1. A group of boys called out across the grounds to a female Child Care Worker " Bitch ! Bitch !"
Child Care Worker to herself quite quietly over and over again as she crossed the grounds " I'm not a bitch, I 'm a lady ..... I'm not a bitch, I'm a lady "
2. On walking into a group home, Children were jumping on the lounge furniture from one chair to the next, round and round again
I ask the child care worker "Whats going on?"
"I'm doing planned ignoring like you taught us, Mr Lodge"
3 Child care worker " Now you have to clear the table and wash the dishes in the kitchen"
Child " Why?"
Child care worker " Because Mr Lodge says so... and he's the Director"
4 One weekend, Late evening
"I had a call from one of the girls in your house. She is in big trouble and is asking to be brought back to the home for her own safety. Please go and fetch her"
" I'm sleeping, Mr Lodge"
5. Child care worker on the day she walked out without notice.
"Something happened in my life and I promised to give one year to God to make it right. I gave one year of my life to child and youth care. Today the year is up.!"
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
You should have noticed ME !!.. another stress story.
Life in a Residential Treatment Centre seems to go in phases For a time everything seems to be alright.... nothing too stressful, and then a period when , one stressful incident is on top of another. Crises in the lives and behaviours of the young people dont come in single file but as a whole battalion. I was always suspicious of the quiet times. If it lasted 10 days I suspected something was wrong!
It is in periods when all Hades breaks loose that child and youth care workers experience considerable stress and fatigue. Everything seems to happen at once, hours become long, day merges with night , and in those times one is surrounded constantly by painful, raw emotion and exposed nerves. Dealing with crisis after crisis without a break, we all know, can lead to burn-out. especially if the worker is trying to deal with personal problems at the same time.
So, we had a procedure we called " call and tell". If a child care worker was worried about their own well being, their level of stress, the idea was that they were to phone or call and tell management or their supervisor." I've been through an especially hard time, I'm not coping"
It was possible to arrange for the child care worker to be given a break of a few days.
One Monday morning, at a staff meeting, a child and youth care worker was reporting on her week when she " went off pop". Cried and shouted through her tears. The organisation sucks, we all are too busy in our own worlds ... it went on and on. The message was that she was having very hard time, was short of sleep and if another crisis was to occur she will break-down and need medical care.
" Why didn't you 'call and tell' ? we asked.
And then came her punch-line....I will never forget.
'This is supposed to be a caring place......... you notice the kids....why should I tell you or ask... you are supposed to notice ME.
I shouldn't have to tell, to ask, and I wont ask. You should have noticed ME.
It is in periods when all Hades breaks loose that child and youth care workers experience considerable stress and fatigue. Everything seems to happen at once, hours become long, day merges with night , and in those times one is surrounded constantly by painful, raw emotion and exposed nerves. Dealing with crisis after crisis without a break, we all know, can lead to burn-out. especially if the worker is trying to deal with personal problems at the same time.
So, we had a procedure we called " call and tell". If a child care worker was worried about their own well being, their level of stress, the idea was that they were to phone or call and tell management or their supervisor." I've been through an especially hard time, I'm not coping"
It was possible to arrange for the child care worker to be given a break of a few days.
One Monday morning, at a staff meeting, a child and youth care worker was reporting on her week when she " went off pop". Cried and shouted through her tears. The organisation sucks, we all are too busy in our own worlds ... it went on and on. The message was that she was having very hard time, was short of sleep and if another crisis was to occur she will break-down and need medical care.
" Why didn't you 'call and tell' ? we asked.
And then came her punch-line....I will never forget.
'This is supposed to be a caring place......... you notice the kids....why should I tell you or ask... you are supposed to notice ME.
I shouldn't have to tell, to ask, and I wont ask. You should have noticed ME.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Children said this... thoughts for talk 3
1. A group of girls aged 10 - 12 had been on a Sex Education programme in the Home. It was not long after that they were taken on a guided tour of an old museum -type building that was the women's prison.
The guide at one time in the tour said "Sometimes the women had their babies here and..... ....."
One girl quietly to the other girls in the group "How did they have babies if there were no men ?"
Second girl, to the group and just as quietly " They must have used a stick . "
2 A Church Youth group were taken to a Place of Detention for youth awaiting trial . (now in South Africa called a Youth Centre)
The Church Youth played Volley-ball against teams made up of boys awaiting trial.
A fight broke out ... whole teams fighting each other and the rest on the sidelines trying to join in. The Church Youth had to be ushered out to break it up and for everyones safety.
On the way out , a youth from the Centre said to me. " Bring your boys here... We'll teach them how to behave!!"
3. That same night and in the same circumstances, but before the big fight, a youth from the Detention Centre said to me "The only difference between those guys and us is that we got caught.! The're on the outside and we're on the inside !!"
4. To me, having just arrived as the new Director " OK, so your here!. When are you going to leave??"
5 " You know nothing about running this place.... they don't even know how to cook rice here!!
6. To me, " I like you, but you have to know, I'll pretend not to when I'm with the other guys. I have to keep my friends.. you understand!!"
The guide at one time in the tour said "Sometimes the women had their babies here and..... ....."
One girl quietly to the other girls in the group "How did they have babies if there were no men ?"
Second girl, to the group and just as quietly " They must have used a stick . "
2 A Church Youth group were taken to a Place of Detention for youth awaiting trial . (now in South Africa called a Youth Centre)
The Church Youth played Volley-ball against teams made up of boys awaiting trial.
A fight broke out ... whole teams fighting each other and the rest on the sidelines trying to join in. The Church Youth had to be ushered out to break it up and for everyones safety.
On the way out , a youth from the Centre said to me. " Bring your boys here... We'll teach them how to behave!!"
3. That same night and in the same circumstances, but before the big fight, a youth from the Detention Centre said to me "The only difference between those guys and us is that we got caught.! The're on the outside and we're on the inside !!"
4. To me, having just arrived as the new Director " OK, so your here!. When are you going to leave??"
5 " You know nothing about running this place.... they don't even know how to cook rice here!!
6. To me, " I like you, but you have to know, I'll pretend not to when I'm with the other guys. I have to keep my friends.. you understand!!"
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Help ! ....Where IS the boy we knew ?
She was preparing for three months long leave.Leaving the next day, the start of the school holidays.
Advice for the staff who would stand in for her for the next few months. " He really is such a good boy," she told them. " Please, while I'm away, just make sure he gets the decent white shirts. No frayed collars. He takes such a pride in the way he looks. Choose the best for him. He's helpful and polite. If I could, I would take him with me !"
That was the impression he created with all the staff, reliable, very neat, respectful , good with the younger children..... and smiling, always smiling.
Being school holidays, the a group of boys went on a fishing, camping week The site was on the coast, right next to the sea and fairly crowded with other campers and fishermen. It was a good time of the year for the fish.
Come the day to go, the boys got up early that morning, took down the tent, folded it up and then started to pack everything else. Transport had been arranged to pick them up with their gear and bring them back to the home. But as simple as that, it wasn't to be.
Other campers who had woken, and started to prepare themselves for early morning fishing discovered their fishing tackle missing....Expensive rods and reels .... gone, obviously overnight, someone had gone through the camp-site and stolen their best tackle.
Probably because they all knew that the boys were from "the Home", and possibly because the boys were packing up that morning, they were suspected. The police were called and the boys were made to unfold the tent. Sure enough, there was the missing fishing gear, all neatly wrapped up in the canvas.
Caught with their hands in the cookie-jar.......statements were taken...one boy was singled out from all of the others... the smiling one.
He was charged with theft.
The change was immediate and dramatic.
"Before, he was polite. Now he is downright rude" they said. "He was respectful, and now he isn't. He was helpful,... now he is defiant.He was neat and looked after himself and now he doesn't seem to care. He had good manners, and smiled now h can be quite unpleasant and he sulks.
Help! Where IS the boy we knew?
Advice for the staff who would stand in for her for the next few months. " He really is such a good boy," she told them. " Please, while I'm away, just make sure he gets the decent white shirts. No frayed collars. He takes such a pride in the way he looks. Choose the best for him. He's helpful and polite. If I could, I would take him with me !"
That was the impression he created with all the staff, reliable, very neat, respectful , good with the younger children..... and smiling, always smiling.
Being school holidays, the a group of boys went on a fishing, camping week The site was on the coast, right next to the sea and fairly crowded with other campers and fishermen. It was a good time of the year for the fish.
Come the day to go, the boys got up early that morning, took down the tent, folded it up and then started to pack everything else. Transport had been arranged to pick them up with their gear and bring them back to the home. But as simple as that, it wasn't to be.
Other campers who had woken, and started to prepare themselves for early morning fishing discovered their fishing tackle missing....Expensive rods and reels .... gone, obviously overnight, someone had gone through the camp-site and stolen their best tackle.
Probably because they all knew that the boys were from "the Home", and possibly because the boys were packing up that morning, they were suspected. The police were called and the boys were made to unfold the tent. Sure enough, there was the missing fishing gear, all neatly wrapped up in the canvas.
Caught with their hands in the cookie-jar.......statements were taken...one boy was singled out from all of the others... the smiling one.
He was charged with theft.
The change was immediate and dramatic.
"Before, he was polite. Now he is downright rude" they said. "He was respectful, and now he isn't. He was helpful,... now he is defiant.He was neat and looked after himself and now he doesn't seem to care. He had good manners, and smiled now h can be quite unpleasant and he sulks.
Help! Where IS the boy we knew?
Friday, 2 March 2012
no appeal needed....the Amsterdam/Africa story.
Maybe someone can tell us if this is an urban legend.
If it is..... Then, so what!! It's a wonderful, inspiring child and youth care story.
Many years ago, in Amsterdam, child and youth care workers decided to strike for better conditions of service. Supposedly, that would have meant for better salaries. They gave the strike period to be a probable three weeks, estimating that within that time the authorities would have met their demands.
Of course this put the residential homes for children in Amsterdam into a dilemma.. No,.. it put the children's homes into crisis. The children would need care for those three weeks, and who would do this? So, they put out a big appeal in the press and everywhere, asking the people of Amsterdam to take a child or some children into their homes for three weeks - the estimated period of the strike.
Well, the story goes, three weeks passed and there was no resolution to the workers demands. The strike went well beyond the estimated dates. In fact, the story goes, it lasted six months.
At the end of six months the child care workers returned to their children's homes in Amsterdam.
But,when they re-opened, ONLY ONE CHILD was returned by the people of Amsterdam.
There is something very African about this Amsterdam story.
I can remember when there was a thought in this country that the AIDS pandemic. prevalent in Africa South of the Sahara,and especially in South Africa, would overload the residential services here.... that the old fashioned orphanages would reappear
I can remember when my Board of Management was saying to me that I was making a mistake, I was premature and short-sighted on being adamant that the 350 bed dormitory facility must go.
They said "Mistake!! ... in a short while it will be needed because of the orphans and HIV and AIDS."
NO SIRS !! Don't underestimate people, but especially, don't misunderstand or misjudge Africa !!! Where are they these children?... and they do exist in their thousands if not in their tens of thousands in South Africa.
.....................absorbed into family; families......absorbed into and cared for in extended families, in sibling care, in child headed households and professionally serviced in community-based , African-styled professional care models - the most notable of which is the "Isibindi model".
The people of Amsterdam showed us that when we are appealed to, when there is an urgency and a crisis and we are appealed to, then children can and will be cared for in family-based systems
In Africa there was no appeal.
In Africa, no appeal will ever be necessary
Africa has a life, a culture and the heart to simply take children into family, care for them and make them their own........ no appeal necessary.
If it is..... Then, so what!! It's a wonderful, inspiring child and youth care story.
Many years ago, in Amsterdam, child and youth care workers decided to strike for better conditions of service. Supposedly, that would have meant for better salaries. They gave the strike period to be a probable three weeks, estimating that within that time the authorities would have met their demands.
Of course this put the residential homes for children in Amsterdam into a dilemma.. No,.. it put the children's homes into crisis. The children would need care for those three weeks, and who would do this? So, they put out a big appeal in the press and everywhere, asking the people of Amsterdam to take a child or some children into their homes for three weeks - the estimated period of the strike.
Well, the story goes, three weeks passed and there was no resolution to the workers demands. The strike went well beyond the estimated dates. In fact, the story goes, it lasted six months.
At the end of six months the child care workers returned to their children's homes in Amsterdam.
But,when they re-opened, ONLY ONE CHILD was returned by the people of Amsterdam.
There is something very African about this Amsterdam story.
I can remember when there was a thought in this country that the AIDS pandemic. prevalent in Africa South of the Sahara,and especially in South Africa, would overload the residential services here.... that the old fashioned orphanages would reappear
I can remember when my Board of Management was saying to me that I was making a mistake, I was premature and short-sighted on being adamant that the 350 bed dormitory facility must go.
They said "Mistake!! ... in a short while it will be needed because of the orphans and HIV and AIDS."
NO SIRS !! Don't underestimate people, but especially, don't misunderstand or misjudge Africa !!! Where are they these children?... and they do exist in their thousands if not in their tens of thousands in South Africa.
.....................absorbed into family; families......absorbed into and cared for in extended families, in sibling care, in child headed households and professionally serviced in community-based , African-styled professional care models - the most notable of which is the "Isibindi model".
The people of Amsterdam showed us that when we are appealed to, when there is an urgency and a crisis and we are appealed to, then children can and will be cared for in family-based systems
In Africa there was no appeal.
In Africa, no appeal will ever be necessary
Africa has a life, a culture and the heart to simply take children into family, care for them and make them their own........ no appeal necessary.
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