An Exploration of the Educational Preparedness for Practice Experiences of Child and Youth Care Workers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract

The number of young people admitted to child and youth care centres is constantly increasing in South Africa. These are young people who might have experienced extreme trauma related to abuse, neglect, abandonment, family dysfunction, loss of a parent or caregiver, or those with behavioural challenges and therefore in need of residential care. Child and youth care workers are trained to assist and care for them. The provision of this care presupposes key tasks with behaviour management being one of them. In this study, we explored the adequacy and efficacy of training offered to child and youth care workers and their preparedness to successfully cope with their behaviour management tasks. It focused on the educational preparation of child and youth care workers to assist young people with behaviour management challenges in child and youth care centres. A qualitative approach with an exploratory, descriptive, and contextual design was used in this study. The population comprised child and youth care workers in KwaZulu-Natal who are working in residential child and youth care centres, and the sample size was suspended at 21 participants because of data saturation. A semi-structured interview guide was used to conduct individual telephonic interviews to collect data. The data collected were analysed using Tesch’s eight steps of analysis. In this study, we found that the main gap was in integrating and applying theory and practice resulting in difficulties to manage tasks relating to young people’s challenging behaviours.

Challenges Experienced by Child and Youth Care Workers in Child and Youth Care Centres Working With Children

“…The lack of coherence about who could access what information was understood to be a potential risk to individuals and could affect caring issues. The fact that CYCWs are carers employed at the CYCC for the day-to-day care of children (Mkhize, Sibiya & Hlengwa, 2022) influences elements of the child protection system. The multiple professional roles to be played within the system include matters of social, health, education and child development.…”

“…As indicated in previous studies, there is a tension between peopleprocessing (i.e., not to change the behaviour of people directly but to process them and confer a public status on them) and people-changing (refers to the humanistic connotations of enhancing wellbeing), which are part of child welfare systems. The work is monitored and assessed by bureaucratic systems for work completion (Mkhize et al, 2022). Tensions and conflict between these two institutional aims -people-processing and people-changing -have been noted and studied by scholars of bureaucracy, social work and child welfare casework practice (Gibson, Samuels & Pryce, 2018).…”