a monthly column from members of
SIRCC
This
month’s column is from
Laura
Steckley
Cheap,
Fast and Easy
I
had the great pleasure of spending a couple of days at the Camphill
School in Aberdeen last week. This school exists as part of a
community serving children, young people and adults with special
needs. The people working and living here take a holistic approach
to enabling members of this community to reach their potential,
and I was struck by the feeling of possibility and promise permeating
this place.
The
two days were a mind-expanding experience. These folks take an
alternative approach to so many aspects of life. The importance
of space and architecture in creating harmonious living environments,
the integral place of art, aesthetics and bodily integration in
healing the human spirit, and the integrated way they approach
their relationships, their work and their environment are just
a few examples.
They
bake their own bread, grow their own veg, and weave their own
cloth. Some of their ways of thinking and being immediately resonated
with my own thoughts and experience, and some challenged and stretched
me.
This
community is under threat, however. Plans are afoot to lay a dual
carriageway trunk road through its heart. While no one wants a
dual carriageway through their back garden, the impact on Camphill
would be devastating.
There
are more than 300 people living in this community. The disruptive
impact of the perpetual noise, movement and pollution that will
be created by this motorway cannot be denied. The disastrous impact
on those people who don’t understand danger and are fascinated
by traffic, or on those who cannot manage even limited stimulation,
cannot be accepted. In answering, “Why Camphill?”
one of its members responded simply, “It’s considered
the cheapest, fastest, easiest option.”
Cheap,
fast and easy. This seems to sum up so much of what is wrong with
current attitudes. When something is more expensive, takes longer
or becomes more difficult or inconvenient than expected, how often
we become irritated or angry, look for someone to blame or call
for an inquiry.
In
western societies, we have unprecedented easy access to material
and technological goods. Yet there is little evidence that people
are generally happier, more fulfilled or enjoy stronger, healthier
relationships. A cheap, fast and easy approach to diet is robbing
many of health and longevity (the recent film Super Size Me
springs to mind). Our culture of convenience is killing us.
This
isn’t to say that the only path worth taking is the most
expensive, lengthy and difficult one. That would be a cheap, fast
and easy interpretation. An appreciation and investment in the
process at least as much as the outcome might be a good place
to start. Cultivation of our patience and courage to grapple with
ambiguity and complexity seems essential as well. We seem to long
for something better, and we hear politicians making lofty pronouncements
like “Every child matters,” or speaking of inclusion.
Well, talk is cheap.
I’ve
been thinking about how this orientation towards cheap, fast and
easy has impacted residential child care. On an individual level,
we certainly know that forming relationships and working with
some of the most disadvantaged and often disenfranchised young
people takes time and is never easy.
I
remember trying to impress upon a member of my team who was indiscriminately
disclosing his own past in residential care the importance of
patience for the process—that there are no shortcuts to
building trust. There is increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable
outcomes of effective intervention, and if things here follow
the same trends happening in my country of origin, the United
States, we will be under increasing pressure to produce these
outcomes in less time and for less expense.
While
I believe we should monitor and continually strive to improve
the effectiveness of our efforts, this preoccupation with outcomes
is often blind to the process.
A
most glaring example of this is illustrated by the Scottish Social
Services Council’s (SSSC) minimum educational requirements
for qualification for residential child care practitioners (The
SSSC is a body whose chief remit is to monitor and regulate the
social services workforce in Scotland). This requirement is comprised
of an SVQ level 3 (a vocational qualification that attempts to
break down the residential child care practice into instrumental
tasks, for which students must evidence competence) plus an HNC
(Higher National Certificate) or the equivalent in anything
(for instance, motor vehicle studies).
While
I do believe that people from different walks of life have something
to offer young people in care, I also believe they should be adequately
equipped to understand and meet the complex demands of this work.
Residential care practitioners need to have a strong theoretical
framework through which they can make sense of the seemingly senseless
behaviour they are expected to manage. How else will they help
the young people in their charges to make sense of themselves?
Practitioners
also need insight into prevalent and complex dynamics like projection,
transference and counter-transference if they are to effectively
use and manage their fundamental tool of intervention—their
selves. A task-oriented vocational qualification comes nowhere
near delivering at this level. It also does little to promote
a positive, professional identity, but instead further reinforces
the inferior status and remuneration experienced by those in the
sector.
Despite
this minimum requirement, there are students studying the MA (Hons.)
in Social Work (Residential Child Care) on a specially funded
course at the Glasgow School of Social Work where I teach. I have
been consistently impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment shown
by many of these students, some of whom have been informed that,
once qualified, they will have to move to an area children and
families team (field work) if they want to be paid at a qualified
rate.
In
medicine, nurses working in the intensive care units are often
the best paid, due to the intensity of the work and the advanced
skills required. I have never understood why in residential child
care, sometimes referred to as the intensive care unit of social
work, the practitioners are some of the most poorly paid in social
work. When we attend so poorly to the processes, it’s no
wonder the outcomes seem so inadequate. Creating a confident,
competent and truly qualified work force will be neither cheap,
fast nor easy.
If
the plans for the motorway through the heart of Camphill in Aberdeen
go through, it will be an assault on a group of people who offer
a sparkling alternative to the cheap, fast and easy orientation
that pervades modern living in western societies. The paradox
within this situation is that, given Camphill and its supporters’
ongoing organised resistance, it is doubtful that this plan will
continue to be the fastest or easiest. In looking at the costs,
it may also serve to consider more deeply not only the impact
on the members of this community and their families, but the cost
to our collective humanity in spoiling this sanctuary.
If
you would like to learn more about Camphill’s current predicament,
check out: http://www.savecamphill.org.uk/index.htm.
