hostile behaviour defends our position (which somehow
explains our unhappiness or distrust).
When you, the worker, are frightened off by this hostility, you leave them
with this view ("There you are, see? Nobody sticks by us ... nobody cares").
A central task for all of us who work with hurt children and families is
really to stick around -- and to PROVE THEM WRONG.
Barbara Varenhorst (writing on harnessing the energies of love in
Reclaiming Children and Youth) uses these words: "One moment of
unconditional love may call into question a life-time of feeling un-worthy,
and invalidate it!"
Brian
...
Through no fault of our own we do run into personality conflicts and in best
interest for the client we need to either find the positive in that client
and focus on that or if we aren't able to do this we need to give the file
to someone else to work on. You do not need to interpret this as a failure
only a learning experience and then look for what you have learned from it.
Ruth
