Chapter 11. The Economics of Group Care Practice

Abstract

For the past two decades, economic influences have significantly impacted the provision of health and welfare services for children, young people and their families in communities around the world. The dynamic of cost has reshaped both the nature and provision of group care services, promoting de-institutionalization and transforming the nature of caring services offered in local communities. In a reappraisal of themes identified in his seminal contribution more than two decades ago, this leading authority looks back at key themes impacting on the economics of social care that shape group care services for the new millennium.     

Chapter 7. “Learn What You Like and Like What You Learn”

Abstract

Mark Twain once famously quipped, “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” Paul Simon, the American folk singer, begins one of his songs “When I think back on all the crap I learned at high school, it's a wonder I can hardly think at all.” These men could just have easily been discussing schooling in Ireland, for this is the way many Limerick children and youth felt about formal school life prior to their involvement with St. Augustine's Youth Encounter Project. But it is prior to their involvement.

This chapter provides a demographic profile of the pupils of that project and explores aspects of the day-to-day life of the project as a child and youth care intervention by examining some of the influences of risk replacement or resiliency projects that have influenced provision of services. This Limerick YEP attempts to alter the approach from one that is risk, deficit, and psychopathology-oriented to one that is protection, strength, and asset focussed. A question posed is, “Has the early intervention enrichment programme assisted the pupils to reintegrate successfully within the community?” By reintegrate I mean the ability to attend a regular school, hold a job, live again with their family and such things. This chapter also explores the establishment of the Youth Encounter Projects in Ireland in the context of an important but largely overlooked study completed by Egan and Hegarty over two decades ago (1984). No official review has been published since.     

Chapter 11: Therapeutic Foster Parent:

Training can help foster parents manage reactions to the foster child, avoid stress and burnout, and cope with the difficult times so that placement is sustained. Training is necessary so foster parents will not take the child's aggressive behavior personally, will avoid becoming embroiled in power struggles, and will be less likely to become hurt or embarrassed by the child's behavior. Training will involve individual consultation by the social worker as well as participation in a foster parent group. Staff will assistn foster parents to develop behavioral management and communication skills as well as their own coping and self-control skills. Foster parents are given permission to take care of their own needs, are assisted in developing stress management skills, learn how to increase their own self-esteem, and learn to use cognitive approaches to handle their own emotions. Foster parents develop an understanding that they cannot change the child's behavior but can only change the way which they respond to the child, which may provide the child opportunities to change his or her own behavior.     

Methodology

Abstract

Any discussions about specialized helping environments for children or young people would be incomplete without reference to the relationships found between practices in group care centers and schools. This involves thinking of a child's total environment as a curriculum for teaching competencies and learning outcomes important to daily living. The task involves making a conscious effort to deal with a child's functioning in the present, thereby avoiding diagnostic conclusions that emphasize difficulties in one area of their life as the cause of learning problems.     

My Stomach Fell Through the Floor: The Moment of Not-Knowing What to Do

Youth workers routinely experience moments in their professional practice with young people when, despite their experience and training, they are simply at a loss for what to do, how to respond, and how to be helpful to the youth. These experiences of not-knowing are seldom shared with other youth workers, which contributes to a climate of shame and humiliation. Professional supervision seldom attends to how youth workers experience these moments and their personal and vocational costs. This study presents a phenomenological investigation of how youth workers experience moments of not knowing what to do, identifies five central themes of the experience, and makes recommendations for improved youth work practice and supervision. This chapter presents the research question and its significance to the field of American youth work.     

Contextualizing Not-Knowing: Terminology and the Role of Professional Identity

This chapter provides a context for the concept of not-knowing, including a discussion of how the concept was framed. The experience of not-knowing in professional youth work is framed in relationship to other concepts explored by the social work and therapeutic literature (including vicarious trauma, helplessness, secondary trauma, and burnout), as well as those offered by the limited youth work and nursing literature discussing similar concepts (disruption and hurt, suffering, commitment in spite of conflict, and the struggle to go along when you do not believe). The standing of youth work in the professions and its own struggles to professionalize are explored, with attention to how not-knowing affects and is affected by these efforts.     

“It's Just an Image,Right?”: Practitioners’ Understanding of Child Sexual Abuse Images Online and Effects on Victims

Child sexual abuse images online (CSAIO) present new and daunting challenges for practitioners working in the field of child sexual abuse (CSA). Current understanding of the phenomenon is severely limited due to a lack of theoretical and empirical research in the area. This article reports findings from a study that examined practitioners’ experiences with, and views of, CSAIO. Participants differed in how they conceptualized what constituted online CSA images and held varying degrees of concern regarding the potential effects of CSAIO on the child. Some practitioners were uncertain about whether child victims of CSAIO experience particular effects different from or over and above those caused by conventional (non-Internet related) CSA. A key finding was that most practitioners did not have a clear understanding of CSAIO. This article includes recommendations for future research regarding the implications of technology in the field of CSA.     

Improving Community-Based Youth Work: Evaluation of an Action Research Approach

Few formal post-secondary educational programs in the United States focus on youth work, thus youth workers often enter the field with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of experience working with youth. Drawing on mounting evidence that quality youth service requires skilled staff, professional-development opportunities have received increasing support by agencies and funders. Typically, youth work professional development supports propositional (theory) knowledge learning to develop a more skilled workforce. This article describes an approach to youth work professional development that supports professional-craft knowledge learning (practice wisdom). Based on action research methodology, the approach has been developed over the last three years with groups of youth workers in a public organization. Using program evaluation data over the last two years and university-facilitator reflections, the authors describe what have been found to be the critical components of this approach. Also discussed are implications of using such an approach in day-to-day youth work practice.     

Group Homes for Problem Youth:

No abstract available for this article.