I mentioned at bottom of this post that we need to be alert to the fact that training can generate an elite within the organisation that can cause divisions. In this concluding post in the Chapter on Training I will focus on professionalism as it is somewhat linked to that topic.
When I first dipped my toe in this kind of work in 1990 there were probably as many enthusiastic amateurs as there were professional practitioners.
But nowadays, with the advent of so many state regulations too numerous to go into – and all probably necessary – it is almost impossible to be an amateur. Of course, we can volunteer within an organisation, but the idea that we might do something out of the goodness of our hearts and/or because we feel sorry for someone, yes, just do it, is now far rarer than of old. (This is what I have observed changing over many years).
In my opinion the professionalising of community work, youth work, and family support work over the last generation has been a mixed blessing.
This is because we professionals tend to, after some time, increase in status and power, and then corral our skills within a controlled organisation, which often has the effect of excluding people who have great natural ability but haven’t gone through the formal educational and then initiation route.
Most of our professional initiation takes place in the third level colleges that, nowadays, have virtual monopoly on training of young adults. (I mentioned this in the Sub-Chapter on the Growing Power of Academia).
A follow on from this process is that the profession becomes regulated – and this adds further to the exclusion of the gifted amateur.
I have mentioned, in respect of communities helping themselves, how the Pillars always, eventually, tend to dominate everything fresh and innovative.
Linked to this, I have often observed that the sheer power of professionals’ academic knowledge, fast processing and strategic thinking tends to shine a light (and usually not a very favourable light) on the more down-to-earth wisdom of the community person.
I’m not going to dwell too much on this here except to say that it’s very important that when we put something in place to train people to alleviate distress of others in our communities we don’t take away the knowledge, skills, and wisdom that they have garnered over many years.
I have an image of formal training, kind of, ironing out all the wrinkles, crinkles and creases, all the interesting aspects of a fabric, and smoothing out everything so that it will be acceptable to polite and polished elements of our society – where everything will be predictable and controllable!
Investment in training people, some of whom are from our Focus Group, who in the old days might have been those enthusiastic amateurs I mentioned above, is, in my opinion, the best-spent money of all in our support work, where the need is always greater than the resource. (At least, I have never known it otherwise).
I refer here to research done by Limerick City and County Council entitled How Are Our Kids – where the importance of people in local communities and extended families providing support for people in distress is highlighted. (I also mentioned it in this post)
When people who have been formally educated but who have limited knowledge of, but are passionate about imprisonment and related factors are included, the mixture of the learning is particularly potent.
Training is indeed an investment.
It is an investment that, if done right, saves the state so much money that it would be impossible to calculate. I count myself doubly fortunate in that I have learned from passionate and enthusiastic people in the Focus Group and have grafted this (I hope I have anyway) onto a lot of formal training in different areas – not only in helping people in distress but in a wide range of skills.
If, in concluding this Chapter on Training, I had one word of advice for trainers it would be listen. I’ll thus leave the last words to the Dalai Lama.
“If you talk you are probably repeating something that you have said before – if you listen you may learn something new”