Towards understanding something of the behaviour of young people living in group residential care, a model of a three tier chess game developed in me. I believe that there may be such a game.
The image is of three chess boards stacked on top of one another and the game is played on all three levels simultaneously. A move at one level determines a move at the other levels. Behaviour at the bottom, the deepest level, determines behaviour at the next and then at the surface level.
Child and youth care workers watch the game... its called " observation". What happens at the top level is clearly observable. The worker sees every move of every piece. ... and logs that daily. It is what the child care worker is permitted to see. ... what I call "surface" behaviour. It is the " he did this, I did that behaviour of the life-space, the moment, the day to day events ... as the literature says.
But then we are trained to ask the question " What is REALLY" going on here? or what is this child getting out of this behavior?"
There is a second board game going on underneath this....another level of dynamic of which the child and youth care worker may just be permitted to catch a mental glimpse. It is the in between game, the dynamics that children and youth may use to provide hints, just enough to let the child and youth care worker know that there is more going on than simply reaches the eye.
The worker finds herself saying something like " Rachel is doing this or that, saying this or that (direct observation ) but I think what may really be happening is ....... .... " (the partially obscured dynamics). An astute child and youth care worker can get some kind of intuitive sense of what that just may be. ... not an instinct... an intuition. A kind of intelligent guess, based on knowledge and skill. It is behaviour that is designed to let you know that there are things going on, but they can't be told.
At the third.... the deepest level of the behaviour game in institutional group living dynamics is what I call the "secret" level.
It is forbidden for any member of the group to reveal this state of group play. If they do they will get severely punished by the group. If they do "squeal" . I f the tell what is really going on to a staff member or to management, the life will be made unbearable for them You just don,t "rat" on the secret institutional life game.The child and youth care worker is not supposed to know anything of this.
You will hear child and youth care workers say" There,s something going on here, but I just can't put my finger on it .. I just cant make it out at all." and sometimes, if a child and youth care worker stumbles into it .. and sees this secret game being acted out.... they too will have an unbearable time..Management must never know.
This behaviour game is going on all the time. What you see, what you may be allowed to catch by implication and innuendo, and what you are not supposed to know. Three levels, three chess boards, three games, each interconnected.
Typical examples of this may be the sexual behaviours in the group. Who is "servicing" who, and what abuses are happening.
Satanism.
Sets of examples come from the "systems" that exist in the institution that are kept by the longer stayin residents and passed on form one "generation to the next as it were. initiation rites and rituals, the rites and rituals that come out of the "pecking order" protection payment systems, informal gangs, formal gangs, alliances for protection, kangaroo courts, and the power that personal secrets have with the fear of exposure.
Young people may say " You don't know how things work around here - you have no idea". (Second level).
d that there is this third and secret
You are being told that there is another deeper level of play going on.......and that it has a controlling effect on behaviour.
And that is why some child care workers and managers will persuade some young people to be spies in return for favours.
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