Macarena Sofía Gutierrez Amorin

Human Management Coordinator, SOS Children’s Villages Uruguay

Walking together: the power of a team

In 2016 caregivers were asking for tools to improve their work and for more training programmes in order to continue their development and growth. That is where I came in. I started my work at SOS Children's Village working as the coordinator of caregiver development. I had to design a training curriculum and create workshops for them.  

That job was demanding and challenging for many years. Each workshop and each training group was different. The experience from each individual group taught me a lot about caregivers’ needs and their role within SOS Children’s Villages Uruguay. The curriculum worked very well for many years but in 2019, I started to feel that something else was needed. The caregivers’ team had changed over the last few years. This new group of caregivers that were working with us learned the new vision about what temporal care is, and how to apply this new paradigm in child care. We realised that they were really convinced that this new way of understanding the care of children as temporal care is better for them (the children). Besides this, we changed the new modality of alternative care, which is now organised with care givers working in shifts. That means that during twenty four hours they work in three shifts of eight hours each, one caregiver per shift. Since this change, the team has grown as a group and has increased their group skills for child care. 

I asked myself, “What can we do to improve caregivers’ teams? Is there something I can do to improve my work? What is the way to support them to take a step forward?” I realised that we required a team to reflect upon the work of the caregivers. 

The beginning of the team 
When this idea came to me, I presented it to the Human Resources manager.  

“What if we created a team to think about how to develop caregivers to improve the quality of care?” I asked. This was when we decided to create the National Committee of Caregivers. From day one, we knew that in order to create this committee we needed the input of child protection, so we shared the idea with the national child protection coordinator, (focal person in charge of implementing the child protection policy at a national level). Together we thought about how to create this team, and we called together the coordinators and assistants to caregivers of all the different residential care programmes. This was a new idea, but I felt I was not prepared to overcome this challenge because we all lived in different cities in Uruguay, and I thought it was important to motivate the group, in order to keep the same team working together. 

In 2019 we had our first committee meeting with eight participants. The goals of the committee were and still are: 

• To generate a work team which includes representatives of the different programmes, allowing the achievement of clarity and consensus on the characteristics and working frames of the caregivers. 

• To articulate and socialise the different practices of each programme in order to generate a national framework and improve child care. 

The first milestone of our committee was to create a national workshop for caregivers. It was a huge challenge, given that it was the first time we had worked as a group, and it was something never done before. We thought that a caregivers’ workshop was something very important. We conducted the workshop and the results were very positive. The caregivers ensured that the workshop gave them more and the best tools for their role and time to think and reflect about the alternative care work. They requested more of this kind of activity in order to integrate learnings, create ideas together, share their experiences and learn from that. 

After the workshop, we felt the flow of working together and started to plan the year ahead, 2020. Then we were forced to change our plans… 

When COVID-19 arrived 
During the COVID-19 pandemic, all face-to-face trainings and meetings were suspended, so all we had planned had to be changed. We worked from home and we could not even travel to the other cities to meet each other. We had to create a new plan in order to give support to the caregivers virtually. 

In the beginning of the pandemic, I asked myself, “Are we mature enough as a team to face this challenge? Will we be able to fulfil our commitment in this situation?” I was afraid we would not. I thought the committee would not find time to meet, or even worse, they would think it was a waste of time, because they had other priorities in this situation. 

Despite the critical context, we had our meeting five days after the pandemic started. During this meeting my fears disappeared, the committee expressed their wish to meet weekly instead of monthly to reflect together on the new responses in the light of this new situation. We were positive that in order to ensure good care for the children, we had to pay attention to the caregivers' needs, and we clarified our proposal: “Give the best to caregivers to overcome the pandemic”. At that moment, I realised that we had switched from a group to a team. 

Critical moment, creative ideas  
Within months, we came up with different practices and ways to support the caregivers in this new situation. We had to think about quick actions that had never been tested before. We had to trust in the fact that, thinking together, we could respond better in this situation of uncertainty that we were facing due to the pandemic. 

We thought about different training activities. Furthermore, we created the “Casa tiempo fuera” (time away from the house) so the team could rest during the day. Along with other areas from the national office, we also did a survey in order to find out what the caregivers needed during this period. As a result, a space for emotional support called “Acompañar a quien cuida” (support people who care for others) was created.  

During the crisis, there was a lot of creative input, and many of those actions and decisions made at the time are still happening today. We also held the second national workshop of caregivers in 2020. That was the only national workshop that year! 

A couple of months after the COVID-19 pandemic started, we had to send a report to the regional office to tell them about the different good practices and work of the committee during this time. Our team is the only one of that kind in the whole Latin America & the Caribbean region: no other team like ours exists.  

When I reflect upon our work, I realise that the flow was always there, both in the decision-making situations and in the planning. I realise that we had worked hard and had put everything together to offer support in this process, but we did not see it while it was happening. For us, it was just about getting things done and providing the best support to the caregivers. It was only when we reflected about it later that we saw how the flow was there. The work flowed, and as a result, it lead to a positive outcome. 

Go further together 
The consistency and consolidation of our team was put to the test during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I guess that we have successfully passed the exam. 

Nowadays, the committee is still working, and we just had our third national workshop. At the beginning I had many doubts and my own insecurities about creating this committee, but on the other hand I was always sure that “if you want to go fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together”, and the team showed us that this is so right. 

For psychologist Macarena, SOS Children's Villages has been a great place to work since 2016. As Caregiver’s Training Coordinator and Human Resources Coordinator she has developed in different ways, both in her professional career and her personal life.  

Macarena grew up in a big family with her parents and grandparents, an older sister and a twin brother, who is very different from her. She is also the very proud aunt of Alfonso and loves her friends. 

She enjoys reading, listening to music, watching movies, riding her bike and conquering the diverse Uruguayan countryside, especially the unique coastline with its fantastic beaches. 

Macarena was born and lives in Montevideo, the capital of this small South American country of football fanatics who even won the World Cup twice.