By Colin Bulka, Yesod Europe Programme Director
In my time as a community worker, I’ve worked for a variety of organisations in both Jewish and non- Jewish settings and there is one distinction that has caused me to reflect on the meaning of the ‘professional’ aspect of my role as a Jewish community professional. This concerns the extent to which, in any given workplace, I am part of the community that the organisation serves, or not.
The idea of a ‘professional’ can conjure up a myriad of associations, depending on context. Sometimes it simply implies payment, in others competence and efficiency, and for some it is all about an ethical standard that one is held to by oneself and others. Traditionally, in professions such as law and medicine, it meant studying a set body of knowledge to be accepted to the profession, as well as implying a relationship to one’s ‘clients’ who contract you to provide an expertise that they don’t have.
These latter associations have, I would argue, created significant consensus that a defining factor of being a ‘good professional’ is the maintaining of boundaries between the professional and the people they work on behalf of. Such boundaries can be romantic, financial or social in nature but, in essence, a distinction exists between your work life and your personal life, where the professionals needs to maintain clear boundaries between the two. I am not suggesting that this is a bad thing per se, but I do want to suggest that it is just one model of community professionalism and that there is another model that I want to explore, and suggest that there may be both advantages and disadvantages to each model, rather than such a clear-cut sense of which is always correct.
In many organisations that I’ve worked for, the classic community professional model is to be employed for some years, giving one’s all to the mission and to the work, seeking to do your job as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, you’re not an organic part of the community that the organisation serves and works with and it is understood that you will eventually move on and find a different job, and a different community to serve. The decisions you take that effect the client group do not affect you at a personal level since you are not part of the community. I’ve worked for a number of organisations in this situation and I found it reasonably easy to maintain the desired level of professional boundaries.
However, some community professional roles are filled by people who are themselves an integral part of that community. They have often grown up in the community and, if it is a geographically defined community, then they live within it. Most of their family, friends and social life come by definition from within the community and the decisions they and the organisation take very much affect their personal lives. When they move on from that job to one outside the community, they nevertheless remain very much part of it.
In this model, keeping strict boundaries is not only significantly more difficult, it may even not be desirable. If, for example, you are out for a social evening with friends who want to talk about what is happening in the community, and what the community organisation just decided, are you supposed to walk away from that conversation or demand they change the subject? If you discuss it with them, are you doing so professionally or personally? The boundaries are far more blurred. To take another example, when you live and work in the community, lots of people have your personal phone number and know about your personal circumstances. Is that considered unprofessional? In fact, in such close-knit communal work it is often the network of inter-personal relationships, friendships and trust that have been built over the years that can be one of the greatest assets that allow people to work most effectively.
Such situations may involve communities that are geographical, such as the local neighbourhood community centre, or they may be an identity based community such as the local Jewish community or deaf community. In cases such as these, I’ve had cause to wonder which model is the preferred one for us as Jewish Community Professionals, or more accurately perhaps, what balance of these two approaches should we be aiming for. I wonder whether some rethinking of the role of professional and personal boundaries in community work might be worthy of further reflection.