Who said this, I can't remember. It was given to me by an experienced child and youth care worker after about six years of my coming into practise.
"The measure of your professionality is the time you take to act."
At that time, for me, there was - only one time - NOW ! Whatever the acting out situation was, everything, anything, I thought, demanded of me, Immediate reaction, immediate intervention.
"Thing has to be sorted NOW!''
I Do remember this. It was a story Thom Garfat told of his situational child and youth care response.
He got the frequently urgent call.
"You'd better come NOW. They're throwing everything out of the window. Everything - furniture, everything."
He knew it was a second floor window. He went. It was as the had said.
"What are you going to do" they asked.
"I'm going back to my office to think."
Thom said, he lay on the carpet in his office for an hour. Then, he went back.
"What are you going to do?"
"Anything damaged, or lost will not be replaced."
"IS THAT ALL ?"
"That's all. Anything damaged, or lost will not be replaced."
As an accountable professional, he explained his decision. It would take time. There was no quick fix. No immediate action would have made a difference in behavioural mindset. Doing without was a lesson for life.
In 1996, within a week of my appointment to a large, dormitory residential setting for boys, Thom Garfat and his wife came to South Africa for a workshop tour. I was asked to host them.
We were sitting in the lounge when came a loud shouting outside my house. Thom and I looked through the bars of my back patio gate. A large group of boys had grouped and were yelling. It was a group protest, Thom said.
"Go out there. Be firm. Disperse them, you'll talk to three of their leaders tomorrow in the morning They are testing you."
This was a first for me - having to face what I experienced as a 'mob'.
Out I went, well advised, firm and decisive with a plan and a timeframe.
"Go back to your dormitories. Whatever it is you want me to know, choose three boys to speak for you and i will meet
with them in my office first thing in the morning."
Bit of a chatter. They dispersed.
Thom had watched the whole interaction through the wooden bars of the patio gate.
On my return:
"You did well," he said.
There was no carpet; no hour of thinking.
"Go out there, Be firm."
The same Thom Garfat, a different response time for a different child and youth care situation.
I was getting it!
Victor Frankl wrote.
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
In child and youth care practice that space can vary from ignoring and deliberate delay to acting in a flash. Take the gap we must. It is called the move from instinct, our REACTION to our PROFESSIONAL RESPONSE.
No matter how emotive is the situation the child and youth care worker takes a step back. The inner professional voice speaks, shifts focus from our personal self to our professional self. Focus! - it's not what is happening inside me that matters now, it's what's going on inside that child. inside the young people.
There are huge learnt professional skills at work in that gap between stimulus and response.
We have learnt to stay calm 'no matter what', no matter when.
We have learnt to relax our bodies in moments of stress. We have learnt to breath.
We have learnt to regulate our tone of voice.
WE have learnt to swiftly observe and take note.
We have learnt to ask "What's REALLY going on here - to grasp the hidden behind the observable. WE call it MEANING MAKING IN THE MOMENT.
WE ask "What lessons for life are there for the children if I handle this professionally?"
WE take the gap between stimulus and response and we choose to act professionally.
That's what we do.
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