Some incidents...... briefly told:
1. He had gone through the ranks at the Child and Youth Care facility.
When he was to retire from the facility, he gave my one piece of advice.... it was the only advice I got from him.... ever.
"If you are on swimming pool duty, never get into the pool with the boys. As an assistant , I did.
"Come on , Sir," they said.
" Once I was in, they pushed me under the water and stood on me. I nearly drowned."
I WONDER WHY?
2. Playing soccer in the tennis court was always fun....... I joined in. Then the boys suggested that we play "touch rugby" instead of soccer... in the tennis court. It sounded like fun to me.
The rules were discussed..... a goal would be scored if the ball was pushed against the wire fence on the opposing end of the tennis court.
I was soon thrown the ball.
Strange that I had such an easy run through to the fence..... no-one touched me. THEN, as I pushed the ball against the wire 5 boys pushed me hard on my shoulders against the wire fence and dragged me to the left, then to the right. There was a single strand of barbed wire woven into the fence at just head level so my forehead was opened up and the blood came down into my eyes in a sheet..... I had been assaulted.
Girls screamed at the site of the blood. They ran to call my wife.
The boys backed off.
I WONDER WHY THEY DID THAT ??
3. A male child and youth care worker in the senior boys house went missing for four days. The boys covered up for their missing care worker, so management wouldn't know. But then there was a realisation that something was wrong, so management broke into his locked flatlet. ... AND THERE HE WAS.
The boys had shaved his head in what was called a " hot-cross bun"..... a bald stripe down the centre and another across the top from left to right.
The "hot-cross bun" was an act (derived from the military) of extreme humiliation and degradation inflicted on peers by the boys in secret kangaroo court procedures of their own.
He was too embarrassed to come out of his room.
I WONDER WHY THEY DID THIS?
Thought for talk in child and youth care work
Hi Barry, wonder if we could track down some of them and pose these questions to them
ReplyDeleteI have thought that except perhaps in the last of these the young people ma not be able to say why the did it... It could be that there was a lot of misdirected feelings towards other significant people or situations in their lives and we are put on the receiving end of them
ReplyDelete