Developing a Culture of Care

in this training will be taking a look at developing a culture of care.

So why is the culture of care important

are key components that will look at our defining a culture of care,

the history of residential programming

using a strengths based approach.

The spectrum of attitudes about you.

Mhm.

The particular needs of an environment and of the people when creating a

culture of care and the roles of residential workers and helping professionals.

So let's take a look at the definition

defining culture of care can be challenging.

The meaning may be different depending on the circumstances and experiences.

It is often helpful to put yourself or a loved

one in the shoes of a person receiving services.

We'll move on to an activity

Your elderly loved one is in need of out of the home care.

What do you look for in a facility?

How do you expect staff to work with and care for your loved one?

And what beliefs should the facility hold about people being served?

The answers you come up with

when thinking about these questions

are the same types of things that the families and agencies placing Children with us

may ask.

We want to make sure that we're fostering an environment

of care to meet those needs and those expectations.

So, a culture of care are working definition will be

the atmosphere of the system that provides care for people receiving services

and hallmark. That means our Children, youth and their families.

Now we're going to take a look at the history of residential treatment briefly.

So in the 1800s there were mental assignment asylums and there were orphanages and

the goal of these were rehabilitating troubled

youth and removing them from the community.

Many of these youth were coping with trauma or were neurodivergent,

frequently used techniques were social isolation for long periods of

time and the use of physical punishments to obtain compliance

in the information that I found some examples of physical

punishments included spraying Children in the face with water when

they didn't comply or poking them with a pushpin or

some other sharp object to get them to apply,

get them to comply. Excuse me.

Um and those were some of the milder punishments that I was able to find.

So let's talk about 18 99.

In 18 99 child advocate jane Adams created the first juvenile court system.

Her goal in this was to separate the

juvenile system from the adult system because the

goal for the juvenile system should be rehabilitating

and treating problem behaviors for young people.

So, in the 20th century,

modern residential treatment facilities use an approach

focused on treatment and a therapeutic model.

The goal of modern residential treatment is to return the child

to the community which involves work from the whole family system.

Often our youth are the identified patient in

the family when really there's a dynamic or

other people within that system who should be

receiving some sort of intervention as well.

And this is why family therapy is so important.

So the approach, we want to make sure we're using a strengths based approach.

What does that mean?

So when we're using a strengths based approach,

we focus on strengths rather than deficits.

We're proactive rather than reactive because when we are reactive we

go back to that natural fight flight or freeze response.

And those types of reactions

often

are not therapeutic.

And we want to make sure that we're proactive and providing

therapeutic interventions in align with the policies and procedures of hallmark.

Um it's also important to know that youth development is a process and not an event.

So often we are taught that development is a series of milestones.

And while it is, those processes are always ongoing,

so we want to make sure that we're doing with youth and not doing to youth,

we don't want to be overlords, but we do want to be partners.

We want the youth to participate with us. We want to come up with solutions with them.

Let's take a look at child development.

So, for a definition,

child development is a process which prepares young

people to meet the challenges of adolescence and

adulthood through a progressive series of experiences which

helped them to become socially morally emotionally,

physically and cognitively competent.

So we talk about positive child

development that addresses the broader developmental

needs of youth and in contrast to the deficit based models,

it folks that focus on unwanted behaviors.

So again, positive child development,

we're focusing on strengths were starting where the youth are.

Whereas deficit based models focus on unwanted behaviors and punishments.

It's important to remember that child development happens every

single day in our environment with every single interaction

with the youth and by opportunities provided for them

to participate in the process and practice new skills.

Many of our youth have lagging sales,

so they're not developmentally where they quote unquote should be.

And because of that we work on teaching those skills.

The thing about teaching skill is that you have to provide practice zones,

you have to provide opportunities to make

mistakes and provide redirection and re teaching.

So conventional wisdom kind of goes against a strengths based

approach and we need to rethink some of our thinking.

The child development approach may require a shift in how

we think and interact with youth in our normal lives.

We want to be focusing on the positive,

I want to make sure that we're

taking responsibility and not taking things personally.

We want to become proactive, We want to view the youth as resources.

The youth are experts on themselves.

While they may not be experts on managing their lagging skills,

they are able to communicate what works and what doesn't work

and also maintaining hope that change is possible. It's easy to get burnt out.

It's easy to have compassion fatigue.

So often we deal with the same problem over and

over and over and it's hard to remain hopeful,

but it's important to remember that every human being,

including the kids we serve at home work deserves to

have at least one person irrationally dedicated to their success.

And in order to be irrationally dedicated to success,

you need to have hope and optimism,

Whoops. I

apologize and I made a mistake.

Let's take a look at a quick scenario

and youth was late getting up to school.

They refused their medication and got into

an argument with appeared during afternoon.

Check in

How do you approach this youth in a strength based lens?

So I'm not going to give you the answer because there is no right answer.

Using a strengths based lines may look different when I do

it and it may look different when you do it.

But the fact of the matter is we want to start with things that that youth did well.

Did they actually make their bed even though they were late?

Did they? Were they cooperative during mealtimes?

Did they take their afternoon medication?

We want to make sure that we're providing as

much praise as possible in those positive moments.

So there are different attitudes when talking about how we serve you?

The first is youth as objects

using that

in that situation? The adult

is in control with no intention of allowing youth involvement.

What happens when we do this

conformity from the youth and acceptance of the program as it is

while that would be perfect if the kids just accepted the program.

Um, it doesn't teach them anything,

It doesn't teach them any skills and it doesn't empower them in any way.

The second way is youth as recipient.

The adult is in control but allows youth involvement.

What do we get through that? We get increased organizational effectiveness.

So things will operate more smoothly when we allow

youth involvement because we're not doing things to them.

We're doing things with them.

Youth as resources. Adult and youth have a partnership and shared control.

Now this doesn't mean you just let the kids do whatever they want, right?

You still have expectations. You still have boundaries. You still have limits.

But whenever the opportunity presents itself,

you allowed the child to have shared control so

that they feel empowered in their decision making.

And the byproduct of this is personal growth for the youth and for us as adults

because we also have lagging skills and while

the youth is practicing we're practicing as well,

it's a parallel process and the progress is in the practice.

It's a lot of peas.

So let's look at a quick activity. How do you view you

a I asked the youth for their input,

but ultimately the final decision is mine because I am the adult.

So that would be used as recipient,

I know what's best because I'm the adult and have the experience

youth as objects.

I am.

I invite discussion and agreement by the youth until we reach a decision together.

I'm sorry. That should say disagreement

until we reach a decision together which we need DFS

resources because they do have some ideas that may work.

We may need to tweak them a little bit for

our environment or to help the youth meet our expectations,

but ultimately it's a positive thing to

allow them to participate in decision making.

Mm hmm.

Now we're going to take a look at the needs and a culture of care.

The mill, you can include the physical space,

classrooms and the activities that are in place to fill time for youth.

The milieu has a strong relationship to a culture of care.

Let's take a look at Maslow's.

So when a youth arrives, we provide them with food, they have water,

they have a place to sleep.

Um we also provide safety and security through consistency

and routine and through actually having locked doors.

So where we need to focus our energy when a

youth arrives is that sense of belonging and love.

We want to help them develop positive healthy

relationships with staff and with their peers.

So what can you do to promote belonging and

love needs during the use first days at Hallmark

and what areas have the greatest impact on the individual and the milieu.

So helping professionals,

the effective youth care professional has a combination of knowledge,

self awareness and skill that allows them to form healthy relationships,

make decisions during stressful times and

build an environment that invites change and

encourages new possibilities for families and young people with whom we work.

What is your role as a youth care worker?

The youth care professional, quote unquote wears many hats,

You may find yourself serving in multiple roles during

one shift and for different youth at different times.

Some of the roles in a culture of care is the developer of structure and ritual,

right?

We keep track of the schedule, we keep things on schedule,

but you don't know what to expect

nurturer.

Many of our kids have not had a positive,

healthy nurture and it's our role to teach them how to receive care

manager of daily tasks. Again, that goes back to the structure, ritual and routine

provider of experiences that build strengths. This one is very important.

We want to make sure we're providing those practice zones as mentioned before,

when we build on strings. When we say, hey, you're really good at this.

Have you tried that?

We allow youth to build up internal resources, They start to believe in themselves.

They start to know the things that they do well and that

pushes them towards a more positive path in their choices and behaviors.

We also serve as advocates for and within you,

we are our leader and facilitator.

We are provider of therapeutic interventions that goes back to practice zones,

but any of our therapeutic

interventions, including restraints

um are all things that as a health care professional and a youth

worker you may you may end up participating in and of course communicator?

We communicate all the time.

You communicate with your body language and with your words and we have a role in

teaching the youth how to communicate with caregivers

and how to communicate with their peers.

Yeah,

so true or false.

Young people are resources and have much to contribute

true.

Historically, residential programs have focused on the problem.

Also, true

residential treatment is as much about change

in families as any other approach to treatment

false residential treatment.

Modern residential treatment focuses on changing families.

Other models may not do so, particularly deficit based models.

A problem free kid is fully prepared for life

false. We all know this as adults, many of us weren't fully prepared for life.

Um,

and we all come from various backgrounds with varying

degrees of experience and trauma of our own.

What is seen in the milieu has nothing to do with the culture of care

and of course we know that it's false. We create the culture of care in the milieu,

final thoughts.

Just a few things for you to think about or

contemplate as you're going through your day to day interactions,

particularly with our youth.

If you teach a child that someone always has to win and someone always has to lose.

When do they learn the skill of solving problems in a mutually satisfactory manner.

When when

if you teach a child that winning depends on being bigger and stronger.

Might makes right?

What do you think

and what do you do when they are bigger and stronger than you are?

We need to teach those skills right.

If you teach a child that adults are the only ones with good ideas,

When does a child learn that they have good ideas?

When does a child learn how to think independently?

We've all seen examples of learned helplessness

and that concludes this training about developing a culture of care.

I hope that you have learned something or have something that you

can take away and use in your day to day interactions.

Thank you.

Developing a Culture of Care

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