Previously, I’ve discussed how there are large reinforcers for staff to make sure children make excellent progress, and punishers when children don’t make progress. The quality of the program is directly related to staff satisfaction. Although I don’t have the data to prove it, I believe children not making good progress is one of the main causes of staff burnout, turnover, and general dissatisfaction. I know, I know- staff complain about a lot of things; salary, benefits, commute times, nasty managers, difficult parents, and uncomfortable chairs. Do everything you can to fix the other problems, but if you miss on the program quality measure, you have no chance of keeping strong staff around.
Now, even the highest quality program will have children who don’t do well from time to time. That should be a major concern for managers. We should realize that even though no one planned it, working with a child who is making very little progress is likely to be highly punishing for staff. It does not matter if you “provide support,” “spend time with them,” or “try something different.” It doesn’t matter that you are reassuring them that it is not their fault and praising their attempts at teaching or implementing a behavior plan. Either the problem is fixed or the problem is not fixed. The staff person and the parents are the people who will be with the child for long periods of time each day. If a staff person is coming to work frustrated that the child, they are working with is not progressing day in and day out, it is only a matter of time before they start looking for another job, or even getting out of the field altogether. This happens everywhere from time to time. What to do? Call the Plumber.
Plumbers are problem solvers. When your toilet is overflowing, you don’t want to hear that they can come see your problem a week from Tuesday. You want someone who can come fix the problem now.
Every organization needs some high-level plumbers who can walk the walk. When things inevitably go wrong from time to time, do the staff have someone they can call? When they call that person, does the person get to see them quickly? When the person sees them, do they actually help fix the problem and get the child on the road to strong progress again?
We should try to not act like plumbers most of the time. If you are always plumbing, there is a fundamental problem in the system. Most of the time, we should be doing thoughtful analytic work. But the toilet overflows everywhere from time to time. Make sure that there is someone to call who can help quickly, or those staff and parents are likely to be extremely dissatisfied.