Relationships with Children and Families

• NCJ Number: 228866
• Journal: Child & Youth Services Volume: 30 Issue: 3/4 Dated: December 2008 Pages: 211-234
• Author(s): Kiaras Gharabaghi
• Date Published: December 2008
• Length: 24 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For related articles in this issue, see NCJ-228864-65 and NCJ-228867-71.

Annotation

"Relationship-based practice" in child and youth care are examined in this article from conceptual, linguistic, and power-based perspectives.

Abstract

One of the issues addressed is the concept of power and how it might influence the approach to relationship-based or relational practice, particularly as it pertains to role definition and issues related to authority. All child and youth worker relationships are characterized by power imbalance between the practitioner and the child. Much of what contributes to power imbalance in practitioners' interactions with children and youth is structurally embedded in institutional dynamics, culture, convention, language, and social expectations. Factors that intensify power imbalance in relationships with children include cultural stereotypes of gender, age, race, and ethnicity, along with expectations of convention between adults and children/youth and the use of adult vocabularies and professional jargon in the language of the relationship. A second professional issue explored in this article involves the development of relationships with clients in the context of teams. Working as part of a team has many implications for relationship development. One of the challenges associated with team casework is that every team member could potentially have a relationship with the child. This can instigate competition among team members to be the child's favored person in the relationship. Teams can also limit what is possible in relationship development, as each team member's interaction tends to be functional based on a particular expertise. The third issue addressed is the context of training and professional development in the context of "relationship-based" work and "relational" practice, which pertains to training professionals in the features of therapeutic interactions ("relational") rather than the features of a bonding between two specific individuals ("relationship-based"). 27 references