The role of child and youth care practitioners in the treatment planning process.

摘要

Many professions, whether implicitly or explicitly, claim a higher status than they afford to child and youth care practitioners (Beker, 1976; VanderVen, 1991). However, child and youth care practitioners have also contributed to this nescient view in not understanding how profoundly they can affect the lives of others, or by not explaining the depths to their practice. Whether for these reasons or others, Beker (2005) feels that child and youth care practitioners are kept on the peripheral when it comes to treatment planning. Moreover, although considerable research has examined these workers' struggles to be seen as credible practitioners, minimal research has examined a child and youth care practitioner's role in treatment planning. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the role of child and youth care practitioners within the treatment planning process, their knowledge of and comfort with the process, and the areas in which they feel capable or might want or need additional training. Data were gathered through structured interviews from eleven purposefully selected child and youth care practitioners with diverse backgrounds, though the majority had experience working in settings such as schools, group homes, day treatment and private practice. Modified grounded theory from qualitative methodology was used to analyze the data. Research questions were broken down into three topic areas, general role, treatment plan role, and perceptions of child and youth care practitioners. Results emerged around four interconnected themes: giving the client primacy of focus, marginalization of the child and youth care practitioner, a child and youth care practitioner's desire for change, and dynamicism of treatment plans. In a client-centred approach, the child and youth care practitioner maintains the child as the focus of treatment, though other environmental factors are taken into account and worked with, when possible, and there is a sense of closeness to the client that other professionals may not have due to role constraints. Secondly, marginalization restricts access to and input into treatment plans. The third theme, desire for change, speaks to empowerment of the children and youth and giving credence to the child and youth care profession. Lastly, is a focus on the treatment plan itself and on the understanding that it is a working document that must be permitted to change and grow according to the changing needs of, and demands on, the client. However, a meta-theme emerges upon review of results. This theme is one suggesting that structures and practices of power that are exerted on child and youth care practitioners in their contact with other professionals, parallels those exerted on their clients. The following questions arise: Where would full membership of the child and youth care practitioner in the society of other professionals leave the relationship between the child and youth care practitioner and the client? Where would it leave the client?