Child Care Within an Organizational Context: The Inherent Strain

The ever present struggle of reconciling primary care requirements of children ¹ living in group care facilities with the programs secondary organizational demands, finds its expression and potential balance in the daily work of the child care staff. Actually, workers seem to be serving two masters. The following account of a staff meeting at a prestigious child care agency serving forty severely disturbed elementary and high-school age youngsters has all the symptoms of the aforementioned strain. I submit that the underlying themes ² are inherent in staff deliberations almost anywhere. Let us look in on a typical one-and-a-half-hour staff meeting.