“Sense” and sensitivity: Informal apprenticeship among youth care workers in a residential treatment center for children

Abstract

This article reports findings from a 13‐month ethnographic study of knowledge use and expertise among 78 workers in a U.S. residential treatment center for children. It investigates the question of how youth care workers developed expertise in an organization that did not require graduate professional education and provided little didactic training. It demonstrates how processes of informal apprenticeship allowed some workers to develop locally recognized expertise through working alongside more experienced peers. It analyzes the puzzling initial finding that workers simultaneously attributed expertise to innate “common sense” and reported that they developed this form of expertise through informal on‐the‐job apprenticeship. Taking a cultural perspective on learning, this article conceptualizes youth‐serving organizations as communities of practice in which informal apprenticeship contributes to the development of locally valued forms of expertise and addresses the question of why youth care workers appeared to differ in their ability to make use of opportunities for such learning. It explores implications of these findings for workforce development in youth residential treatment and for social work education in general, suggesting simple methods for maximizing opportunities for situated learning.

Client Violence Against Youth Care Workers: Findings of an Exploratory Study of Workforce Issues in Residential Treatment

“…While staff turnover is a concern in many fields, it is particularly disruptive in RTCs for two reasons. It interrupts the flow of organizational knowledge and limits opportunities for successful apprenticeship, making it difficult to develop expertise in new workers (Smith, 2017b). And turnover directly affects youth in care by continually disrupting attachments to caregivers, repeating the very patterns that lead some youth to residential care.…”

“…We use the term youth care worker to refer to individuals employed by RTCs to supervise, treat, and protect youth during the hours when they are not involved in treatment by professionals, such as psychologists or social workers, who provide formal assessment or psychotherapy. While some youth care workers do have professional training in a related field (e.g., Smith, 2017aSmith, , 2017b, the low pay of youth care work suggests that credentialed professionals may view these positions as under-skilled or temporary. In the State of New York, for example, 74.3% of RTCs considered a high school diploma minimally sufficient for youth care positions (Baker et al, 2008).…”

HowMoroccan‐Dutch parents learn in communities of practice:Evaluating a bottom‐up parenting programme

“…Drawing upon sociocultural learning theory (Cole, ; Rogoff, ; Vygotsky, 1978), Wenger and associates understand learning not as an institutionalized, curriculum‐oriented activity detached from everyday social activity, but as inherently present in social interactions between people (Wenger, ). As people exchange knowledge, skills, and support concerning a certain practice, such as professional teacher development (e.g., Cowan & Menchaca, ) or social work (e.g., Smith, ), they continuously define and negotiate the meaning of that practice, to what frame of reference it belongs, and consequently who they are participating in that practice. As a result, members of a CoP share specific competences differentiating them from nonmembers, and they develop a meaningful (collective) identity (Wenger, ).…”

“…Drawing upon Wenger's (, , ) “communities of practice,” this paper explores an alternative perspective on parenting programme evaluation. This perspective is used to analyse collective learning processes and has so far been applied mostly to the learning of teachers (Cowan & Menchaca, ) and social workers in the workplace (Smith, ). In this paper, we apply it to the learning of Moroccan‐Dutch mothers and fathers as they participate in an intercultural bottom‐up parenting programme in the Netherlands.…”

How a Sample of Residential Childcare Staff Conceptualize and Use Attachment Theory in Practice

“…Running head: residential childcare staff and attachment theory 29 Staff use of common sense in practice is evident in existing literature but may also be derived from learning within the milieu, particularly when staff are sensitive to their environment (Smith, 2017;Ward, 2004). This re-iterates the importance of encouraging staff self-awareness and reflective practice.…”