Paper
The knowledge of educators’ intra-psychic dynamics like protective factors in educative intervention about children who are/live in residential care
- issue: Issue 1 / 2009
- authors: Alessandro Taurino, Paola Bastianoni, Licia Barrocu
- keywords: Italy, emotions, self-representations, residential care
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- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Context. Residential care represents for children an important context, centred- since the first experiences in Seventies- on the symbolic process of substitution of an institutional culture in the intervention on children who can't live in their families (multi-problematic families) due to abuse, ill-treatment and carelessness situations. In Italy, the 149/2000 law was a relevant politic and social measure that signed the closing of institutions for children, and which was completely acted in 2006.
So, if residential care for children, on a structural/organizational point of view, seems to refer to the criteria of efficacy and efficiency against the condition represented by the institutional context (great number of children which aren't in a correct relation with the number of educators; homogeneity of everyday life; prevalence of intra-group relations instead of interpersonal relations, etc.), anyway the complexity of dynamics in which children and educators are involved requires a deep work of analysis of the processes acted in residential contexts, thus creating a real and concrete alternative to the institutional setting.
For this theoretic reason, the aim of this paper is to reflect on the necessity to consider residential care as a relational setting that allows children's elaboration of their own personal history, their own identity, thus solving, in this symbolic and analytic process, the damn of their dysfunctional family experience. This reflection is centred on the consideration that the fundamental goal of residential care is to become a protective setting for a new definition of representations, emotions and beliefs of children at risk. So the quality of relationships is the most important instrument of residential care intervention, and for this reason it's important to use supervision and training courses as appropriate instruments and methodologies to work on educators' representations, emotions, beliefs and educative behaviours.
Educators' supervision and training experiences consent to improve and to better the quality of residential care interventions, working on educators' internal setting, the internal universe of emotions, representations and cultural models of education and relationship that educators put into practice in their educative behaviours with children at risk. This intervention allows educators to perform their relational function in an equilibrate and efficient way. therefore supervision and training work with educators involved in residential care are a necessary setting to secure the quality of te relationships between adults and children/adolescents at risk.
Goals. The aim of this paper is to discuss the results of a training and supervision work carried out in 6 different residential care unities in the last four years, about the knowledge of the educators' intra-psychic dynamics acted in the interactive/relational with children/adolescent in residential care.
Results. The analysis of relational processes examined in different residential care through training and supervision works carried out in these years showed elements about the educators'identity (with an pregnant consequence on a whole educative setting) and the specificity of the recurring triadic symbolic dynamics. With the expression "triadic symbolic dynamic" we meant the constant and unconscious symbolic dialogue between different parts of educator's personal Self/identity, that are acted in every relational situation with children.
In a specific way, it's possible to find that in every relational contingency, educators can live the activation of Self-educator (anchorage to the functions and to educative role), Self-son (the elements of his own history of child/son, recognised in the children that educators take care of), and Self- symbolic parent (representation of internal parental figures). These dynamics assent the activation of specific representational and emotive nuclei, which have an important role in the construction of implicit cultural models of educative relationship and intervention.
So, with supervision and training interventions, our attention focused on the particular representational nuclei and emotions educators have to recognise in order to understand the implicit cultural models of their educative interventions and to adopt an educative action centred on a relational approach instead of an institutional one. We analyzed the way educators used to structure functional or dysfunctional alliance systems, working in particular on their interpretative anchorage to justify their conscious and unconscious actions, behaviour and educative interventions.
Supervision and training courses consent to realize that, with these two specific work settings, educators have the possibility to elaborate and analyze their internalised cultural models of educative action that result to be dysfunctional to the activation of efficient relational patterns. This process consents to structure a specific/functional model of educative intervention, which is symbolically in relation with the trainer's ability to act, with the educators involved, the right alliance system as a model of functional alliance system to transfer in every relational contingency with children in residential care.
Key references
Bastianoni, P. (2000). Interazioni in comunità. Roma: Carocci.
Bastianoni, P. & Palareti, L. (2005). Comunità per minori. In G. Speltini (Ed.), Minori, disagio e aiuto psicosociale. Bologna: Mulino.
Bastianoni, P., & Taurino A. (2005). Un modello di formazione/supervisione integrata per i gruppo educativi. Roma: Carocci.
Emiliani, F. (2005). Adattamento, Rischio e Protezione. In G. Speltini (Ed.), Minori, disagio e aiuto psicosociale. Bologna: Mulino.
Contacts: Alessandro Taurino, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e della Comunicazione, Facoltà di Scienze Sociali, Politiche e del Territorio, Università degli Studi del Salento, E-mail: aletaurino@libero.it, Phone 329/1948423.