responsibility, professional identity and organization

1. THE QUALITY OF SUBSTITUTE CARE a Challenge for Vocational and Child Welfare Services responsibility, professional identity and organization

2. The concept of individual responsibility The key worker’s tasks concern the professional role, the institutional mandate and his/her own relation to ethics The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

3. The concept of individual responsibility The individual responsibility is a kind of relationship with the child and at the same time it is something to teach to the child. It is a fundamental concept for the development of correct relationships in the field of substitute care services The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

4. The concept of individual responsibility The concept of individual responsibility concerns: • The relationship between one’s own actions and the society • The relationship between one’s own actions and the rules • The relationship between one’s own actions and the link with the child/adolescent The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

5. The concept of individual responsibility The concept is deeply linked to the relationship and needs to be framed within a specific system of negotiations among people that assume an important meaningfor each other as people that care for, or more exactly, people within a substitute care system The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

6. The concept of “child welfare is paramount” The guarantee of control that the child welfare is paramount is inherent to the vision of social work that, even if it includes and pervades the interests of the different actors involved (families of origin, institutions, children), can choose the set of concepts that are the basis of oneself actions The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

7. The concept of “child welfare is paramount” • Child welfare is paramount and must prevail: • In the cases where there is a conflict between the family of origin and the substitute care system • In the cases where there are different interests all rightful The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

8. The concept of “child welfare is paramount” To guarantee this concept means: • Listen to the child’s opinion about his/her own interests • Make choices and educational strategies through the analysis of the various interests involved The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

9. Confidentiality and data management • Children data must be protected • Confidentiality is not just a legal requirement, it is a conception that regards as information like precious elements because inherent to a relationship between people and completely understandable only if associated to that relationship The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

10. Confidentiality and data management Data and information from the services and child’s confidences must be treated in all secrecy and only in professional contexts, restricting transfer of information The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

11. Confidentiality and data management Confidentiality of data in our possession. Information must be functional to the work and to the decision making The Educator’s job is plenty of useless and redundant, that don’t increase the case knowledge and will not become practices The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

12. Confidentiality and data management Information that can be legitimately required This issue is currently discussed and shows traces of the cultural background of the providers of substitute care. The prevailing trend is to exclude the access of the Educator to all the information that can cause prejudice and limit the relationship with the child. The propensity is to prefer a direct relationship between worker and child avoiding that preliminary information become a very heavy filter. The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

13. Confidentiality and data management In practice this means that the information related to the child heath or to the social characteristics of her/his family of origin are less important for the working practice than the information concerning the child behaviour is some circumstances and that is more useful for the worker to collect them in the day to day interaction than hear of them from others The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008

14. Confidentiality and data management Finally There are no information without relationship Information derives from a concrete relationship and has a meaning only with reference to the relationship itself To protect and keep the information means to protect and keep the relationship To transfer and share the information means to talk about a relationship, guided from the concepts of self responsibility and prevailing interest of the child The Quality of Substitute Care 2006-2008