The Soul, Rhythms and Blues of Responsive Child and Youth Care at Home or Away from Home

SECTION 1:WORKING DIRECTLY WITH CHILDREN,YOUNG PEOPLE, AND THEIR FAMILIES

Chapter 2

The Soul, Rhythms and Bluesof Responsive Child and Youth Care

at Home or Away from Home

Leon C. Fulcher

SUMMARY. The knowledge base that underpins child and youth carework is re-examined through the device of musical metaphor, introduc-ing six voices that impact on responsive practices with children, youngpeople, and their families. The Soul of child and youth care is located inguarantees of physical safety and security and attending to bodily comforts,routines, and preferences. Rhythms of proactive caring build through the

Address correspondence to: Leon C. Fulcher, 64 Cameron Street, Dunfermline,Scotland KY12 8DP, UK.

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “The Soul, Rhythms and Blues of Responsive Child and Youth Care atHome or Away from Home.” Fulcher, Leon C. Co-published simultaneously in Child & Youth Services (TheHaworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 27, No. 1/2, 2005, pp. 27-50; and: Group Care Practice with Children and YoungPeople Revisited (ed: Leon C. Fulcher, and Frank Ainsworth) The Haworth Press, Inc., 2006, pp. 27-50. Sin-gle or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service[1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].

Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/CYS 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1300/J024v27n01_02 27

unique developmental patterns presented by each child or young personcared for at home or away from home. The Blues of care are recorded ineach social history and care order, highlighting stark emotions around sig-nificant life events, personal and cultural safety, risk-taking, and acting out,self-mutilation or escape. Six comparative policy themes are highlighted,voicing challenges for child and youth services over the next decade. [Ar-ticle copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website:<http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rightsreserved.]

KEYWORDS. Group care, residential care, residential treatment, grouphomes, youth work, youthwork, at-risk youth, family-centered care

Enter almost any family home with teenagers or group care centre,especially in Western countries, and one will almost certainly hear mu-sic. Whether blaring from MTV or an alternative television channel,from a bedroom stereo, or from a portable audio player through ear-phones directly into the ears of a young person moving to particularsounds, most child and youth care workers will agree that music is neverfar away from the lives of young people in care. And the music to whichyoung people listen is also telling. Quite commonly, the music of youthis different from that listened to by adult carers or parents. There arealso important cultural variations to the music one hears. It has been theauthor’s experience that soul music is more commonly the sound ofchoice for young people of colour. Similarly, R&B (or Rhythms andBlues for the uninitiated) is more common amongst inner city youththan it is amongst suburban middle class kids. Generalisations such asthese are always risky, however, since musical tastes vary from youngperson to young person and from one family to another. But it is the con-sistent awareness of music in the lives of young people that inspired thecore ideas around which this chapter developed.

I use the literary device of metaphor and, in particular, a musical met-aphor to review the knowledge base that underpins a responsive childand youth care service, what Garfat (1998) called effective child andyouth care interventions at home or away from home. An essential re-quirement of responsive practice is the need to locate the perspectives ofchildren and young people at the centre of service planning and policyformation. Such an approach challenges the traditional “expert” model

28 Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited

that assumes an inability on the part of children, young people, and theirfamilies to participate fully in care and treatment processes. Six voices1

are introduced that sing of different facets of child and youth care prac-tice, each singing a different language with distinctive justifications forthe care and treatment of children and young people.

The first voice belongs to the children and young people for whomchildren’s services are developed. When listening carefully to thisvoice, one hears many soulful tales about life in and out of care or, in-deed, in and out of schools. While lip service is given to locating thevoices of children and young people at the centre of care service plan-ning and policy formation, it is, sadly, too often the case that othervoices sing louder, sometimes with unfortunate consequences.

The second voice sings through encounters with family and extendedfamily members. This voice may articulate clear family preferencesabout the shared care of their children, regardless of whether family par-ticipation in the care and education of children is taken seriously.

A third voice sings the language of health, education, and welfareprofessionals who, frequently, introduce discordant sounds of formalityand technical jargon when explaining complex diagnostic outcomesand treatment processes. Whenever the professionals come together toplan for the needs of children or young people requiring “extra” care be-yond that which is readily available from families, then the voices of ex-perts commonly sing loudest to the exclusion of others. It was preciselybecause of this tendency for experts to exclude families from participa-tion in decision-making about the futures of their children that the con-temporary Family Group Conference, with its legacy in Maori culture,was enshrined in New Zealand child welfare law in 1989. The policyobjective was to ensure that all three voices–young persons, familymembers, and experts (as well as victims and community members)–areheard in formal decision-making about the care and supervision of chil-dren or young people (Fulcher, 1999).

Special interest groups, politicians, policy makers, and the media rep-resent a fourth public voice that sings about children and young people inall parts of the world. This voice has enormous economic influence and“buying power” at local and national levels, shaping marketing strategiesfor children and young people nationally and internationally. This voicebroadcasts via MTV images, advertising, and profiling of children andyoung people living in all parts of the world. The same voice is beameddaily to the world via BBC World, Deutsche Weld, or CNN. Such im-ages contribute to the ways in which child and youth policy is frequently

Section 1: Working Directly with Children, Young People, and Their Families 29

shaped by reactions to a death, to legal crises, national disasters, or pub-lic outrage.

A fifth voice sings through regulatory policies and procedures thatshape contemporary practices in all human service organisations. Thisvoice uses a technical language of behavioural competencies andevaluative transparency to regulate “duty of care” requirements and“minimum standards” under contract law, proscribing service mandatesthat license, fund, operate, and regulate child and youth care in volun-tary child care organisations.

Finally, there is a voice of scholars, researchers, and theorists singingmostly from Europe and North America (Payne, 1997) but also fromAfrica (Bukenya, 1996), Asia, and other Southern Hemisphere coun-tries (Yahya, 1994). For the past half-century this voice has authenti-cated or refuted claims to a knowledge base for responsive child andyouth care practice.2 Over the past three decades this voice of researchand scholarship has, at times, argued that nothing works or that out-of-family care almost always produces negative consequences for chil-dren, young people, and their families. It is through this sixth voice thatour musical metaphor develops, aimed at reframing the debate aboutproactive caring and responsiveness in the delivery of children’s ser-vices. The reader is left to decide whether the results actually represent aradical reframing of contemporary debates or is merely the call for aconscientious return to basics.

THE SOUL OF CARE FOR CHILDREN AT HOMEAND AWAY FROM HOME

Thirty years of child and youth care practice, parenting, teaching, andresearch experience has reaffirmed the teachings of long-time mentorand friend, Professor Henry Maier, that scholar-practitioner and profes-sional role model for so many child and youth care workers during thepast half-century. In the early 1960s, after postgraduate study at Pitts-burgh and then later in London, Professor Maier (1963) set out impor-tant arguments about why child care should be considered “a method ofsocial work.” Maier identified a knowledge base associated with childand adolescent development that informs a truly responsive child andyouth care practice, highlighting issues central to any managed care andtreatment approach. At the start of the 21st century, that knowledge baseremains (Maier, 1987; Milligan, 1998), offering a legacy of child andyouth care precepts that support responsive practices with children,young people and their families.


In “The Core of Care for Children at Home and Away From Home,”3

Maier’s (1979) developmental arguments showed how bodily comfortand the physical safety of each child are key performance outcomes inthe delivery of responsive child and youth care services. Those argu-ments highlight the question, “Is this child safe now?” Proactive careprovides bodily comfort and physical safety in daily practices with chil-dren and young people. This holds whether responding to an emergencyor family crisis; formulating, implementing, and managing short or me-dium-term plans with children; or in developing care strategies that ex-tend beyond age 18 and emancipation (Fulcher & Fulcher, 1998).Claims to responsiveness by child and youth care workers are mostclearly authenticated at the “meeting places of practice.” This is wherethe first three voices–those of children or young people, their family orextended family members and child welfare professionals–lay legiti-mate claims to being heard and to expecting their respective contribu-tions will be taken seriously.

At the core of a responsive service sings a voice that resonates from thesoul of each child or young person in care. That voice will always reflect adistinctive regional dialect and cultural history as it raps on through the sto-ries, visions, joys, and fears that touch the child in all of us. The secondvoice sometimes sings quietly but frequently shouts from the souls ofmothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, andcommunity members to express cultural and social preferences about thecare of particular children and young people (Fox-Harding, 1991). Thethird voice of child welfare professionals–whether social workers, teachersor health care providers–commonly sings of expert opinions about healthcare status, educational performance, or other social indicators of well-be-ing (Small & Fulcher, 1985), regardless of whether the words they sing areunderstood by young people and their families. Central to ProfessorMaier’s arguments about The Core of Care for children at home and awayfrom home was the recognition that while each child may be expected toachieve developmental milestones in terms of physical, cognitive, emo-tional, and social development, each is still different in its own special way.Such differences contribute to the soul of child and youth care practicewhether at home or in foster homes, residential schools, care centres, or in-stitutions. Whether adapting to an abusive home environment or livingrough in the jungle using squeaks for language, children and young peoplestill go to enormous lengths to get their physical and bodily comfort needsmet.

Each young person follows his or her own personal rhythms with re-spect to hunger, toileting, personal space, dress, cold and warmth, sleep,


susceptibility to illness, moods, and habits. It follows, as Maier argued(1981, 1992), that each child needs his or her own unique rhythms ofcaring to promote cultural safety, cognitive and emotional develop-ment, learning, social maturation, and enhanced personal well-being.Such rhythms connect with the soul of responsive child and youth carepractices. It is through engaging proactively in rhythms of caring withparticular children or young people–whether through nurturing care,teaching, therapeutic interventions, or behavioural supervision and con-trols–that child and youth care gains professional and public endorse-ment for responsiveness and for the service outcomes produced(Ainsworth & Fulcher, 1981; Fulcher & Ainsworth, 1985).

Summary

The Soul of child and youth care practice is directly linked to thedaily management and oversight of basic bodily comforts and personalsafety needs for children and young people living at home and awayfrom home. Because of developmental needs for physical safety and se-curity, some children or young people live temporarily in out-of-homeplacements while life plans are being reshaped and implemented. Sec-ond, the Soul of responsive child and youth care is touched through en-gaging with the unique character of each child or young personreceiving care. No matter how many developmental milestones areevaluated, children are still different, one from another.

Finally, the Soul of child and youth care practice focuses on personalrhythms and opportunity events with children or young people, wheresensitive engagement in caring relationships will promote personal de-velopment and social maturation through interactions that are in manyways auto-therapeutic. In this metaphor of Soul, it is easy to see howmusical rhythms introduced between children or young people and theircarers become fundamental to the successful delivery of quality serviceoutcomes. To examine this further, attention turns to a consideration offive important rhythms with associated musical rhythms that framechild and youth care practices at home and away from home. Under-standing (and heeding) the importance of these rhythms is fundamentalto the delivery of responsive children’s services.

THE RHYTHMS OF RESPONSIVE CHILD AND YOUTH CARE

The first rhythms needing to be identified and proactively engaged arethose associated with family and extended family members and connecting


to rhythms of interaction with kinship networks that exist for each child oryoung person received into care (Ainsworth, 1997; Burford & Casson,1989; Pennell & Burford, 1995). Family rhythms are closely associatedwith particular circumstances in each child’s or young person’s home en-vironment that may have resulted in their requiring child welfare servicesor being admitted to a foster home, residential school, or other centre(Fulcher & Ainsworth, 1985). Family rhythms contribute to the socialisa-tion and behavioural training each young person has received beforecoming to the attention of child and youth care professionals.

For all these reasons, it is essential that planned care and treatment givepriority to the active participation of family and extended family mem-bers. Active consideration needs also to be given to the kinship networksthat help give children and young people their social and cultural identi-ties. It is difficult to ignore research evidence showing that, despite whatchild welfare professionals may wish or think, children and young peoplestill resume contact and continue some involvement with family and ex-tended family members after leaving care (Fanshel, Finch, & Grundy,1990). Family connections and rhythms are closely associated with eachchild’s sense of identity (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), connecting with his orher soul to shape a unique personal and social character.

Next, it is important to identify each child’s education, recreation,and learning rhythms. These include both formal and informal rhythmsassociated with a child’s capacity for learning, their formal educationalactivities and achievements, and recreational pursuits that contribute tolarge muscle and cardiovascular development, eye-hand coordination,and time-structuring through leisure activities (Small & Fulcher, 1985).The educational, recreational, and learning rhythms will have been se-verely disrupted for many children and young people placed in fosterhomes or residential care such that these rhythms are underdeveloped,as noted in Kendrick’s (1999) study of Scottish children. Paradoxically,these are the very rhythms that connect children and young people to apeer group, giving opportunities for behavioural, social, and culturallearning so important to long-term future development and achieve-ment (Maier, 1975, 1987). These educational, recreational, and learningrhythms are clearly influenced through the purposeful use of activitiessuch as homework or work experiences, participation in sport or cul-tural activities, or directed learning through hobbies or youth clubs athome as well as in group care schools and centres (VanderVen, 1985).

Play therapy, individual and small group leisure activities, and par-ticipation in community life offer children and young people opportuni-ties for activating and nurturing rhythms in education, recreation, and


learning. As Maier (1979) put it, when children and young people expe-rience predictability in caring and learning rhythms with their carers, itis then that they learn to trust and emotionally depend on personal rela-tionships. Through this way of managing relationships with young peo-ple, the emphasis can shift from institutional controls to personalisedbehaviour training tailored for each young person in residence at home,in a foster home, residential school, or institution (Garfat, 1998). Multi-ple learning opportunities are used in such ways to support personalisedcare plans that are sensitively planned around the developmental needsand performance of each child or young person (Eisikovits, Beker, &Guttmann, 1991; Maier, 1981), adding Soul to the Rhythms of respon-sive child and youth care.

A third important set of rhythms are those associated with group liv-ing whether at home, foster home, summer camp, residential school,group home, or institution (Beker & Eisikovitz, 1991). When lookingclosely at the daily and weekly activities of children and young people,one quickly finds that each day follows particular rhythms associatedwith food, sleep, work, and play–all requiring sensitive daily manage-ment (Fulcher, 1996). Rhythms of group living are concerned with dif-ferences that can be found between weekday routines and activities andevents that happen on weeknights and weekends. Weekly and monthlyrhythms in child and youth care can often be discerned through an ex-amination of admission and discharge practices. These highlightwhether a service provides short-term respite care, crisis management,long-term supportive care, education, or residential supervision. Monthlyand seasonal rhythms of child and youth care are also commonly associ-ated with school, work, and holiday periods.

Residential schools and care centres sponsored by religious organisa-tions frequently employ weekly, monthly, and seasonal rituals in the de-livery of child and youth care or, as in Malaysia or other parts of theIslamic world, religious practices require the offering of prayers fivetimes a day. An examination of annual reports required of child andyouth care centres quickly demonstrates how yearly rhythms of care arealso important, most graphically seen when a child turns 18 and isre-classified an adult. At such times, support services that young peopleand families rely upon are withdrawn or they may be referred on, as inthe case of young people with developmental conditions becoming theresponsibility of health and disability services.

Child and youth care practices need also to engage with a fourth set ofrhythms associated with community and peer group activities. Respon-sive practices require attention to the needs of each child or young per-


son for purposeful engagement in social experiences that help connectthem to normative peer group activities (Fahlberg, 1990, 1991; Halverson,1995). Children and young people in care, wherever they live, have hadtheir community and peer group rhythms frequently disrupted as place-ment decisions are made without careful consideration for the unin-tended consequences in decision-making. As young people are movedfrom one setting to another or change schools, it follows that theirfriends are also moved and important relationships severed.

Young people in care quite often become involved with other youngpeople in care or engage in peer group activities that have a deleteriouseffect on health and well-being whether through alcohol and drugabuse, sexual abuse and neglect, or physical abuse. Unless new relation-ships are formed through the management of purposeful activities withalternative peers, then children and young people in care have littlechoice but a return to old friends and activities. These old relationshipsand patterns of behaviour have all too often resulted in the untimelydeaths of young people in care or histories of struggle for survival inabusive relationships. Rhythms associated with peer groups and com-munities of interest reach deep into the soul of children and young peo-ple, wherever they live (Maier, 1990, 1992). Responsive practices needfundamentally to build from recognition of how these rhythms impacton children and young people and how proactive engagement in com-munity and peer group rhythms can benefit children, young people, andtheir families (Maier, 1991).

Finally, one must not ignore the cultural and spiritual rhythms ofcaring that operate informally as well as formally in the delivery of re-sponsive child and youth care. Elsewhere (Fulcher, 1998; Tait-Rolles-ton, Cairns, Fulcher, Kereopa, & Nia Nia, 1997; Cairns et al., 1996) itwas shown how cultural rituals of encounter and exchange are com-monly overlooked in the delivery of social work and child and youthcare services (Stewart, 1997; Wilcox et al., 1991). Images, sounds, andsmells of child and youth care practice spring instantly to mind that re-flect cultural and spiritual rhythms of caring. These operate in any fam-ily or foster home as well as in residential schools, group care centres, orinstitutions (Ramsden, 1997; Te Whaiti, McCarthy, & Durie, 1997).

Look again at people engaging and interacting with each other in anactive child or youth care service. Do people sit on tables, at tables, oron chairs? Are there smells of sweet grass or incense burning? Doyoung people eat with their right hand without utensils? Do they usechopsticks? Do people use a knife and fork in each hand or manoeuvretheir way through dinner with a fork or spoon, except when cutting


meat? Is pork served? Do young people drink alcohol? Do young peo-ple appear in public without arms and legs covered? Are rituals of fast-ing and prayer evident?

One quickly sees why some cross-cultural competencies are re-quired if child and youth care workers are to avoid significant gaffesthat leave some children and carers feeling culturally unsafe (Leigh,1998; Rangihau, 1986, 1987; Shook, 1985). Rudolph Steiner centreshave taught the world a great deal about spiritual rhythms of caringand learning, seeking ways in which these rhythms can be carefullybalanced for each child or living and learning group. Successful out-comes for children and families have been achieved through thought-fully matching the personal styles and learning attributes of differentchildren to overcome performance deficits and achieve complemen-tary outcomes. Practices elsewhere in the so-called developing worldoffer important illustrations of how cultural and spiritual rhythms ofcaring seek balance with behavioural representations of wellness(Cairns, 1991; Ibeabuchi, 1986; Sali, 1996) that touch the soul of eachchild or young person in care (Rose, 1992).

Summary

Five rhythms of child and youth care practice have been identifiedthat touch the souls of children and young people in care, rhythms thatneed sensitive management and oversight whether at home or awayfrom home. Children are enmeshed within rhythms that connect themwith family and extended family members–including kinship net-works–that help locate each child or young person with particular peo-ple, places, and a cultural identity. Education, recreation, and learningrhythms–both formal and informal–require sensitive management ifchildren and young people in care are to be offered a minimum guaran-tee that their lives should not be placed at greater risk as a consequenceof having lived in a foster home, residential school, group home, or in-stitution.

Rhythms associated with family and residential group living can bemonitored, recorded, and reported by hour, shift, weekday, weeknight,weekend, month, holiday period, sick leave, or year. Community andpeer group rhythms enable children and young people to engage in pur-poseful activities and social learning opportunities. Finally, much is tobe learned about the management of cultural and spiritual rhythms ofcaring that help give meaning to the lives of children and young peoplein care.


Cultural safety and personal well-being are recurring themes in thestories and the Blues of child and youth care practice. As this musicalmetaphor fades from Soulful Rhythms to the Blues of children andyoung people in care, it is important to pause and acknowledge the emo-tional and physical pain experienced by children and young people incare and the tears they and their carers have shed so many times over theyears. Whether through frustration or relief, happiness or pain, suchemotions were closely aligned to the challenge of providing goodenough care and daily services that could make a difference to the well-being and futures of children and young people.

THE BLUES OF CHILD AND YOUTH CARE AT HOMEAND AWAY FROM HOME

The Blues of care are being sung well before any child or young per-son leaves home and arrives at a foster home, a residential school, grouphome, or institution (Kahan, 1989; Wagner, 1988). The formal imposi-tion of care, supervision, or custody by care and protection or place ofsafety order,4 youth justice sentencing, or indefinite detention followson from an important social history (Scarr & Eisenberg, 1993; Scull,1977; Seed, 1973). Throughout that history, the voices of a young per-son, family and extended family members, neighbours, teachers, childwelfare professionals and others may not have been heard clearlyamidst the noise of emotional turmoil. Most of the children or youngpeople for whom child welfare organisations provide services have notbeen diverted away from a formal reception into care. If diverted ini-tially to boarding school or extended family care, a care or supervisionorder may still have been issued at a later stage.

As noted in chapter one, for the past three decades child and youthcare policies have been reshaped by six ideologies of best practice: nor-malisation, deinstitutionalisation, mainstreaming, use of the least re-strictive environment, minimal intervention and diversion (Fulcher &Ainsworth, 1994). All six practice ideologies have impacted directly onthe planning and management of contemporary services provided forchildren, young people, and their families (O’Brien & Murray, 1997).These secondary influences associated with the social policy environ-ment, service organisations, and the delivery of agency services prompta whole new musical line of the Blues as highlighted in Henry Maier’schapter later in this volume. Confirmation that failures by “the system”have a direct impact on the well-being of both young people and staff


can be readily found when listening to managers and workers talk aboutworking in multiply restructured organisations delivering contempo-rary child and youth care services (Casson & George, 1995).

Foster parents and child and youth care workers are reminded thatthey operate at crisis points in the lives of children and families wherethe Blues sung by each child or young person confront a discordant beatof The System (Fulcher, 1988). Most child and youth care services oper-ate in a policy environment that is overtly shaped by fiscal consider-ations. Agencies are expected to operate as business units that managecapital and human resources to produce quality outcomes for individualchildren or young people and their significant others (Knapp, 1984).One refrain of the Blues in all this has been the growing recognition ofwork-related stresses and how professional fatigue impacts on team-work in the delivery of child and youth care services (Fulcher, 1991).

As Maier noted (1979), care for the caregivers is a core feature of anyquality care guarantees made to children, young people, and their fami-lies, a claim reinforced through research carried out by Burford (1990)and Fulcher (1983). The musical beat of soul, rhythms and blues im-pacts directly on all involved in child and youth care practice throughcontributing to an emotional climate and a living milieu in any home orcentre. The beat impacts directly on the professional identity and per-sonal well-being of every worker or prospective worker, influencing thecollective performance of child and youth care teams as a whole(Burford & Fulcher, 1985).

On arrival at a foster home, residential school, group home, or insti-tution a child or young person is initially confronted with a second lineof the Blues that sings of personal and cultural safety amongst strangers(Dominelli, 1988; Fulcher, 1998). Cultural safety, that state of being inwhich a child or young person experiences that her or his personalwell-being–as well as social and cultural frames of reference–are ac-knowledged, even if not fully understood, is highlighted each time ayoung person starts engaging with others in their new care environment.Questions like “Are there any people like me here?” become recurringemotional themes, along with other Rhythm and Soul themes like “Arethere people who speak like I do?” “Do they eat the way I do?” “Do theyeat the same food?” and “Why are these other people here?”

Rituals of group membership begin immediately after one enters thedoor of a child and youth care service centre (Fulcher, 1996). Respon-sive carers establish and maintain positive rituals of encounter that pro-mote group membership for new members, students, care staff,domestic or catering workers, and other visitors to the centre. In


residential group living situations, a new child or young person maybe assisted through the formal rituals of group membership. How-ever, they must also establish their own personal place within thesub-group hierarchies and alliances that operate in any resident groupwhile establishing purposeful relationships with carers as well. Respectfor individuality connects with a young person’s personal identity andthat sense of who they were before admission to care. This extends fur-ther to “Who are/were their people?” “Who cared about them and forthem?” “What was happening that resulted in their being placed incare?” and “What happens next?” Personal and cultural safety, manag-ing group membership(s), and reinforcing identity are all interwoveninto the Soul, Rhythms and Blues of caring, reinforcing the importanceof responsiveness to this aspect of practice (Maier, 1991).

A third strain of the Blues is heard whenever a child or young personfeels shy, embarrassed, ridiculed, or unsafe whether living at home, in afoster home, attending school camp, or staying at a residential school,group home, or institution. Shyness and embarrassment have their ownspecial meanings in the native languages spoken by each child admittedinto care. New Zealand Maori families experience whakamaa or embar-rassment about a child being placed in care, while in Malaysia, the par-allel response involves feeling malu. The voice and dialect of each newresident or staff member is pinpointed very quickly through a variety of“getting to know you rituals.” Being made the brunt of a joke or feelingridicule from resident group members are recurring themes of the Bluesin child and youth care practice. One is always hopeful that no child oryoung person in care will ever be made the subject of ridicule or abuseby staff, and yet history sadly documents an abusive legacy in residen-tial child and youth care practice. That history has been made prominentsince World War II through media disclosures of abuse in all parts of theWestern world (see, for example, Australian Human Rights and EqualOpportunities Commission, 1997; Canadian Royal Commission on Ab-original Peoples, 1997; Rangihau, 1986). When a child feels unsafe cul-turally, spiritually, emotionally, or physically, then her or his voicesings a special refrain of the Blues. Unless that voice and its special ren-dition is heard by child and youth care workers and responded to withsensitivity, then children or young people such as these are placed ateven greater risk than before. Responsive child and youth care practicesneed to guarantee that, from the moment of first contact, no child oryoung person in care will be made to feel unsafe or be left in unsafe situ-ations.


A fourth rendition of the Blues sings out in anger or fear. Young peo-ple frequently bring a lifetime of anger into out-of-home placements,and they are usually angry for very good reasons (Durst, 1992). Manyyoung people feel anger towards teachers, parents or step-parents, boy-friends or girlfriends, and others for “letting them down.” Children andyoung people also experience fear or apprehension when joining a newliving or learning group. It is important to hear and respond sensitivelyto voices singing the Blues out of anger and fear. It is all too easy forthese powerful emotions of group living to place children or young peo-ple in abusive situations where they end up singing the Blues of victim,perpetrator, or voyeur with consequences that may last a lifetime. Legalobligations in the duty of care form the basis for minimum guaranteesthat no child or young person shall be harmed nor become the victim ofabuse of any kind while in receipt of state-mandated care. Such expecta-tions are also voiced by family and extended family members, by childwelfare professionals, by special interest groups and the media, and bythose purchasing and administering cost-effective services for children,young people, and their families.

Finally, when a child or young person becomes isolated from peers,from their carers, from family members, from friends, and from virtu-ally everyone around them, it is important that child and youth careworkers hear loudly and clearly the Blues of risk that require careful at-tention (Guttman, 1991). Isolation and feelings of personal alienationshould not be confused with times when children or young people seekmoments of solitude or time out. Isolation Blues are those associatedwith life and death. Burning preoccupations about life and death issuesare sometimes tattooed in prominent places on a young person’s hands,arms, chest, or face and become symbolic reminders of moments of painetched as a moko5 into their being for a lifetime. Cutting or bruising on ayoung person’s wrists, limbs, breasts, or genitals must always be a con-cern, and body language such as this should provoke action on the partof all child and youth care workers.

When the principle of physical safety and security is threatenedthrough accidental or self-inflicted injury or through the death of a childin care, then the professional integrity of child welfare services is calledinto question. It is important to remember that children or young peoplecan sometimes reach the stage when the very thought of fronting up forwhat they have done or experiences to which they have been subjectedbecomes either too worrisome or burdensome to contemplate. At timeslike these, attempted suicide or death through risk-taking with drugs, al-cohol, cars, motorbikes, or weapons becomes a stark alternative to the


painful reality that engulfs their very existence. Much can be learnedthrough hindsight about the deaths of children or young people in care.These remain salutary reminders to all child or youth care workers whocontinue to ask whether anything might have been done differently orwhether anything might have saved them. The Blues sung by children oryoung people who died in care must never fall on deaf ears nor cease toweigh heavily on hearts seemingly out of tune with the emotional painin children or young people’s lives.

Summary

So long as child and youth care workers “tune in” and actively listento what is going on, the Blues are being sung every day by children andyoung people for whom care, special education, treatment, supervision,or custody has been authorised (Garfat, 1998). Personal accounts ofemotional suffering as well as the blues of survival in “the system” arecommonly heard. Physical and cultural safety in the crowds of groupliving can be overlooked very easily during school camps, in fosterhomes, residential schools, group homes, and institutions. Rituals asso-ciated with group membership and individuality are distinctive featuresof group living, regardless of whether these rituals are planned or un-planned. Responsive child and youth care requires vigilance in situa-tions where a child or young person might feel embarrassed, shy,ridiculed, or unsafe.

Other more direct interventions are required when working with chil-dren or young people feeling angry, scared, abusive, or abused. Finally,when a child or young person becomes withdrawn, isolated, or perhapsother-worldly, it is important to recognize how they profile someonewho could do something seriously reckless or stupid, leading to deathby suicide or risk-taking with alcohol, drugs, cars, motorbikes, or weap-ons. The Blues of child and youth care are musical themes heard daily,while the sounds of Soul and Rhythms of caring promote health andwell-being.

TOWARD A RADICAL REFRAMING OF CHILDAND YOUTH CARE PRACTICES

To conclude, the six voices introduced at the start of this chapter areused to call for a radical reframing of child and youth care services


aimed at achieving increased responsiveness in the decade ahead. Eachvoice of child and youth care sings through its own particular speechpattern and dialect, highlighting the importance of planning and policyformation being much more tightly focused around the developmentalneeds of children and young people. That there are at least six voices, alldemanding to speak, gives evidence for the need to better understandorganisational complexities associated with responsive multi-disciplin-ary practices in this field. Sadly, the combined musical output of all sixvoices creates discord, where the more powerful voices dominate at theexpense of others.

The Voices of Children and Young Peopleat Home or Away from Home:“Walk the Talk!”

Children and young people are far more sophisticated than they werein previous generations when social mores expected children to be seenand not heard and decisions were made for young people and not withthem. Contemporary young people are now presented with a range ofstimuli through the media, the Internet, and modern challenges of dailylife like drugs, HIV-AIDS, and expectations that they ask “Why?”Those involved in child and youth care need to practice what theypreach or teach far more actively than before, engaging in purposefulactivity and direct care services to children and families in collaborationwith other health, education, and social services professionals.

The five rhythms of proactive, responsive caring need to place chil-dren and young people at the centre of planning and policy formulation.Think about how children or young people might participate in staff re-views of their performance week-to-week! There needs to be a radicalreframing of ideas about the way service outcomes are monitored andevaluated with each child or young person in care. If child and youthcare workers and managers are to lead by example then young peopleneed active encouragement to participate in decision-making aboutwhat is happening or is about to happen in their lives.

The Voices of Family and Extended Family Members:“Think Outside the Box!”

While lip service is frequently paid to family participation in deci-sion-making around the care, education, and supervision of children andyoung people, the realities of family participation often fail to match up


with the rhetoric. Those engaged in the delivery of child and youth careservices need to think and act more strategically with individual childrenand families. This means exploring ideas about how to resource more re-sponsive practice opportunities with particular children or young peopleand working in much greater partnership with family and extended fam-ily members to achieve better outcomes. It also means thinking practi-cally about the futures of each child or young person in care and whatthose futures might hold when they reach age 18 or older.

There is ample research to show how family participation in deci-sion-making about children or young people placed in care helps to pro-duce enhanced service outcomes (Burford & Hudson, 2000). Whetherrelying on formal family group conferences or less formal protocols thatencourage family participation, it is difficult to ignore the way increasedfamily participation usually means improved service outcomes and lon-ger term benefits for children, young people, and their families.

The Voices of Child Welfare Professionals: “Get Real!”

For all the advances in science, technology, and the arts gained overthe past half-century, there is still a paradox in how little has changed indirect practice encounters with children and young people in primarycare settings in most child welfare services. The language of child wel-fare professionals is still filled with jargon and big words used by differ-ent professional disciplines, drawing attention to knowledge maintainedby experts regardless of whether these are communicated with childrenor young people and families or not. Staff turnover in child welfare ser-vices still remains critically high, and the research evidence is virtuallynon-existent on how work rosters and staff-to-client ratios contribute toresponsiveness and continuity in young people’s lives as they movethrough developmental life transitions.

Status hierarchies continue to place front-line care workers at the bot-tom of organisational charts, giving limited acknowledgment to thestrategic benefit from their responsive practices employed with childrenor young people day-by-day. Peer supervision and formal supervisionare all too frequently neglected or abandoned altogether whether throughwork pressures or because of service restructuring driven by consultantslacking knowledge of the field who confuse professional supervisionwith management. Far from being a waste of public sector spending, itis argued that time set aside for professional networking between childwelfare professionals is critical to achieving enhanced responsivenessin the delivery of child, youth, and family services.


The Voices of Public Opinion: “Who’s Carin’?”

The future of responsive child and youth care services is closelyaligned to investment in any nation’s young people. Those claiming that“nothing works” in child and youth care have seen this message snappedup by supporters of monetarist economics as justification for massivecuts in public investment in the futures of children and young people.Few have bothered to explore what works with which young people orunder which circumstances. Then, as enquiry after enquiry documentsthe abuse of children in local authority care, public opinion becomesdisparaging about there being anything that can make a difference. So-cial Darwinist views such as these end up blaming children or youngpeople for a DNA code that puts them beyond redemption. Having“failed the cure” that caring community services offered them, manycome to symbolise the call in places like the U.S. for capital punishmentas young adults, this being a seemingly logical solution for heinouscrimes and ill behaviour towards others.

Advocates of targeted expenditure also fail to acknowledge the waythat children or young people must now be labeled as problems beforeany assistance is justified, ignoring the unintended consequences of la-beling on identity formation and self-esteem. Thus, while those lobby-ing for the corporate interests of industry and government employmillions to shape public opinion, where are the lobbyists for children,young people, and their families? The rhetoric of commitment rarelyfinds implementation in the realities of practice for those struggling toprovide responsive child welfare services.

The Voices of Regulating Authority and Fiscal Accountability:“Transparency of Costs and Accountability for Outcomes!”

The last decade of the 20th century saw child and youth care servicesoperating increasingly through purchase of service contracting arrange-ments with governments and public agencies. Services are now com-monly monitored as business units that deliver specific performanceoutcomes to targeted clientele. Public sector accounting practices nowshape child and youth care outcomes. Ironically, government servicesare filled increasingly with contract administrators, not practitioners,who expect more from the voluntary sector in exchange for fundingthan was ever expected of government services in the past. One resulthas been that voluntary child care organisations now spend as muchtime on servicing the new client of ministerial and governmental expec-


tations, distracting attention away from the top priority of service re-sponsiveness to the “traditional clients” who are real children, youngpeople, and their families. After all the contract jargon, technical lan-guage, and accountancy-speak, the most important aspect of transpar-ency is that which still focuses on the needs of every child or youngperson in care. Accountability begins with family and extended familyviews about how a child and youth care service assists with the care oftheir child(ren), a key argument supporting the use of family group con-ferences at the beginning and end of each care order6 to reaffirm familyparticipation at every stage of the service planning process.

The Voices of Research and Scholarship:“If Ya Pay Peanuts, Ya Get Monkeys!”

If child welfare services are to gain formal recognition for the stra-tegic role played in support of a nation’s future, there needs to be polit-ical commitment directly commensurate with the nation’s strategicinvestment in the futures of children and young people. It has beensaid that New Zealand kept better records of its sheep population in thelate 19th century than it did of its children. In the late 20th century,zookeepers and horse racing attendants were often paid more thanchild and youth care workers, perhaps because of heavy investment inbloodstock!

Meanwhile, children and young people in care remain very much atrisk of under-achievement, ill health, and court involvement becauseadults in many parts of the world lack the political will to invest inmore responsive child and youth care practices. Scandinavian exam-ples throughout the past half-century have reaffirmed the importanceof sustained political commitment to the professional registration ofchild and youth care workers, and that includes salaries and conditionsthat are commensurate with the job. Poor pay and poor conditions re-flect the status given to care work and the value given to enhancing thelives and well-being of children and young people in care.

Recent disclosures of sexual abuse in British residential homes onlyreinforce this point. It is not that more research is required to deter-mine future directions for the development of child welfare services.The challenge lies in a radical reframing of policies and practices thatimplement what has already been documented through repeated re-search outcomes. This requires more than re-structuring child andyouth care organisations that have already struggled through three de-


cades of service restructuring while attempting to respond proactivelyto the contemporary needs of children, young people, and their fami-lies. Planning needs to extend beyond the current financial year to es-tablish a strategic vision for the futures of children or young people incare, in education, recreation, leisure and sport with a three to five yeartime line, updated yearly. Otherwise structural features of child wel-fare bureaucracy continue to undermine the futures of any nation’schildren and young people by failing to strategically invest in theirsustainable futures.

In conclusion, there is much to be gained from tuning in to all voicesthat sing the Soul, Rhythms, and Blues of child and youth care practice.All six voices introduced here require particular attention and activelistening. The Heart and Soul of child and youth care are embedded inacts of caring that attend to bodily comforts and physical safety thatacknowledges what makes each child unique. Children follow theirown personal rhythms around physical, cognitive, emotional, behav-ioural and social development. Five distinctive rhythms of child andyouth care were highlighted: Family rhythms; educational, recre-ational, and learning rhythms; rhythms of daily living; community andpeer group rhythms; and cultural/spiritual rhythms of caring. TheBlues of child and youth care are sung through each care order;through engagement in rituals of group membership; during times ofemotional vulnerability, anger, and pain, and; during times of fear,withdrawal, and isolation. The Blues of child and youth care are hearddaily in foster homes and group care centres but proactive attentiongiven to the Soul and the Rhythms of caring helps to remedy the Bluesby promoting health and well-being for young people and carers alike.It is hoped that these musical reflections will challenge child andyouth care workers and managers–plus the organisations that employthem–towards achieving even greater responsiveness to the develop-mental needs of their nation’s children and young people.

NOTES

1. In choosing this term, the writer relied on the Scottish Chambers Dictionary for anancient definition of French origin, where voice means “to act as mouthpiece of: to giveutterance or expression to: and to endow with voice.”

2. The author wishes to acknowledge limitations associated with the way this reviewwas restricted due to being “Other-Than-English Challenged,” making it impossible to


decipher much written material voiced in languages other than English. This is a hugelimitation.

3. The First Aberlour Child Care Trust Lecture given at Strathclyde University inScotland.

4. The UK and many Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and Malaysia use aPlace of Safety Order as the legal device that transfers a child into care for protection.

5. Maori ceremonial tattooing of the face and body.6. A “care order” is the legal instrument through which a British child or young per-

son, as also found in other Commonwealth countries, may be placed in state supervisedcare.

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The Soul, Rhythms and Blues of Responsive Child and Youth Care at Home or Away from Home