It's child and youth care ..good people get hurt

You must be crazy. Don't do it. You are going to to get very hurt. It is the most painful job in the world. Just think very carefully. You are going to get hurt. Are you sure that you can deal with it?

Written without exclamation marks.... it was the reaction of a colleague at the University when he learnt that I was to leave to go into child and youth care.... and he knew more from first hand experience than I did at that moment.

"I want to tell you " he said.

He and his wife had 4 or maybe 5 children of their own, a large house with a swimming pool. They had developed a relationship with three children who they were hosting some weekends from a local 'Children's Home"  The hosting was not easy, the three displayed some difficult to manage behaviour but the had attached enough to seriously consider fostering them. He and his wife had attended hosting and then foster-care training.The had attached to the children and wanted to give them something of the  family experience and chances their own children enjoyed.

They were very good people and loving.

Thing is,.. if you are going to be with children with troubles, then you have to expect troubled behaviour. But this couple could not be and were not prepared for what happened.

One weekend it was the children's biological fathers turn to have the children for the weekend.

.....and the phone-call came. The father had shot all three children one after the other and turned the gun on himself. If he couldn't have the children then no-one would.

"They were my children" said my colleague. " My wife and I we lost three children".

"You are crazy.....my advice to you is don't do it. Don't go into child and youth care. Are you sure that you are going to cope?"

Recently, that comment returned in another incident." "They were my children. I want to die."

A local safe house experienced the tragic death by fire of three brothers. They were sleeping in a wooden outbuilding which caught fire one evening and trapped, the three were burnt to death... no experience in looking after children can equal this. Good people with god hearts, losing children to death, ... and getting very hurt.

Rumours around the fire abound - so nothing can be said until proper investigation reports are published. But there is one fact for sure, and this was reported in the local press. The three were to have spent their last night in that wooden outbuilding before they were to have gone to another facility the next day.

There was an incident in the facility I last directed. On the night before two boys were to have be moved to a group home, they spread their feces on the walls of their room and used it also to make comments and write slogans for the next two boys who would occupy it. The two boys made it clear. If they couldn't be in that room, then no-one else would .

The  destruction of a living or recreation space to be vacated by the children we care for is not uncommon. The thing is again... if you are to be with children who have troubles, then you have to expect troubled behaviour.

.....and its then that good people get hurt.







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