Ageing out - the silly season

                                                                                                      Seasonal it was. Silly? Yes - pretty well bordering on crazy! It was a child and youth care worker's worst annual event.

Three weeks before the last day day of school at the end of the year, we came to expect it - the silly season.

There was always a group of boys who had reached the age of 18 and had finished schooling. In terms of the Children's Act, they were no longer legally a child and required to leave residential child care. At that time it was called 'discharge'; the same term used used in hospitals and in the prison systems. Professional child and youth care workers now talk of 'disengagement' or 'transitioning'. Its also called 'ageing out'.

My house was in a bit of a dip below the lawned strip in front of a large House we called 'Senior House' - a dormitory building for the oldest boys in residence.

It was the 'silly season'.

That night, my family and I were still awake when there was a heavy rain of very loud thuds on our roof. The cause was unmistakably a rain of stones - we say 'rocks' thrown from the rise; clearly by a group of senior boys.

I chose not to go out, but to stay inside with my family. This was a , 'sort it out in the morning' decision. I would, anyway, not have caught them when they ran in the dark. It also came to me that the rock throwing could have been aimed at me.

    "You dumped him. You're just dumping him", his friends said.

 The 'him' was a boy served with a discharge order.

It was not asif that was a surprise. He and 'they' always knew." At 18 you have to go !". It was that transitional preparation had not been adequately done. It wasn't properly, professionally done for any of the boys.

 So, we had the Silly Season - an escalation in window - breaking, behavioural regression,  acting out, direct insultive confrontation with child and youth care workers. Wherever and whenever the system could be bucked, it was bucked.

 The message to child and youth care workers was, "I'm not ready to leave, You can't discharge me. You can see. How can you put me out there when I have behaviour problems?".

Underlying all this, was hightened anxiety, uncertainty, loss of friends, fear of the unknown and fear of not being provisioned as well as the Home provided.

      " It's easy for you to say 'go home home. This is my home".

With professionalisation has come considerable knowledge, skill and practice for smooth seamless transitioning.

We 've learnt that exit planning and disengagement starts at engagement. At intake children and young people are lead to understand the purpose of their stay; the work that must and will be done by them and by the facility toward the normalisation of life in the community to which they belong. Starting with an initial care plan and then a detailed Individual Development Plan ( IDP ) and/ or a Family Development Plan (FDP). This, may or may not lead possibly, if not probably to independent living.  

 As the time for disengagement approaches, the best practice models seem to have, what they call a phased transitional programme. 

 Ageing out at 18 years of age was this blog 's opening story. So, lets start there as an example.

 Most draw up three or four phased programmes, the basis of such phases is the shift from life - skills 'doing for', to life - skills 'doing with '. to life - skills 'doing yourself ': from dependence to co - dependence, to independence. 

Much of this IS, or SHOULD BE embedded in the ongoing practice and programmes of a child and youth care facility, however, ageing out young people do need to gain specialised, specific mastery. 

I don't intend setting out a phased transitioning programme as such, but rather to suggest broadly, some life - skills tasks which seem to be needed. 

These young people have little to fall back on when they are out there, and floundering. It's been said that every young person needs to become 100% independent, but young people ageing out ageing out have to be 150% independent.

 None of this is gender specific, so for example, food and food preparation is for all.

Stage one:  Prepare and cook your own breakfast. Stage two: Prepare and cook your own breakfast and lunch. Prepare and cook your own breakfast, lunch and dinner all according to your own planned menu.

 That's typical of the grading of tasks pattern in transitioning programme design.

 The same type of grading task pattern is designed for laundry and clothing, money matters, budgeting and economic shopping, banking.  A good idea is at age 16, to open a savings account and to deposit monthly. And so much more - Use of public transport, - bus train, taxi and Uber, job - seeking preparation, write a CV, Driving. 

 Really important is setting up - setting up cost and essentials for first time household setting up, typical rental costs, doing without.

Really, the list is more extensive.

Then come those final days before leaving. The farewells, the rituals the understanding of available follow up and safety nets. 

 I like the mentor system for follow up.

There is no more silly season. Now there is excitement, anticipation, hope and confidence

    "I know you can do it. So, go out there and SHOW THEM".

In child and youth care work 

This is what we do.        

  

    

  

Money Matters

 

He had a first floor room -  not in the dormitory proper, but a small single bed room. It was because as an intellectually challenged late teen, just about ready to  leave school for a trade centre, he found the big group dynamics to be way beyond his social coping.

The unexpected was discovered. He had fitted his outside window frame with razor wire and wouldn't say why.

Eventually we got there.

He was was afraid;  protecting his pocket-money from robbery by his bigger stronger brothers who were in another dormitory building.

     "But you're on the first floor. How do they get in ?"

      "At night they climb the drain-pipe and open my window. They take my money. They say they will beat me up if I tell ."  

We moved him to a burglar guarded room little room next to the child and youth care worker's room.

The weak exploited by the strong.

 A matter of money.

He wasn't  the only one.

There was a small group if big, stronger boys who I called the 'big boot boys', the "mafia group. They were up to all kinds of tricks amounting to intimidation, extortion and getting others to steal for them.

For some of the younger boys, they acted as protective big brothers in return for 'safety money' or skivvying .

 All of this was masked, hidden, by the dynamics of the very large      group dormitory setting.

 No-one knows, no-one tells, the safety and fear of an anonymous, faceless, gang-like loyalty.

Moving into the small group home setting put an end to this.

No longer able to hide in and behind a big group, money matters for child and youth care workers shifted to finding ways of making money matters a matter growth and life-time learning.

Child and youth care facilities had to comply with professional approaches and practices with children, youth and money-learning within the limitations and negatives arising From 'welfare' organisational financing - a tap dance around funding verses professional child and youth are educare practice.; to tap-dance around the public attitude and thinking about welfare and the 'life-long world views of children in care.  

There is, out there a public I called 'well intentioned do-gooders' who really do more harm than good.

All too often, in comes a stream of cardboard boxes or black trash bags filled with donations; outgrown, worn, even broken, toys, clothing shoes, games and puzzles.

The organisation sends a gratitudinal letter of thanks and appreciation..

How do you say "No! we need non-perishable food . We need money, not hand- me-downs

Best practice organisational models have learnt how to turn hand-me downs into money. They have opened charity shops, jumble sales and morning markets all income to the child and youth care centre. They try as well as they can to discreetly and diplomatically to expose the public and donors to the the way money matters in child and youth care educare practice operates in their centres- how the avoidance of 'learned dependence', handouts and hand-me downs empowers and develops children for life.

It's the give a person a fish verses teach them how to fish mantra.

The first child and youth care money- learning educare practice tackled was 'unlearning learned independence'  - "the world owes me, so I expect to be supplied by others" We had to shift from a hand=out world view to a learning of money value, saving budgeting; how money is earned and not handed out.

To be honest, at that time, I sometimes thought, undoubtedly unfairly, that it was as much of a learning curve in child and youth care practice as it was for the children. 

Each house was given a budget. Children helped draw up a shopping list and went shopping with the child and youth care worker. Clothing allowances replaced handouts. A policy of  'when it is finished, it is finished' was established. Treats and outings were highly regulated.

 Good money matter exposure in preparation for life was a child and youth care work educare essential.

 It's what we do.   

 

   

 

Taking the gap professionally

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.

Ahead of Hair

He was a sturdy, tough guy.

  "I'm not going to school. You can do what you like. I'm not going to  school". 

Classic school refusal.

I was taught that point blank, heels dug in, school refusal was a psychological emergency, a matter for referral. 

I had to ask; Why. 

  "They say, I must cut my hair. They say I've got 'til Monday to go       to a barber on Saturday. Only me. I can choose to cut my hair.             They can't make me cut my hair. I'm not going to school. My hair        is ME . They can't make me cut my hair. My hair is who I Am.          My hair is ME. They can't mess with the ME that is ME.

It WAS long. Long and fair and curly. His hair was indeed a major mark of his identity.

I couldn't help thinking of a Sampson going to a Deliliah school.

 It was the school that needed referral.

The dormitory boys knew what I was yet to learn. Boy's hair is deeply connected to SELF. I had got it for girls, but hadn't made that link with boys.

I inherited a culture that had to be changed. Boys administered punishment to boys considered by them, to be offenders. One was , what they called, a 'hot-cross bun'  A group of boys would hold the alleged offender down and one, using a battery operated razor would shave to the scalp, a broad path; forehead to  the neck and ear to ear.

It was the ultimate humiliation and degradation of dignity and self esteem. Many hot-cross bun boys hid themselves in isolation whenever they could. Frequent and understandable school refusal abounded.

The all male child and youth care workers brushed it off with:   

    "The boys have their own way of dealing with things".

Again, hair is deeply connected with self-image and the concept of self. There's a strong emotional connection too. Boys and girls.

In training child and youth care workers and in discussion about TOUCH, I would ask:

      "Can I touch you?".

Always the same reply:

        "Where?".

         "Can I put my hand on your shoulders?".

          "Yes".

           "Can I hold your hand?".

           "Yes". 

            "Can I touch your hair, put my fingers through you hair?"

            "NO!  Please, not my hair. Don't mess with my hair!"

First call of the morning.

            " Barrie. That special favourite girl of yours in my house".

            "I don't have favourites".

             "I'm talking about Nhlanhla. The one you call Nana. She's                    not yet 18. She asked to go to the early movie show at the                  mall. I said OK, she must be back by eight-o'clock. She                      didn't get back here until 2am. And; she was drunk. She                      says, after the movie, she and her friend were walking                        through the parking lot. There were some boys in a parked                  car. They invited them to sit in the car and have a drink.                     They got talking and laughing, had more drinks. They                          brought Her back at 2pm".      

One of my favourite questions to child and youth care workers:

             "What did you do?"
              "I cut off her hair, took away her wigs. I said to her, 'There,                 now boys won't find you attractive 'til it grows again' ''.

In South Africa now that punishment is, by regulation, no longer permitted. It's a disallowed punishment. To cut hair or shave the head is classified as a physical violation and abusive humiliation. It is a breach of professional ethics.

Then there are times in South Africa when cultural practices do require head shaving. The practices of culture are a constitutional right and supercede other regulations . Indigenous African head shaving practices vary somewhat ethnically, tribally and from clan to clan. Child and youth care workers must expect and possibly undertake head shaving of children as rites of passage.

In some groups, birth hair is shaved at three to six months.

At one year the head is shaved.

Within three days of the burial of an immediate family member, the head is shaved.

On return from initiation school, the head is shaved. Shaved hair is always burnt or flushed to avoid it being accessible through which possible affliction can be cast.

If it is so in Africa, then it surely there are hair rites in cultures, religions and peoples about the globe.  

I've always liked Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. It means that images and knowing is passed to us through an undefined number of ancestors over an undefined period of time.(eons !).

Some may say we know instinctively.

SO. I think it is with our heads of hair. We unconsciously know the complex, psychological influence of hair deep within our psyche as an extension of our selves.

 The big ones seem to be, physical attraction, identity, self esteem, confidence, status, self acceptance, self worth and cultural ,group or religious belonging. We know hair as a power building tool for all these things.

In child and youth care practice, this knowing can't remain dormant or unconscious.

We have to bring it to our awareness! 

On matters of hair, we ask:

        "What is REALLY going on here? What can I do with children and young people, their hair and their selves to best support them in their personal development and wellbeing"

This is what we do in child and youth care work.

          

     

".

LET'S TALK EXPANDED LANGUAGE TALK

 

The call: on the line, Brian Gannon, South Africa's Child and Youth Care guru and pioneer.

   "Barrie, that place where you're training workers; that new Place        of   Detention for Young Offenders; what conversations do you          hear child and youth care workers having with the boys?"

No hesitation. An answer given through examples.

   "Did you put your washing in the laundry? I know you didn't. Go        do it now!"

     "BOY! Those sneakers, they're dirty. Go scrub them and bring           them back for me to see."

Brian labelled the talk, 

      "Routine logistics talk."

Spot on. Restricted language in a restricted institutional environment with language deprived young people.

Little wonder the effect of institutionalization has had a poor prognosis for children and youth in care.

In contrast.

A retired child and youth care worker previously in a village cottage setting:

   "You know, what I remember and enjoyed the most?  We sat around the coffee table after dinner and just chatted, the girls and me and chatted and laughed. It's a good memory.      

     "What kinds of thing did you chat about?"

      "Aah, you know teen girl talk. Gossip, stories about boyfriends            and the going ons at school. One I remember especially.

       "Do you know the Simphiwe  girl in tenth grade? We were all              we were all walking, a whole bunch of us, to get the bus. Her              panty elastic broke and her panties fell down to her ankles .               She just stepped out of them and carried on walking."

Huge laughter. 

   "I was part of the group, so I asked,' How do you think she felt?"

    "Like shit!"

    "How would you feel if it was you?"

     "Shit!"

      "I think I would be feeling very embarrassed, somehow shamed          and guilty like it was my fault my elastic broke."

       "Another girl picked them up and gave them to her in the bus.               Maybe she put them back on in the bus."

         "How very kind and thoughtful of her."

Me:

   "Oh wow. You were good!"

Casual, informal, in the moment, in the life-space educare; mediated language learning.- from restricted to elaborated language.

It's BLISS.

At one time, one of  the leading South African universities gave short courses in Mediated Learning Experience (MLE).

It was a perfect fit with Child and Youth Care practice. A lecturer voluntarily gave our child and workers  a brief course on Mediated Language Development.

 That's why I remember BLISS.

Bridge: Bridging is the main idea behind the learning experience. The child care worker places themselves as the go-between the developing child and the world They interact in such a way as to help the child make meaning of the world . One way is through language It means developing a more enlarged use of language to help the children express their new hightened understanding.

Then came some method

Linking: It's what I like to call 'thinking laterally'. It's helping the children to see, find and use words for similarities.

A small girl found an acorn.

   "What's this?", she asks.

   "It's an acorn, like a nut from that big tree. It has a seed inside              it. "If we plant it, a big oak tree will grow."

She:

   "It looks like a locusts head."

Me:

   " Yes, We have a locust-head acorn." ( from simile to metaphor).

 And a huge, in my head happy dance. This little on made a link, shape to  shape, image to image and communicated it. If she didn't I  might have asked her if it looked like something else she knew.

Interpretation:
     "Yuk man! This rice is like porridge. Yukkie porridge !"

      "Are you saying you don't like the rice today because it's soft and          sticky?" 

       "Ya."

        "You like it when it has separate grains and not too soft?" 

         "Ya."

          "And you're not going to eat it?"

          "Ya'."

Summarising: ( It's back to school). Capturing the essence of the children's possibly muddled conversation in restricted language and the rephrasing it succinctly in more a accurate language.  

        "I think what you have said is..."

Sequencing": Children and young persons raised in language deprived environments show difficulty in communicating  events in the right chronological order, especially if what happened was stressful or painful.

         "Whoa, lets go slowly from the beginning. The very first thing            that happened was...?

There it is.

It's what we do as child and youth care practitioners. It is in the moment, it seems casual, but it's interactive educare at its best.

IT'S BLISS.

Compilation of 28 blogs in a Kindle ebook

 28 of the blogs in his blogsite have been compiled into an ebook. They are no longer viewable in the site, but available at the following link.

https://a.co/d/cjuvnRq

The site is alive and well, still with the other blogs. 

Watch this space... There's more to come 

CHILDHOOD PREGNANCIES...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

 

It's said we have two pandemics - Covid 19 and childhood pregnancies 

Globally the stats are concerning. Apparently, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15 - 19  become pregnant and about 12 million in developing countries give birth every year.

News 24 reported a top story saying that more than 600 hundred girls aged 9 - 10 years gave birth in South Africa in 2020. It quotes Statistics South Africa as having 890,303 babies born and of these, 34,587 were born to girls 17 years and younger.

 Provincially, in South Africa I will focus on Gauteng, the Province in which I live. 

The Gauteng Department of Social Services announced that of the births recorded, there were more than 23,000 teenage pregnancies between April 2020 and March 2021. 

Again Gauteng, 2,976 girls aged 10 - 14 years chose abortion. That's a very scary figure which obviously raises the pregnancy statistics,. These are only the recorded abortions. Locally it is said that  there are herbal "Medicines' which, swollowed or vaginally douched can precipitate an abortion. Private doctors perform abortions. Individual statistics for these abortions, I have not seen.

The  counting confirms the crisis.

 The questions asked are whether there is any substantive research into the reasons for the huge increasing number of early pregnancies. I've only come across opinions, hear-say, and experiential narratives.

 My opinion is based on my experience as a child and youth care worker in a number of different settings.

 Bells would tinkle for me in any of these settings when sexual interest manifested in behaviours earlier than developmentally expected. ..like 9- year olds provocatively picking up the skirt to expose her panties; a history of sexual abuse; school girls with working boyfriends; taking sanitary pads then having them found stashed in the top of the wardrobe or hidden in lockers; precocious flirtation.

My experience is that the first time is not the only time and that following her first penetrative sex experience we could safely say that the girl was sexually active. Given the right kind of trust in a child and youth care worker, girls would share their sexual status. It was important in any event because of possible HIV .

 She was 10 years old - not yet menstruating. The playground duty teacher found her pulling boys into the girls toilet. Some boys  complained. The school complained. Something they said, had to be done. One thing we could do was to allocate a child and youth care worker to be on hand to allow the school a swift call out. 

 We had a Sexologist on the Board of Management. She offered to spend time with the girl.

 "Barrie. You must put this girl onto contraception...the injection

"But she's not menstruating and she's only 10 "..

"You have to choose. She can menstruate at any time. Either you contracept, or you have a childhood pregnancy on your hands. You must decide"

I struggled. Do I, can I put a premenstrual girl on contraception?.'

I safe-guarded myself by taking my opinion to the full Board of Management.

Agreed. She must be on the injection.

If, as an institution, we found this to be such a complex ethical dilemma, then how much more is this for a parent both an ethical and practical dilemma.

The general chatter in the villages, townships, and even in the inner city was and I hear, still is that the local clinics are not always child friendly. The Health practitioners have been known to shout at the girls and to call them names. They can I was told, be judgemental, Local people have said often to me that they fear talk. Talk where everybody knows everybody. "Now everyone will know. What do they say about me as a girl? 'What do they say about me as a mother?'

There are other factors at work. One is economic. We have a child care grant to unworking mothers. When it was first made available and paid, there was a lot of talk that in poor families some of the girl's mothers, after the first baby was born, told the girl to go get herself pregnant again in order to get a second grant. Then there are incidents of the girl's mother applying to foster those children in order to get the larger foster care grant.

Sugar Daddies are now called ' Blessers' in South Africa. I experienced this mostly in township environments. If he had a car and some form of job title,  - he was a target. But then again the girls were frequently sought after, called 'Sweet 16's or "Fresh young ones" They would pay a 'girlfriend allowance and more. It's money for sex.  

Girls have explained their pregnancy as peer pressure. They say that their friends were all 'doing it.' and "It's nice. Don't listen to your parents, they are just old fashioned. The boy can wear a condom."

Boys, however were sayng that sex with a condom was like eating a sweet with it's paper on. Sex with a condom was not good sex.

I had more than one experience of girls deliberately trying to get pregnant to escape having to be at school or to escape their placement in the Children's Home. If girls were on the pill, we had to take responsibility as child and youth care workers to to administer the pill ourselves and to check under the tongue to see it had been swallowed.

The effect of early pregnancies in South Africa, as anywhere, but in a country riddled with excessive poverty and unemployment, is that the cycle, not only remains unbroken, but exacerbated. Girls are no longer expelled from school when pregnant. Once having given birth if there is a caregiver.. like granny, they can return to class. My experience is that many don't complete their education to matric (maturity) level. That makes it even more difficult to find work.

 Now for Covid 19.. are the two, now called pandemics, connected?

There has been , world wide, an incline in the number of girls giving birth during this period. Some opinions are that it is too early to tell if Covid 19 is a major contributing factor in this.

In SouthAfrica, there is a startling figure of a 60% increase following the lockdown period in which schools were closed or class reduced.  ( Again, the Gauteng Department of Health Report)

Some opinion has it that during the lockdown, contraceptives were in short supply or unavailable in the clinics. That included condoms.

 Violence against women and children has itself been called an epidemic and a culture in recent years in this country. The number if incidents of gender violence and child abuse increased during the lockdown.  The 2020| 2021 Annual Crime Statistics Report put the number of child assaults at 24000. Child rape statistics increased.

Taken all in all, we have a serious crisis with no easy solutions  When the Child and Youth Care system had to be overhauled and transformed in this country, in 1995 forward, an Inter Ministerial Committee was formed. It is time to form such a body again to address this crisis. Social Welfare, Health, Education, at least,

As social service professionals and practitioners, we advocate for social workers, community development workers, youth workers and child and youth care workers to be employed wherever children and young people are. As an inter managerial team (IMT), there has to be strategic, structured and unstructured interventions and support to contribute to the mitigation of  this crisis. 

 We need child and youth care workers employed in schools and in communities to do what they do best in the transformation of South African society.

That's what we do!