DEAR YOGESHREE: TV and being Phambile

This is the last in a series that explores the part that fantasy might play in the behaviour of children... again where fantasy is indeed a reality. It seemed that TV characters may have an impact on how children and youth in care may build an identity for themselves at a certain stage of development. and help us find meaning in some of the behaviours we encounter in our work as child and youth care workers we encounter.... and quite frequently too. I am referring to TV series and movies that children and young people are watching now.. at the time of righting. Surely these will change and new fantasy characters and digital figures will emerge as having such an influence... possibly and particularly in the area of digital games.

First , there's Superman. Now, Superwoman is wonderful. He starts his day as the insignificant un-noticed Clark Kent - a nobody and a dogsbody.BUT, he st5ransformes when someone is in distress into a powerful, unconquerable , flying hero.

 Superman flies at speed above the skyline. He is everything that dreams are made of and further, he saves downtrodden and unjustly treated people with his miraculous indestructible force.  

 Then there's Micheal Knight..... the Knight Rider.The black knight of the night in a car that is indestructible. He is the 'pretty 'boy'. charming and well mannered, YET, .... let some well, organised structure of planned injustice come to his attention and Micheal Knight climbs int o his car and literally penetrates it and blasts it to kingdom come . ... Micheal saves the downtrodden and unjustly treated with miraculous indestructible force.

 Batman and Robin fit the same profile. But the most exciting of them is Spiderman.

 Superman flies, but Spiderman !!!

 Spiderman is a wonderful hero. He can climb buildings to save the distressed. ........ Masked and anonymous, he uses his miraculous indestructibility for the threatened and the downtrodden.

 AND NOW ... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... we are proud to present ....ten year old PHAMBILE ...He is a Superman, Micheal Knight, Batman and Spiderman ... all in one!!... a mousy no-body by day , but a dramatic hero when stirred. Phambile can climb buildings, throw a jujitsu blow like lightening n the name of justice and fairness and the fight against injustice. Phambile... ladies and gentlemen... is indestructible. He can even fly !!

And, in the system injustices abound. and call on Phambile to transform from the mousy, no-body he is in the day , to his avenging, justice- seeking, powerful self.:
                rules that don't make sense and are used against a fellow inmate rather than for him
                staff that rob the young persons of what should rightfully be theirs.. - its called 'creaming off'... taking the best of the donations for themselves ( clothing, food ,computer equipment ........)
                a group given punishment for the misdemeanour of one
                a child moved suddenly out of the programme with the excuse that she doesn't 'fit' the program

. The list goes on

But then when the power of Phambile strikes...staff.. watch your motor-car tyres, plates of food dashed against the wall , a breadroll at mealtime thrown at staff,..Phambilile at these times is totally unafraid of threatening and confronting staff...

Sometimes its the young persons and children that have to be taught a lesson in justice.... knocked out cold with the end of a broom.  punched-up in the grounds, ... windows smashed ... piddled on whilst sleeping, . ribs broken.. even setting fire.

 Don't forget that Phambilie can climb buildings....downpipes are up and down-pipes. Ledges and edges are grips and footholds... barbed wire means absolutely nothing to Phambile when he is on a mission to restore justice and fairness.


 AND THEN ... when the whole world breaks into apparent  chaos, superhero, Phambile escapes to return to his mousy daily  persona.


"Jump Phambile, Jump" . It waas the chant from below. He was on the third floor balcony. The others were chaning from below as they urged Phambilie to test his remarkable, TV character abilities.

"Jump, Phambile. Jump"

 There he stood on the ledge of the three story building , poised and ready.

The chanting crowd was hustled indoors.

The child and youth care worker sat on the other side of the cement balcony, lit a cigatette and said
"Come back in Phambile, You'll probably kill yourself. It's not such a good idea really."

 With the chanitng stoped and the audience removed, Phambile hesitated, then suddenly flew past the child care worker into the building to lock himself ont the veranda of the boys floor.

 He was Clark Kent again, crime reporter . The mousy one ..  there, waiting to be galvanised  into his persona, Phambile ...indestructible, justice-seeking and violent.




                   



  ...

DEAR YOGESHREE drugs, alcohol and fantasy..a child and youth care challenge.

DEAR YOGESHREE

Initially my thinking was that there would be three letters to you on fantasy as an experience in our work as child and youth care workers.. This is the third already and it seems there could be two more exploring the theme. This one relates an experience in which drugs and alcohol played a significant part in fantastical thinking but it struck me in the next letter it could be worth exploring the impact fantastical television characters may have on children's self concept and so on their behaviour.

Caroline pitched at the house where her son was in care with us. It was just before six in the morning and she was in a dreadful state. The child care worker didn't want to disturb me at that time so they had coffee and waited until eight. It was then I got the usual call. " You had better get here .. quick!"

 She looked particularly dishevelled. She had walked from the centre of Hillbrow in Johannesburg. For those who may  never heard of Hillbrow - - it's famous  for being the most densely populated high-rise apartment square kilometre in the world. It is well known for a night life that often doesn't bear scrutiny.

 Caroline lived in a small apartment in this area where she and her friends were well into the Hillbrow culture - drugs, alcohol and sex..... Its  great life if you don't weaken !!

 Her story....... she and some friends were into drugging together in someones apartment in Hillbrow. At about three in the morning she decided to have some fun, so she deliberately spiked a middle-aged man's drink. He was already far gone on drugs so he passed out almost immediately on the floor of that apartment and died.

 Caroline knew that she had overdosed him, panicked and left the apartment with his body on the floor, locked it and fled into the early hours of the morning and the anonymity of the Hillbrow millions, thought better of it and ran to the Children's Home.

"Mr Lodge, I murdered a man," she said.
"Caroline ... we must go there now" ... my response.
"You won't get in, the caretaker won't let you in", she argued, pale and very frightened.

 We went anyway into the dullness of high-rise Hillbrow. I woke up the caretaker.
"There's no way I can let you in to someones flat without their authority" , or words to that effect, "or a police search warrant. What he actually said was " Fuck off man you're wasting your time"
"Whats your name?" I asked.
" Phinandas"
"I'm the Director of the Children's Home in Jo'berg blah, blah blah - you come with me and stay with me all the time. We really need . we HAVE to see into that apartment - someone could be dangerously ill in there and need emergency treatment..... Please... etc etc.

I didn't have money on me otherwise I would have offered it to him.. We all know these stories.

Phinandas opened the door. We very cautiously went down the short passage into the lounge. It was necessary to switch on the light despite the time of day...../ NOTHING !!. not even a tell-tale mark on the carpet.

 Caroline couldn't believe it. She wasn't relieved (as I was). She became even more agitated.

"Mr Lodge", she said. " He must have recovered enough to go to Cookie's flat. She's his friend, and died there"

So off we go to Cookie's flat. Same story there, same patter same looking caretaker, same result - no body there - nothing - no corpus delecti

Three flats later, I got to the point...

"Caroline, we are running around Hillbrow looking for a dead man on a carpet"
"Dead men don't walk. They don't disappear into thin air."
"Mr Lodge" she said " He's lying dead in one of these flats, I know, 'cos I killed him. He must be dead somewhere. I'm a murderess.

We left Caroline in Hillbrow and came home



"        

DEAR YOGESHREE . fantasy/reality..a challenge for child and youth care workers

DEAR YOGESHREE

This letter is the second to you on a challenge that you will , without doubt encounter in your work as a child and youth care worker. It has again to do with the difficulty of separating fantasy from reality in the belief and world view of children and how we may might have to deal with it in practice. Again, the story in my last letter of the woman in the Psychiatric hospital and the intern who got into her world for a moment was the inspiration for how this particular challenge was handled.  My letters to you were never intended to be a type of manual of good practice. They have always been intended to be starting points for discussion and are written as incidents "warts and all" . In fact, the interventions and interactions in them may sometimes be questionable. Please use them as starting points for debate and reflection.

" Mr Lodge !"
"Yes"
"My name is Simon Ndlovu. I am in charge of security at the International Airport.
"I have Jennifer Karparkus here. We found her on the tarmac of the airport trying to get into the baggage hold of a Quanta's airliner. Please come and collect her."
"How the hell did she get there?"
"She got through all the security checks in the airport terminal Mr Lodge. We don't know how she did it. Please come and collect her."

It must have been the fifth time that airport security had found her. Each time she was trying to get onto a plane at the International Airport..... I knew the story only too well.

"I have to get to Celine Dion. I have to see her and talk to her. I have to tell her  - I told you  - they want to kill her." She would tell me this over and over."I have to get to Canada and speak to Celine Dion".

I didn't even know who Celine Dion was at first. ( she was just starting to make her mark as a singer). Jennifer's mother told me that Jennifer had all of Celine Dion's CD's in a large collection and spent her time listening to her music. So, I made it my business to find out as much as I could about Celine Dion and to listen to as much as I could of her music. It was easy to hear that Celine Dio0n was a star, probably a super star, a 'diva' in that musical genre..... and Jennifer was a fanatical fan.

The story unfolded over time.

She was apparently quite involved in a Satanistic coven. Some of the same group of members had moved into our care from the Child and Youth Care Centre ( Place of Safety) where she was placed when 'removed'(old terminology) from her home and her neighbourhood. ... So, her involvement in the coven continued with, she said, the threat of death for her if she were ever to reveal its secrets.

Through the different levels of her journey into Satanism, she was not allowed to be part of the discussion nor ritual of some of the deeper levels. She said that at one time she was sent out of the room while one of the upper level groups held their meeting.

Her story was that she listened through the closed door and heard them say there was a plan that Celine Dion would be assassinated for a huge sum of money. She was horrified. She loved Celine Dion.

Her problem was that she had to get to Celine Dion before the Satanists did... and she had to do it without any Satanist knowing.because she believed, she would become a target herself. .It was  to be Celine Dion or her.... a terrible and frightening trap.

We were working on releasing Jennifer from what she perceived to be the strangle-hold of her involvement and the approach was to help to release herself level by level. But the urgent need to warn Celine Dion, in Jennifer's mind, occupied each of her living moments It was all taking too longto release the ever present mixture of fear and desperation inside her.

 I suggested that she write to Celine Dion through her fan club address. It was the only address I could get. Jennifer did that.. Then Jennifer found an address for her manager and we penned a letter to him.... To this letter we got a reply from the manager of Celine Dion's security company. None of this satisfied Jennifer and it was then that she got so far as to be caught trying to limb into the baggage hold of the Quanta's aircraft.

Once back, I suggested that we there and then telephone the Manager of Celine Dion's security company in Canada to tell him the story. I 'phoned him first and told him to take whatever she will say very seriously.He  said they do that anyway with any suggestion of a threat against Celine. What Jennifer really wanted was to speak to Celine personally, but the security manager said  it was really impossible to do that. This seemed like the best compromise

When Jennifer spoke to him I left the room. Her call to Canada and the security manager lasted nearly half an hour. I have no idea what was said and Jennifer never spoke about it to me at all at any time.

I just know that she didn't ever run again.

I was there when Jennifer went back to live with her mother permanently again. Yet I felt that Jennifer never did lose something of her aura of a quiet mystery locked up inside of her and which hovered around her.

 She never did stop listening to Celine Dion and she hankered over her singers most recent CD's

Now Jeniffer sits back and listens to Celine's voice and the melodies flow over her.

.....and she smiles.
.

DEAR YOGESHREE entering the child's reality in child and youth care work

DEAR YOGESHREE

 A patient in a hospital for psychiatric disorders simply refused to eat.

"They are trying to poison me. They are trying to kill me through poisoning my food. They want me dead" she would say.

 It went on for far too long this no eating. Slowly she was wasting away and yet she refused to eat. No amount of persuasion changed her story. Persistently she stuck to it.  She just would not eat.

 "They are trying to poison me  They want me dead"

 The more experienced psychiatrists tried all they knew . But eat.... she would not.

In desperation they sent an intern to her as a sort of last resort. " You see what you can do" they said... "we have tried all we know"

The intern got the same story.

"You are right" he said . They are trying to kill you.... and they DO want you dead.   What you have wrong though,.. and I'll tell you the secret.. is this... they are trying to starve you to death !!"

That day she started to eat again.

That story (and I am told that it is true), was so helpful. It made me to understand the reality and the power of faulty belief, fantacy, world view and personal perceptions. It was also helpful because the intern psychiatrist entered into that reality of the client. He became part of her reality, walked with her and helped her from within her reality.

It got me thinking of a number of young persons who have somewhat dramatically lived out their fantacy realities in one way or another. It is often the dramatic incidents that help us to get transferred insight into the quieter, more subtle behaviours that might otherwise go un-noticed.

 There was Carlton. Tall, willowy, showy, hair -flicking Carlton Smith.

 Can you remember the Helderberg disaster Yogeshree?. The Helderberg was a Boeing aircraft carrying 159 passengers It had an on-board fire that was said to have started in the cargo hold. It crashed into the Indian Ocean.on the 28th November 1987. No one survived. Aboard were 52 South African passengers and 19 South African crew.

On the steps of the quad, right opposite my office, sat Carlton.... where he was unlikely to be missed. The willowy frame bent over, so his hair hung over his eyes. His long fingers spread wide over his face. His back jerked in short sharp sobs.

 Carlton was crying again. Tears would come easily to Carton so it wasn't really suprising . Everything seemed to be a drama for him. It was if he play-acted his his way through life, creating the plot, the scene and the persona to fit the hightened dramatic potential of almost any situation.

" What's up Carlton?"

 "My sister, my sister, my sister " repeated between sobs. "She went down with the Helderberg."

I wasn't too sure how to respond. My experience of Carlton made me cautious.

" How do you know?"

 She was on the Helderberg. She told me she was to catch a plane. I saw her name in the paper.

 Now Carlton was close to fainting - sobbing and talking does that.

 I called the chaplain. Father snapped into his role immediately. Priestly and compassionate., action followed. Sure enough there were the names of the Helederberg passengers in the Sunday paper of two weeks ago. Among them, Ms H.E. Smith .Calton described his older sister. What she did and what she was like.

Sobs now welled up more than before and he was accompanied to the Christian Care Centre to start the work of dealing with his grief. Beginning with coffee and doughnuts.

About half an hour later I got a call.  " I'll take him to Cape Town in my car."  It was the chaplain. "We will find his father and sort out his sister's memorial. Will you approve of that.?"

 I felt trapped. If I said "Yes" it was a yes to a lot of money what with hotels and transport costs for two for at least a week in Cape Town.  If I said "NO" ..... well it just seemed that "NO" was not a choice.

The plan was that they would travel to CapeTown after about a week from our first encounter with his Helderberg loss. During that week Carlton was weak, languid, limp, and alone. He cried most of the time. The other young people and the staff were wonderful. They singled him out for extra doses of care and concern. Carlton for that week became a type of Helderberg hero.... noticed and nurtured.

 I saw them off and extracted from the chaplain an undertaking that he would keep me informed freuqently as to how things were going. The mission was to get to Cape Town, make contact with Carlton's father . But especially to meet with the airways authorties and sort out with them the steps  to be taken in their programme of consolation for the relatives of the many who had simply disappeared into the sea.

 I got the "We arrived safely" call. Then on around the third day I got another call. Gaurded and diplomatic. ... more that was usual, the chaplain held his report back conversation.  I guessed that Carkton was in the same room.

 " Things turned out a little differently here from what we expected",  he said.

"You need to know that we eventually found out about Carlton's father. Unfortunately his dad died three years ago. I found out where he was buried in Cape Town and we visited his grave. That was good  'cause Carlton was able to come to terms with the loss of his father there.. It's made the journey worthwhile' he said.

"And the sister?" I asked.
" The  H.E. Smith on the missing passenger list wasn't Carlton's sister. It was someone else."

 A pause.... a longish pause...

 " Actually, Carlton doesn't have a sister " he said.

DEAR YOGESHREE Feelings, thoughts and behaviour...connecting the dots.. a child and youth care challenge..

DEAR YOGESHREE

This is the last in a series of letters that have focused on feelings as clues to the finding of meaning in the behaviour of children and of ourselves. This letter calls that exercise a 'challenge' for us as child and youth care workers. .. and it is. It is one of those elements of our practice which may well sometimes be the most difficult of all. But one, which in the immediacy of our life-space work with children combines empathy and intellect to make child and youth care work more satisfying than anything else I had ever done.... including my work as an academic at the university and my work as a therapist in the Child Guidance and Research Centre.

Every instinct in my body said "Get out and get out fast!".Just as the other boys in the dormitory had done. But my intuition said "Sit !". So, I sat. On a bed close to the dormitory door.

 Sibonga carried on flicking the knotted wet towel in every direction around the room and toward me as he shouted abuse. Sometimes directly at me and sometimes into the walls of the echoing dormitory of the old house.

 It wasn't submission my sitting on the bed. It was meant to tell Sibonga that I wasn't afraid and that I wasn't going to to threaten him with any of the languages of confrontation.

I'd been close to Sibonga with this type of behaviour before. He was allergic to bee stings, and one day whilst the 'bee man' was removing bees from an electricity box, I saw this same look on Sibongas face. Eyes widened, dark complexion grey.And when we were least expecting it Sibonga darted forward and pushed his arm into the box. He was stung twice. I dashed him to hospital. I was more worried about him than he was about himself.

It was that same wide-eyed look now,so I knew to expect the nexpected.

 I scanned the room _ especially the doors looking for my best escape posion, and watched every move.

 Flying around the room, Sibonga continued to shout and lick the towel menacingly. I couldn't hear the words except for the occasional 'f' and 'p' words.... it sounded like growling and barking.Twice in this ritual dance, he pulled down long curtains from the dormitory windows with a clutter that significantly hightened the tension in that cavernous room.

 At last I started to make out words, but couldn't make sense of them. I only know they were directed at me.

"It's alright Sibonga, it's OK" .... as calmly as I could.

 Even though it had happened so very long ago, the bees in the electricity box image came to me again. The same signals going up started to make this situation more scary.

 The inarticulate noise of a human in distress, slowly started to form into words I had heard all to often from adolescents especially.

" You don't know nothing; You don't know nothing" getting louder and louder.

 Sibonga was now focusing more often on me, making some glancing eye contact. I kept my eyes averted but still watched every move.

 "Its OK. We can sort this out somehow" repeated quietly.

 Then came the full barrage. Floodgates and emergency doors wide open now. Sibonga sobbed, yelled paced yanked on bed blankets, and it all came tumbling out.

" You don't know fucking anythi9ng. - what it's like. You think you know everything. . You think its alright, but it's not. It's not alright. You think "go home" and it's not alright"

Now at last it started to make some sense.

Sibonga had lived with his mother in Idukwe. His mother , so the story is told 'dropped out', 'hit the road' and the bottle to live on park benches in the big city. Sibonga was placed 'in care'  as a fairly small boy and  he was told by the extended family that his mother was dead. Well actually that is what we all understood... that mom had died.

 Then one day she pitched at the door of the 'Home' to claim her boychild

Sibonga was called , but fled upstairs and hid in a wardrobe.

 I was not part of the family re-unification. In those days what was called 'the external social worker'.I was however impressed by mom's sobriety, level headedness and determination to get family life together again for Sobonga. She had found employment in Idukwe and could clearly support him. He had been 'going home for weekends and holidays for over a year now and plans were underway to make this a permanent arrangement by the end of this year. The end of the year was approaching fast. Today was Friday and Sibonga was to go home for the weekend. Within the next hour mom would arrive at the front door just as she did when she came back from the dead. The last weekend visit before being home permanently.

 As far as I could make out there were no social, bonding, caring, safety, provisional reasons for Sibonga NOT to live at home now, with his mom. all the externals suggested that permanency was ensured.

I was clearly wrong. Inside Sibonga was residing unresolved distrust...the unfinished business of.deeply buried feelings of abandonment, fear and loss. Mom's expected appearance today and the proximity of losing the now familiar security of the 'Home" triggered this scary display of feelings.

"We're together at home. You die. You disappear.You die, You come back from the dead. We go home together now. When you're not there... I don't exist. Whenever you  leave you die  .Death follows life. dark follows light ....and you say its alright.... Shit !!"

Sibonga sat on the bed opposite me, his body limp and sobbed into his wet towel .

Sibonga was right. Barrie doesn't know a fucking thing!


.

DEAR YOGESHREE their feelings, his feelings, your feelings..the child and youth care experience

DEAR YOGESHREE

Karl was in what we called a four day programme. He was very soon to be 17 and was in the process of disengagement from care and being prepared to be returned to his family. It meant that he went home directly from school on a Friday and returned after school on Monday. He was still completing some programmes and winding down toward the end of that year.

He had been institutionalised since infancy.

Karl didn't pitch Monday.

The procedure was that absent young persons not returning after a leave of absence were reported to the Director after various other procedures had failed to locate them. There were different periods of tolerance in these procedures. In Karl's case, he would be regarded as having officially 'absconded' after 24hours and 'missing in legal system terms, in the same period.

The message I got was that the child and youth care workers knew where he was actually, and that he simply hadn't come back from his parent's house - he was still there. He should be at school of course but was not attending..so he was not missing. He was AWOL.

Considering everything I said that we would adopt a 'wait and see' approach. We knew he was safe and maybe he was 'voting with his feet' That perhaps might be quite healthy in the longer term - so I said that we should not contact him nor the family." Let's agree not to do anything for a while".

The child care staff were not at all happy with this.

Karl  re-appeared after five official days of absence. I got a call to say that he was back with.an official 'incident report' which concluded with an official request for a 'consultative meeting'. The request was worded by the primary care workers in a way more like a demand for a 'disciplinary enquiry'. The complaint being that Karl had been absent without official permission for five days. This was interpreted as outright disregard for the rules and had to be officially dealt with. The Director must be present as Karl's behaviour created a precedent and could have further repercussions among the others in the group. The report concluded rather punitively, that Karl may not be ready to be returned to his parental home at the end of the year.

'Consultative Meeting' was a term I coined to take the punitive element out of the previous 'Disciplinary Hearings'. I found that all too often a so called 'Disciplinary Hearing' turned out to be more like a group therapy session, so the name and the intetnion changed to comply with the concept of restorative work..... an idea that seemed  frequently to be far from the minds of the child and youth care workers  who looked to me to be judge. jury and a sort of magistrate metering out a ' sentence'. This appeared to be the hope for Karl and the expectation on me.

We met in the group home that morning.and were to sit around the diningroom table..(mind you with Karl having been excused school to allow him to attend !??).  This was the workers idea to stage manage the formality of the meeting and to stress its seriousness. For me it was a charade, but for the worker couple it was real business.

What unfolded around that table was to be for me a life changing event.... these thing happen at the most unexpected moments.

Karl sat facing me across the narrow side of the table. The child care workers positioned themselves at the top and bottom. The male worker took the lead. He outlined the complaint he had against Karl, giving evidence with dates, times and the procedures that had been followed.

Karl sat emotionless.

Then the worker asked questions to get clarity. And it was in the time of this questioning that the fiirst set of feelings stirred in me.

"What did you do while you were away so long?"
"Nothing"
"'Your Mom was ok, so you didn't stay to look after her or anything?"
"No"
"Why did you just stay then?"
"Don't know."
Why didn't you send your younger brother to tell us where you were?"
Silence.
"Have you heard of this thing called a telephone Karl? Couldn't you have phoned or something?"
Silence.
Did you think tha maybe we were worried about you, or that Ma was worried ( Ma being the female married partner of the child and youth care couple)

Now the feelings in me were strong and I could identify them. They were disappointmant, loss, terrible hurt and let down injury and grief. It was asif Karl had deliberately punctured them.

'Ma' was close to tears

Silence.

The tone of the questions hardened, became more pointed . The boy had to feel their pain.

 " Have you no idea after all the time that you have been here that Ma and I might care enough for you that we would worry about you?"

Silence.

This wasn't going well. I would soon have to get this back on track.

That's when the quiet movement of another range of feelings started to swell to a point that I could just begin to identify them.....total stunned confusion, like a voice crying out " Will somebody please tell me what is going on here?",.. trapped in a void and very frightened by the nothingness of it. .. irritation

Then it came.It's not that Karl didn't want to care nor that he simply tried to injure anyone. Karl was not able to care!... Blank !! He had no idea that what he does matters to anyone. "This whole thing is meaningless", he thought  "and starting to become frustrating"

 When it started to dawn through the feelings to some kind of sense, that Karl. was not able to feel care and so couldn't feel anyone's injury through anything that he did..., the enormity of this for me was overwhelming. .... Karl can't feel caring because his very early history and long- term institutionalisation had left him unable to interpret messages of caring as genuine and real.

 I felt the stone wall around him. His motionless and the silences were not fefiance . they were paralysis...This whole thing didn't make sense to him.

 The feelings,.. a third wave, were my own this time. Up until now I had been feeling with Karl. Now I recognised that I was feeling for Karl. Not only for Karl, but for all the young people like Karl and for all the children who had experinced me and these child and youth care workers as Karl experienced them now. Pretending  The sadness for children who couldn't care because they couldn't or wouldn't allow thelmselves to be cared for formed vague imagesof isolation, prolonged emotional isolation asif people were trees walking around.

"Can we please take a break for about five minutes? Maybe you can have some tea" I said.

 I went out onto the verandah, opening the net curtained french doors,  - and closing them behind me for privacy - and sobbed... I had no control over it for a good five minutes.

 In 20 years of child and youth care work I have cried five times ... and this was one of them. I always have felt so stupid each time it happened, Each time was because of the pathos of a moment with a child or children.

 "This is so unprofessional, just so unprofessi0onal". I chanted until it was under control.

 I came back into the room through the curtained french doors.

"Now..... let's start again". I said.



 Love

 Barrie,

DEAR YOGESHREE child and youth care workers in the cross-fire of feelings .

The story of Sendisiwe and Ndabankulu that is now to be told,  was a world-view changing moment ... one of those "Aha!" experiences that was to colour forever my child and youth care practice .

The last letter to you promised that this experience would be used as an example of how we, as child and youth care workers, can get put into the middle of a rapid, intense cross-fire of feelings that  must be sorted  in the moment.  If others "dump" their feelings on us, and we adopt their load, we can be influenced  to think, and so to react, instead of to respond.. I learnt in the Sendisiwe experience that my own feelings and intuition can be trusted,  but had to learn to sift out ME the CHILD and the FAMILY, from the rest of the confusion.

It was an important meeting, held at a critical moment Sindisiwe the mother of Ndabankulu would be there. She had just been released from jail where she had been for eight years on a charge of murder. The story was that she had taken a kitchen knife one evening and in an overflow of frustration and amidst a loud outburst,  stabbed her husband to death in front of the three children. The two little girls and the older Ndabnkulu ran into what was said to be a rainy and stormy night. They were found huddled together in a bus shelter. Mom was jailed and the children were separated into two different "Children's Homes". ... and there they stayed.

The underlying story was that Sandisiwe struck out at her husband that night because she reacted to consistent and continuous abuse from him. She'd simply enough.

Needless to say she was labelled "murderess".... and that in front of the little children too.

Ndabankulu was now fourteen. He hardly knew his sisters, but had formed what appeared to be loose bonds with families known in the system as "hosts". Over the last while however on of these had strengthened to the point where more permanence was considered by his Social worker and arrangements were underway for him to be fostered by Nozipho and her family. Ndabankulu wanted this. His mother unexpectedly released on parole, did not.

 The meeting was to discuss the way forward now.

Everyone had investments here .Me, as the legal guardian of the boy, the mother whose son he was, the child-care worker who had developed the hosting arrangement , the social worker who had prepared the foster family, Nozipho who had bonded with Ndabankulu and had prepared to take him as part of her family, and of course Ndabankulu.

The foster-placement social- worker  asked to met with me to strategise the process of the meeting to come and to discuss the complexity of it.

Mrs Naude was immaculate.......  floral suit from the best boutiques in Pretoria... the political powerhouse and the powerhouse of social work. The frilly blouse matched her nail polish. I knew this as Pretoria fashion.

"Do you know Sendisiwe? she asked.
"No" say I.
"She's a murderess you know that !?
"Yes"
Then proceeds the story of the gore and the blood and the rainy night . Details of the knife that was drawn and the children, then very little traumatised eight years ago huddled in a bus shelter. I couldn't trivialise the incident. Slowly slowly unwound the words that carried images. Images that raised spectres, fear, suspicion, anxiety born of risk, outrage, righteous outrage, protective courage and defencive power.

When she arrived for the meeting Sidisiwe met all my stereotypes. Deprived or rationed in jail she now chain-smoked, so that wrinkled her face in smoke induced skin patterns. The mobility of her mood moved her face in ever changing waves of expression, enhancing the shadows of the wrinkles. She was small. Smaller than I expected, but taut and wiry, fast moving - that fitted.  A word came " unpredictable" , yes that's it,  "unpredictable".

The meeting went according to the usual ritual of niceties and the mummy wrappings unwound slowly until the preservng formalities could no longer mask the real issue.

 Voice tones changed into something more soprano. The pace quickened. Everyone was leaning into the circle of feet that was supposed to define our democracy.

 Sendisiwe became the most vocal of us all.

The range of feelings now started to take some shape in me . They loomed large over all the other tones and nuances coming to me from Ndabankulu and Nozipho.

 Strangely, Mrs Naude, dressed today in a paler suit of violet was still and sitting further back.

 A small harmonic resonance inside me was troublesome - it had a well known set of chords of a tone of feeling . It spoke of a lioness who struggles valiantly to protect her cub and her fear of him on its first hunt. It was like a melancholic violin playing a Paganini caprice..... distantly painful yet victorious

And then the the horns and the brass and the drums suddenly drowned the melody of feeling.

" Sendisiwe"
'Listen to me"
After everything that happened, you have to know - for as long as I am here, you will never be able to be the permanent mother of Ndabankulu again"..... it burst out  in a fanfair.,

Mrs Naude settled back further in her chair and drew her feet under it.

Sindisiwe sprung up and rushed outside through the kitchen back door. It was though she was part of the group and yet she wasn't, transported out there with no time or space inbetween.

 She lit a cigarette and paced up and down.

 "Bitch" I heard her say as I watched through the window.  Well it couldn't be missed . Everyone else was absolutely silent.

Ndabankulu sat transfixed.

 "Bitch, Bitch, Bitch' Shit, Shit, Shit !!!".

As the cigarette finished so the two words repeated slowly subsided with it. Sendisiwe came back into the circle and said" You don't even give me a chance. You don't even listen"

Within three months of that meeting the foster placement broke down. Nozipho phone to say that Ndabankulu had run away during an outing to a park.

 I knew exactly where to find him.

 There he was. Re-united with his mother in the very same kitchen in which the dreadful incident had taken place. He's probably still there because Sendisiwe was a perfectly stunning mother to an otherwise difficult teenager. The bond is remarkable and generous.

DEAR YOGESHREE confused feelings in child and youth care work

DEAR YOGESHREE

This is the second letter in a series which explores the idea that feelings, the child's and ours, can help us to find meaning in what is really going on in the deeper levels of the child. This letter however explores what is often called  "noise". This is an introductory letter. It  tries to set out the complexity of "noise" in what we might be feeling in any one complex group life moment .The letter which follows will attempt an example from practice, a narrative, to help illustrate this.

In most child and youth care situations messages get thrown at you from all quarters , all sides and usually all at once..especially as we are involved in group care and group interventions and interactions. The task of sorting out the range of feelings in us, and in others, and so our thinking and our responses becomes a complex and very often confusing  exercise.

A metaphor that helped me to get some idea about what was happening in me in these moments came from my childhood. At my family home, we had a piano. It was not an upright piano but a medium sized grand piano called a boudoir grande. If the lid was opened the strings were exposed flat, asif strung across a table. It was great fun. WE could put little objects on the strings and see them bounce, vibrate and make all manner of noise on the resonating strings. But the big lesson was this: If the strings were not dampened but left free to vibrate freely, and you struck one note on the piano, say middle "C", all the strings of that note resonated too. Here was room for some experimentation... if we played the gramophone,... say rock and roll, and the strings were open then the outside music got the piano strings resonating too.

See, that was me...I was like the boudoir grand. I could play my own feeling notes, but all the other feelings in the room resonated in me too, up and down the scale Like playing the piano with open strings and having rock and roll playing at the same time

The risk was always that it all just becomes a confusing noise of feeling, and so confusing my thinking and my responses.

There is a game we play in the training of child and youth care workers. Blindfolded, they have to follow the voice of their partner to reach a given seat whilst everyone else is calling instructions to their partners at the same time. It means , sorting out all the other voices and their messages, tuning-in and hearing your real guiding voice amidst the confusing noise of all the others to know who is who and where you have to go. It's like that with feelings . Important amongst all the noise, is that we can sort out the melody of feelings you are playing, with all its resonances from all the resonating feelings in you that belong to the child, from the policy and procedure noises that come from your organisation and from all the other resonating feelings and messages that come from the others in the group.

It is very confusing......

 But through the maze of feeling, it is our work to make sense,  to grasp what is really happening

........and so the story of Sindiswe ...... .next time

 Love

 Barrie

DEAR YOGESHREE the child and youth care worker and anger

DEAR YOGESHREE

You received a series of letter about 'working from the inside out' in trying to find meaning in children and young persons behaviour. It was a thought that maybe there were 'windows' into understanding behaviour if we looked also at finding meaning through what was happening to us in any life-space incident.

 The idea came from the view that our own feelings can be a measure of what is happening in the young person. So the next few letters have "feelings ... ours and the child's as a central theme. and anger seemed to be a good place to start. Actually I found it useful when emotions were explained as different from feelings... This explanation gave me some help in being to discriminate, fine tune and to name a range of more subtle, nuanced feelings instead of just lumping them altogether as "anger" for example. Anger is the emotion. The feeling or package of feelings are the ingredient feelings that are often expressed as an emotion.

 I also started to learn that, frequently when I could really tune into my feelings in a life-space moment with children and young persons, and name them, then I was often paralleling inside of me, the real feelings of the child , instead of just experiencing their display as a single undifferentiated emotional expression. and reacting to the display and not to the real goings on inside the child

 There were times when my feelings gave me insight into what was really really going on in the child -  a deep empathy as it were, and times when my feelings were connected in only with what the behaviour had triggered in me , and times when both these feeling experiences happened at the same time. In these moments I had to sort out very quickly... this is me.. this is the child

 Eish!  as we say in Africa !!!.... this work of child and youth care is really very difficult !!!

"Angry, threatening  and demanding " was what they said . " You had better come quick"  The usual phone call.

"What kind of fucking place is this?  Mr Lodge are you mad or something ? . I'll fuck up that stupid child care worker now !!"

It was easy to understand why the weekend relief worker had phoned for help .Dennis was a large sixteen year old  very muscular and very blonde. Every teenage girls dream date.

Dennis was very concerned about his looks and his body. he would flick his longish blonde hair whith practiced artistry. Usually very charming he relied on his good looks and charm to get his own way. The young female black worker apparently didn't fall for it and when she told him that he had to make his own way home that Saturday afternoon she added that I had made made it clear that the mini-bus combi was not to be used as a taxi.

 Dennis' veneer of charm fell away.

Still bristling up and measuring himself against me, he shouted, " You tell that black bitch to take me home in the mini-bus combi. She knows how to drive and she knows how to get there, !!

 'Home' was on "the plots' in a semi rural country area outside of the big city. Now at last I knew what this was all about. I had come in at the tail end of a power struggle.

Dennis blew himself up big, and puffing up his already muscular body, he raised his voice to shouting pitch  .

He usually din't go home Although the social worker took him there more than once. He usually played cricket or rugby for the school close to the group home.

Now he was on the balls of his feet with his fists up, face distorted . It was frustration.

"Tell that fucking maid to take me home in the combi!. What's the combi there for? It's just standing there doing nothing. The combi is there for the children - right?  So tell her to take me home"

Suddenly inside of me there was a passing moment of feelings. On the one hand I was a little afraid ,not much, because my the dominant range of feeling was fear, embarrassment a strong sense of a loss of ego, of frustration and  helplessness... feeling trapped. And I knew he wouldn't hurt me,. but I didn't really understand it.

" You've known since Thursday that you were going home this weekend. You were given the money . The whole thing was discussed with you and you were given the money to catch the train"

 I walked away deliberately to say that the conversation was over and I sat down in the lounge, somewhat out of the way but close enough to watch what would happen next. I had to be disconnected I thought, but I need to be on hand in case the behaviour escalated.

 Dennis went to his bedroom, punctuating his journey with muffled expletives

On Monday morning I got a telephone call from the the regular worker.
"Dennis did not go home this weekend. We understand that he blew a fuse and threatened everyone including you "
"Yes"
"He's calmed down now and he's apologised to everyone. He wants to apologise to you"
 "It's OK"
"We were able to talk it through this morning. We just thought that you would want to know...............
"We just found out"

" Dennis doesn't know how to use any of the public transport systems.. He doesn't know how to catch a train, or use a taxi"

 Love

 Barrie




.

  .

DEAR YOGESHREE Seeing the rainbow in acting out behaviour : the parable of Lebo

DEAR YOGESHREE

The last letter you received was the first in a two part series on looking for meaning in acting out behaviour in young persons. Lebo's dramatic acting out at his dying mother's bedside was described as an incident ,. This letter is designed to go behind the the acting out behaviour to get some kind of insight into Lebo's world view.

Lebo's story continues as a type of parable

There was once a small boy, the last in a family of already grown brothers and sisters. His mother didn't really want this child from the time of conception. Worn out and tired, struggling to make ends meet and well past child rearing, she would make Lebo the responsibility of the other siblings.

 Lebo soon learnt that he was resented and wasn't really wanted by them also. He was a burden to everyone.He could say or do nothing, just his being there was enough for them to wish him away.It didn't take long for Lebo to get the message that the family wished that he would disappear into thin air -  and they did. he got into a way of following people wherever they went until they shooed him off.He would get into their belongings and absorbed their possessions into his head until he couldn't easily separate what people owned from  who they were. He thought that if he had something of theirs he had something of them as persons. Then peo-ple felt stripped and invaded and they shut him out.

"The world"' Lebo thought was a place where people want others out of their lives, .... especially me.>. The world WANT people to disappear into thin air, not exist in theit lives" And because Lebo believed this, it was true.

But Lebo believed also that it should not be like this, " God did not have it mind that the world should be like this" he would think. " in God's world people love each other unconditionally, people are warm to one-another, understand each other and are real end genuine about it... but the world is not like that at all. Somewhere deep down where he could not see, Lebo had pictures, dreams, visions of a conflict he did not understand.

 "people need a wake-up call, they should hear needs and hopes, not just wish people away: he would hear whispered . He was due something of the generosity he vaguely knew in blurred images.

 He stole money from his mother, and from his brothers and sisters and from the neighbouhood and they wished he would disappear. So, he did...... into the streets of the big city. Sometimes into the barred caverns of the city jail.

One day Lebo got news that his mother was dying in his hometown hospital.

 Now the truth that he had been masking for long moments with cough syrup and glue became clear again. He had known it all along . Now the world and his brothers ans sisters were wishing his mother away. Like him it was now her turn. They now wanted HER out of their lives.

 But God never intended it to be like this. Mother needs a wake-up call. They must now all hear what has never been said.

When Lebo came to her bedside, he saw that it had all gone too far. God never intended it to be like this. So,he took off his clothes and naked , like the truth, he stripped the world from God's intended creation and screamed at her to get up and come with him into the big city

 Security guards did exactly what Lebo knew . They reinforced for him his view of the world.... the world wants you OUT.. the world and his family want you to disappear.... see lebo was right all along. They told him he must never come there to be with his mother again. The ultimate rejection.

 At the communion service in the big city that week, Lebo sobbed, without words,, just sobbed.

 A Nevajo medicine man once said to Carl Jung ;
                                                                          " the most important thing I have ever learnt from my grandmother was that there is a part of the mind we really know nothing about and that it is the part that is most important in whether we become sick or remain well."

 Freud, Jung Klein and more recently R.D.Laing for example all worked in settings where "material from the deeper, more archaic layers of the unconsciousness is uppermost and where the ego is to a large extent overwhelmed" (Buhrmann 1984)

 In child and youth care we are sometimes thrust into situations where this happens. We come face to face with the neon signs and the colours of the rainbow. Maybe we also have a valuable contribution to make in making meaning in those times when children's behaviour is at its worst, when they are flickering candle flames, whispering or shouting melodic disharmony or simple tunes or pounding pyrotechnics.

 Love

 Barrie

 Buhrmann Vera. H , Living in Two Worlds - communication between a white healer and her black counterparts. Human and Rousseau. Pretoria& Cape Town 1984.

DEAR YOGESHREE Acting out, Lebo and the colours of the rainbow.

DEAR YOGESHREE

This is the first in a connected series of two letters on 'acting out' and seeing it as a way that young people communicate sometimes  issues deep inside them that they cannot express verbally. This letter describes the 'acting out' behaviour and the next sets out to explore some explanation through having insight into the young persons world view.

The social worker at the 'Home' said to me "  When the kids 'act out' then at least I can get a picture of what is going on..... I can see the colours of the rainbow"

The metaphor of the 'colours of the rainbow' became a useful metaphor . It was more subtle perhaps than the one I had developed for myself in my early days which I called 'flashing neon signs'.which is rather obvious. The idea of the 'neon signs' was that they flash bright incandescent colours, changing their message one after the other but are actually constructed by layering coloured  neon lights one over the other. Reminiscent of Bronfenbrenner's Russian dolls

Like 'acting out' behaviour a neon message is designed to capture your attention, to flash and to shout the central idea to you Like flashing neon signs,behaviour-intense dramatic, apparently destructive episodes become windows of opportunity. Yogeshree, please do not think that I hoped for, or looked forward to 'acting out' behaviours in young people, they have to be managed, but I did realise that if I could read the multiple overlayed messages, then maybe the insight could allow me to 'get a handle' on understanding the less dramatic, less threatening moments in the reactions of that child in the life-space.

An early episode comes to mind.

Lebo had been missing for some months. His family was desperate to find him. His mother was dying of cancer in a hospital several kilometers outside the city centre. She had apparently said her 'goodbyes' to all the other significant family members and was hanging on to say 'goodbye' to Lebo.Mom was calling for hime and getting weaker every day.

 Perhaps Lebo didn't want to be found and he was not traceable. Even the other young persons in the Centre and in the streets wern't talking.

 An otherwise rejecting family became frantic. "She's asking for him," they would say, " and she can't ho;d on much longer - it could be a few days now and it will be too late."

 When Lebo did show, feverish family phone calls and family resources were conjured up to get him to her bedside.

 They would meet him at the Centre and transport him there themselves to be sure that he actually got there.

 That morning Lebo arrived with a handful of plastic flowers, a plastic vase and a camera....... "he must have visited the graveyard last night" I thought. The camera  had been hastily 'borrowed' from an uncle who was part of the transportation plan.. Much care was taken to arrange the plastic flowers and then photograph them.

 Lebo was not in a good state. The effects of alcohol, glue or cough medicine or possibly all three were written on his face. His call was a constant "Pray for me! Pray for me!"

The next day the telephone didn't stop.

Through everyone's anger and by piecing the pieces together snippets from a number of relatives and their stories, I got a disconnected account of what happened.I will give it to you in point form.

 When accompanied into the hospital room and at his mother's bedside:
      He shouted and screamed at her, "You were OK in August, why aren't you OK now? Are you mad?    Why are you lying in this God-forsaken place? Get up, I'm taking you to the city hospital. What are you doing? What have they done to you?' It was a dramatic and loud performance
      Mom became hysterical (family's words).
      Lebo took off all his clothes and at her bedside continued to shout at her ... naked.
      He gathered up her little money from her bed-side and kept it.
      He was hussled out of the room.

But this type of episode was repeated another four times  - there was no stopping him it seeemed, so he was evicted from the hospital by the hospital authorites and he made his own was back to the city.

After Mom died , Lebo spoke in a quiet subdued tone, " I thought it was my mother's will and the family's will  - not the will of God"

 His uncle laid charges of theft against Lebo. ..... he had not returned the camera.


Love

 Barrie


                   



,

DEAR YOGESHREE personal integrity in child and youth care work

DEAR YOGESHREE

This is the last in a series of letters that investigate something of the very special form of leadership that we as child and youth care workers display in the work we do with children and young people,... or maybe  should  be showing... We have a particular responsibility to demonstrate a style of leadership that reflects the world as it should be. I call it a future world. .. not the present world tweaked a bit to bring about little compromises to it as it stands, but a vision of a new world where the most important values of love , democracy and justice are seen and experienced by the children as a workable new world through what we say and do... as individual child and youth care workers and as a caring organisation.

 It is for this reason that the mantra of  'Think globally.... act locally'  is so powerful in the work we do.

 So, for example, the new world is a non-violent world , the use of war to bring about peace has no part in the new world, and weapons of violence and harm are melted down and "turned into plough-shares".

You will remember the movement to make South Africa into a "gun-free society" well, as a believer in a non-violent world, the Children's Home joined the movement and disallowed any manner of gun on the property. The play therapy room was permitted to be an exception for reasons best understood by the play therapist.

I can remember that we took a fairly large group of children on a camp at the camping site at Umtentwini near Port Shepstone on the (then) Natal South Coast.(now Kwa-Zulu Natal) The camp-site was used only once a year by the 'Home" and for the rest of the year it was used and looked after by a group who called themselves ' The Bullslingers'. I was not aware of this, but to make money for the 'Home' and to make use of the bush and heavy undergrowth, the Bullslingers had made the site into a place for the playing of paint-ball shooting games. You know how it works. Two sides are identified by some sort of coloured scarf and are armed with guns that shot pellets of paint. I don't know the rules, but they stalk each other and try to shoot the opponent with the pellets of coloured paint. There is a system of knowing whether if you are injured or dead and which side wins. It is a physically harmless simulation of battle. A war game.


I am sure that you see where this is all leading.

 When we arrived at the site the Bullslingers came to welcome us onto the site and to check that everything was alright and to plan their input into the programme.   The would join us all for an evening campfire and barbecue Then I learnt of the paintball game and how the site was being used so that funds could be raised to support the camp costs for the children. They invited the children and young people to a game of paint-ball as part of the camp progamme.

 The children and young people were ecstatic.

 So, here I was between possibly offending a funder and making an exception to the gun-free policy or sticking with the values attached to the values of a non-violent society, refusing the game and hugely disappointing the children.

I must tell you that the staff were part of the discussion around the camp programme and the children were brought into this process.

 The outcome was that we were prepared to stick with the principles and possibly offend or lose the funder. It was really hard for all of us .

 Leaders, especially in the unique form of leadership that we as child and youth care workers adhere to is a form of personal integrity. We demonstrate congruence  between what we expect from the children and what we say and what we do.

 Please, Yogeshree, in your child and youth care journey .. in your leadership, please, don't lose your personal integrity and the mantra that we 'think globally ... act locally '

 As child and youth care workers and leaders, we are trusted to "be the world we want it to be".

Love peace and blessings

 Barrie

DEAR YOGESHREE self sacrifice ..leadership in child and youth care work

DEAR YOGESHREE

You may have gathered the last letter I wrote you was not finished. I was interrupted and toward the end somewhat hastily tried to tie together the ends of the thought it  pursued.

It  had to do with a contrast in the way we experience and recognise leaders. Those who lead from the front seem to get all the acknowledgement but there are those who lead "from the middle" or, "from behind".....  the hidden leaders, most often  not recognised at all, or sometimes even regarded as soft , or foolish.

The Comrades Marathon was an metaphor for those who come out in the front as winners, and those who run their own race helping others with theirs. Who are the real heroes? . ....leading by very special examples of a world as it should be?

The winner of the Comrades Marathon that year said " I know that I am the best", and this does seem to be a trend. People who lead from the front  have an uncanny sense of their own genius, They don't seem to mask the fact. They  know what they have and what they can achieve. In a true leader, it doesn't come across as arrogance or pride but as a simple knowing of who they are and the responsibility this imposes on them to lead from the front.

In in rare moments there are some leaders who lead from the front and from behind

In the book by Robert H. Schuller, called,  Life's Not Fair, But God is Good (Struik 1993),there is a story of two young men who entered military school for the prescribed trial period for final acceptance. It was a particularly prestigious school and the entrance requirements were tough. Both wanted desperately to be accepted and worked very hard at gaining the minimum requirements for entry. One of these was a requirement that they run a battery of athletic events with a minimum cut off time in each. It was a series of events involving both sprints and long distances. A test of speed and stamina.

The first of the two young men, in the practises, showed that he would easily meet all the reqirements. He was able t sprint and managed the long distances with ease. He was showing himself to be a fine athlete, clearly one who already would be an athletic star in te College.

 The second was an equally good candidate in the sprints, but  somehow, he struggled in the one mile event.Try as he may in the practises he couldn't make the cut-off time. He was always the first out onto the field building up his stamina and strength, but in that one event, it still didn't look too promising

The two young men became friends and would train together.

 When the day for the final runs for entry into the College came, the two young men gained entry for their efforts in the sprints. Then came the last qualifying event..... the mile. It started well. The first young man out in front as usual and the second lagging further and further behind. Our leading fellow watched his friend as he came into the final lap of the four lap event. He was already well in front and his place in the College was secure. All he had to do was to finish the lap. As usual his friend was struggling.

 Then it happened. Toward the last straight home, the young man in the lead stopped. He walked back to his friend and took up a position at his shoulder, then he fell into he stride and pace of his struggling comrade running with him stride for stride and encouraging him as they went. In this way they went over the finishing line together. It was a humbling and moving moment. For the leader from the front everything was at stake. Now he was a leader from behind.

 The Comrades Marathon has a lot to teach us about leadership. Some in life lead from the front. some from behind. Our young man did both. Thers exists among true leaders a sense that an external  inspiration moves them to be what they are, but moves them often to be what, on their own, they are not..... or could be.

,,,,,,,,,,,and so it is with child and youth care workers

The story is true.

I am told they both made entry into the College.



 Love

 Barrie  
 

DEAR YOGESHREE... child care workers leading from the front, the middle and from behind

DEAR YOGESHREE

In my last letter there was lesson in leadership through the capacity of  Polvisia, who ran the soup kitchen, to empathise with people to a depth where, she would, for a moment, be those people, or that person. Then, to use her experience of the other, to galvanise herself to act in their best interests. Child and youth care workers are leaders in our own unique way, That quality of Polvisia' is  essential for us to practice as we work in the lives of these young persons and their troubled lives The good news is: research has found that empathy can be learned. 

We can look elsewhere for examples of the qualities of leadership too.

 As you know the Comrades Marathon run between Durban and Pietermaritsburg ( 94k) in Kwa- Zulu Natal attracts 10's of thousands of people. Many just set on finishing what is known as the most gruelling marathon in the world.
 Every year I swear I wont get hooked into watching it on TV. But its like a magnet. Perhaps it holds some kind of masochistic fascination. I cry twice every year. Once with the winner and then again as the stragglers are carried over the line as the last seconds to 'cut-off' approach , and with those who don't make it. Tears don't come easily. So clearly there are some deep-seated buttons that are pushed by the images of the winners and the streams of humanity struggling heroically to support each other to the finish.

This year as in every year there were pervasive patterns in the scenes and the comments of those who made their goals and from those who didn't.

There were many who immediately give thanks to their God for his intervention in the most difficult moments in the race. They said that there was divine assistance, lifting them above those moments when they would not have managed in their own strength or by their own effort.

 It is interesting that leaders in the creative field especially say this. In a definitive study of about 20 world leaders in the creative fields of Literature, Art and  Music... that is those who were willing to be interviewed, said that they experience a source of creative energy that comes from outside of themselves and which lifts them to level of output that they are quite incapable of achieving on their own. They look at their own achievements and say" But this is not me ! I could not have done that. I hardly recognise myself in this !!". There was a persistent pattern among many leaders in the creative fields who refused to be interviewed as they said that they did not want to delve too deeply into the source of their inspiration as they were afraid that if they were led to understand it more clearly, they may lose it ...... that it would be taken away from them..!

 There is a pattern among child and youth care workers in Africa, many  experience themselves this way too.  and many many child and youth care workers who experience themselves as leading from behind. Inspired by some greater power than themselves to inspire others to reach the finish line as in the Comrades' dying moments. These are the leaders who carry others over the finishing line with them as they share the struggle of the race. In Africa as elsewhere too,these are heard frequently to say that the energy comes from outside of them  they are the ones who in their self sacrifice are also inspirational. They too give us a picture of a world  that should be..

It seems that leaders from the front, and leaders from the middle and the back are frequently profoundly spiritual, experience themselves as 'used' in a bigger providential plan that has to do with something not always understood and certainly beyond themselves.

 

DEAR YOGESHREE .putting the human condition first... no matter what

DEAR YOGESHREE

My past few letters to you explored the the theme, 'working with children from the inside out' and focused quite a lot on self awareness when trying to find meaning in the children's behaviour in ours as professional child and youth care workers and in ourselves. I have in mind now, a series of thoughts on leadership, especially as it applies to the helping professions, but then I think the thoughts apply to leadership in general.

It took me a very long time to get into my inner being the idea that,  no matter what, in whatever circumstances and no matter what the behaviour of the persons, that the human condition comes first, that "THIS COULD BE ME...... THIS IS ME". Until I experienced the world that way, I fell into the trap of finding blame .. the idea that people deserve what they get ......and why didn't they pull themselves together and do or be something different?

"U phuzile i'beer, Father Barrie, aw bornile? U phuzile i'beer!' ( they were drinking beer, did you see. They were drinking beer) and so they were , from quart bottles in a circle around winter fires.

Then she laughed, long laughter as we crossed the road to go back to the soup kitchen.

I looked at my watch. It was only 9.00 in the morning. I thought of  Peter the disciple telling the crowds
at Pentecost that they were not drunk as it was only 9.00 in the morning..... even the pubs in ancient Israel were not open at that time of the morning !!!

It was Polvisia who said this. She was not being judgemental, just descriptive. Her laughter was the type that comes from feeling trapped by the realities of the world and not knowing how else to react.

We had just been to the informal settlement ( squatter camp) at the end of the road. That night it had been mostly destroyed by fire. Some makeshift shelters were already up some  blankets I had pushed for had apparently been delivered, or so we were told by the children we took into our Centre., but we had to be sure.

As we crossed the road Polvisia lived through the pain and the loss and the struggle for survival and the cold of these people and deep inside her she understood the beer and the drinking.... it dulls the pain and eases the burden if only temporarily . She continued to plan ." I think we must ask for clothing and more food." she said .
 Polvisia is always the first to respond, she who is first visible when there is a problem, when someone is arrested or goes missing or there is a death or when there is a crisis. She who plans a response to ease others suffering. It is she who responds as one human being to another in the sharing of our common humanity.

As we crossed the road , it was she was was easing her burdens through drinking beer in the middle of the still smouldering shacks. It was she who hurt in the midst of of the chaos.

 Polvisia is a great leader.

DEAR YOGESHREE instinct and the learned response in child and worker

DEAR YOGESHREE

In my last letter to you which continued with the theme of working 'from the inside out' with children, young persons and ourselves, I quoted Julie's mother who insisted  that horses have instincts.It was probable that she wanted Julie to understand that as humans we function not with reaction but with response. Reaction being the instinctive 'animal' way  and response being the rational, learned way. If she was trying to tell Julie  that as humans we don't have instincts, then she was wrong .

We do. They are right there in the middle of us.... biological, neurological and chemical reactions triggered for example in situations sexual, threatening and when our loved ones are in need of protection.

Then it seems, we and the children we care for, can be put right in the middle. Our instinct telling us to do one thing and our rational , higher thinking and our learned responses telling us something else.

Julie's mother was telling her that she has a choice then to act either way ........ be a horse, or be a human.

Easier said than done.

By the time I got there they were right in the middle of it all. It always happened like that in the group home setting. There would be the telephone call "You'd better get here quick"    No explanations, nothing to tell me what to expect. My first inner reaction was to say, "You're the professional child and youth care worker ... you deal with it." But we did have a policy that if someone was at big risk .... then call for back-up. So procedure over-rode my avoidance, flight reaction. I would get into the car to drive out to the house. I had timed it often, Given a ride clear of traffic, I could get there in seven minutes. To overcome my drive to flight , I had to make a very deliberate, planned effort to get into the car. I had seven minutes in which to prepare myself. Breathing helped... no.. breathing was essential Then preparing my thinking to ready myself for the crisis I knew was coming.

 Sipho was plastering himself to a door in the narrow passage; fingers outstretched, his hands flat against the door, as was his back. He pushed backwards wide-eyed, his black skin greyish as he paled,

 Two child care workers blocked his way of escape down the passage. A lot of loud voices. but Sipho was silent.

 At first I couldn't make it all out or really grasp exactly what we were dealing with, but I knew I had been here before.

 As youngsters a group of us had tried to capture a small cat, no bigger than a kitten. It had backed itself into a corner stiff with fear as we slowly closed in. I was the one who put out my hands to take hold of it.. even to hold ever so gently, talking it down. Then, the frightened kitten changed. its hair spread stiffly making it a lot bigger than I had thought it was. It lashed out at me with surprising veracity for such a small creature , hissing. squealing and growling. Its mouth opened to show some sharp little teeth and its pink mouth and wide eyes sent a sudden shock of fear into me and I backed off.. This frightened little fellow was really going to hurt me if I got any closer. I remember saying " one of you guys can try this now,"......hmmmm..... typical.

 I manoeuvred my way between the two care workers until I was almost shoulder on with Sipho and facing them with him..

"He's got a knife" they shouted.

The knife was the issue from the start. In short quick phrases the two child care workers jig-sawed out the story. The other kids had complained that they were afraid of Sipho because he had brought the knife into the house. So, a 'weapon search' was started,  When Mpho, the male worker got to Sipho's cupboard and opened it, Sipho rushed at the cupboard, pulled out the knife and thrust it at Mpho's stomach. To save himself, Mpho put his hands in front of his belly and got stabbed in the hand near the thumb. The he rushed out of the bedroom into the passage only to be blocked by the female worker Sibongile, a middle aged senior worker.

It was to Sibongile that Sipho addressed his comments now.

"It's alright, Sipho, it's alright" I said, but i was not heard.

"Sibongile, " he shouted. "Do you want me to disrespect you?"  

"Do you want me to disrespect you?. again.

"Do you want me to disrespect you?" ...Louder now . High pitched and frantic urgent.

" I don't want to disrespect you".

 The passage seemed to me to be getting narrower and the light dimer. I remember thinking that was getting quite dark in here.

" Back off. Let him go.". I heard myself.  'Let him go."

"Do you mean it?" ... Mpho, holding his bleeding hand

'Yes. Let him go"

With the slightest move of his shoulders, sideways and with me doing the same, Sipho took the gap and fled into the night.

He was street-wise and knew exactly how to look after himself . In eight days he returned.

I can identify wit that. It was Rosetta, a third year student in my degree class. " I can be where he is." She said. When he was screaming, " Do you want me to disrespect you?" to Sibongile, I can identify with him.

"Explain, Rosetta, help me" I said.

 "He was trapped between his instinct and his culture."she said.

'"But it doesn't make sense - he had just stabbed the male worker and he still had the knife.".

"Mpho is a male?"

"Yes"

" and Sibongile a middle-aged female?"

"Yes"

 "He didn't want to hurt HER, there's a difference.... it's his culture."

"You see Sipho was trapped between his instinct and his culture" she said.

"He held off his body chemistry for his culture, ... then you cleared the way for his instinct to kick in"

Rosetta was a good student

DEAR YOGESHREE Our instincts and theirs in child and youth care work

" My mother told me that 'horses have instincts' ". That was meant to tell me that if I acted on my instincts, then I was acting in the fashion of an animal and not like a human being who functions at another level. More than that, it meant that if Julie had instincts, then she could repress them or deny them or choose to act in other higher, more rational ways.

 At one level, I also learnt not to trust my instincts whilst working with the children and young persons. If I acted on them, without stopping somehow to think them through, then my behaviour became  'primitive' and impulsive ... and usually wrong professionally.

But then again, I learnt later that to know and to feel my instincts was always useful

 It maybe that Julie's  mother hoped that Julie wouldn't have instincts at all !. But that isn't possible. All that we know informs us that instincts and therefor instinctual behaviour is "substantially emotional" and "behaviour that is a manifestation on what may be seen to hinge on genetically transmitted physiological factors" (1)..... Oh dear, Julie got her instincts from her mother... and from her species.

 In the PART Course ( Professional Response Training Course) it is suggested that in the face of threat, we have triggered in us an unlearned, instinctive impulse to fight or to flight... and I add.or to manipulate. In other writings I learnt of avoidance, but I suppose that  is a type of flight. The biological and chemical effects of these two triggered reactions is completely different in us, our thinking perception and our bodies. In horse terms it will either rear up and strike out, or it will run away. There isn't much choice.. What Julie's mother was saying is that we humans can choose something else - and usually should.

 From what I can make out, instinctive reaction as have to do with survival of the individual and in this way the survival of its progeny, whether it is a reflex action, like the sucking of a baby, or the desire to hurt others because they hurt us or to reproduce.

 It is very useful for us as professionals to be aware of what is happening at this level in both ourselves and in the children that we are helping .After all, my instincts appear to be there for me ... not them.

Let's face it, Julie's mother was worried about matters sexual.She was worried that some male behaviour would trigger reactions in Julie over which she had no control.She wanted Julie to deal rationally with the instinctive "urge to merge".Its not that it doesn't happen in us, we all know that but that Julie must find another way of expressing sexual arousal or to avoid it.

 In children and in the intellectually challenged , inhibition may be reduced so we may get a window here on what goes on in us.

 Rosa was about eighteen years old at the time, and diagnosed as mildly mongoloid ( I wonder if there is such a diagnosis) Rosa was limited, but functioned sufficiently yo study catering at the Technical College.

 One of the boys sneaked some soft porn gay magazines in to the group home and whist ostensibly watching TV the mixed group poured over these. In one was a series of pictures showing sensual massage so they tried this out, somewhat clumsily on each other..The situation reached a point of arousal which we nick-named "pounding ovaries" and "cold shower time".

Rosa left the group, went to her bedroom to masturbate and ripped strips of wallpaper off   the wall in the process.

 It was the tattered.wallpaper that started the child and youth care worker to enquire into what happened. Rosa had no problem in relating the incident. It was just something that happened Actually, afternoon soapies on TV were enough to get Rosa going like that.

 In a moment of being unsupervised, an episode occurred in a  group of younger children whilst watching  hamsters . As the hamsters mated in rapid copulatory thrusts , so the excitement level rose and escalated  to a point where they just openly stimulated each others genital. It was interrupted by the arrival and intervention of the child care worker.

We can be sure that bio-chemical/neurological/ instinct influences behaviour .It sits deep in the layers of our selves and in the children that we work with. In Bronfenbrenner's  metaphor of a set of Russian dolls, it could well be at the level of that tiny little solid one in the very core of the nesting set.

Sure, horses have instincts, but then so do we, even as the professional child and youth care workers that we are.

And so do the children

Its the most difficult profession in the world

(1) Encyclopeadia Britttanica Vol 9, p628, 15th Edition

DEAR YOGESHREE Our own inside outs meet children's behaviour

DEAR YOGESHREE

You have had from me letters that have emphasized the importance of our self awareness whilst we work with children and young people. Also about trying to 'get into the world' of the child so that we can start responding from the 'inside out'. Thing is, our interactions with children and young people is complicated by the fact that in any interactions, that is exactly what it is... our inner worlds meets with the 'inner world' of the child .. ... and then.... the complexity of our being professional becomes very apparent.

Weekends in the Children's Home were always paradoxically tense. On the one hand, the place was virtually empty, on the other most of the most difficult and dramatic moments were acted out over the weekends.

Tea was always set out in the foyer. It was Friday afternoon and a favourite meeting place of child and youth care workers and the young people 'left in' for the weekend.

Some, like Nceba. were old and responsible enough to go to their homes for the weekend under their own steam on a Friday immediately after leaving school. He would do this straight from school and after soccer practise

 By about 4.30 pm, the main rush of getting children ready and packed of for their weekends with parents was over and the remains of tea were inevitably left on the huge coffee table in the foyer. The children could    always help themselves .

At about 5.00 pm I came up the stairs from the outside and through the great doors into the foyer and as I did , I saw "the feet". Large dirty tackies attached to scrappy jeans ...... and those feet.... resting nonchalantly on the middle of the coffee table. amidst the cups,sugar and milk.

I saw first the feet and the tackies and then, more and more of the identity of the boy wearing them as I came up the stairs. It was Nceba.

From that stairway  came a rush through my body from the pit of my stomach surging through my chest and my head felt asif it would burst.

" NCEBA !! Get those dirty feet of yours off that table!!" It came out as a fierce loud shout..

 Nceba, with a full cup and a saucer lifted it above his head and threw it with great force against the wall.of the foyer next to my office door. His feet were on the ground and he stood right up facing me before the whole caboodle smashed .  Milky tea , bits of broken china spattered everywhere.

My head was already pumped up and and my mouth runnith over " What the Hell  !! blah.... blah .... blah !!!!!"

Nceba slowly sat back into the chair that he had so swiftly vacated, his chest pulsated, and I saw for the first time that this was not anger or defiance. It was rage. Rage fueled by utter despair

Nceba sobbed

This was his world, and his view of it .. then and pervasively in his life,  Act 1 scene 1  in Nceba's life was a repetitive cycle ... trapped he was in a plot that repeated itself so frequently that it was his lens through which he interpreted the world.and made it fact. The world let you down.... it rejected you ...that's it... finish !!

Nceba had gone home. He had walked in to find his mother in bed with a man he did not know but who was hastily introduced as ' my boyfriend'. ,,,, and Nceba knew this cue only too well.. He must go back to the Children's Home immediately . The boyfriend had been preference to him for the weekend.... so he returned to the foyer and the tea, too brood again on the patterns of the world and his lost hope. Hope that was dashed like the cup against the wall of the foyer which we cleaned up together that Friday afternoon and together tried to pick up the pieces

 It took me a long time to make the connections into my own life and its events that 'pushed the buttons' for me that afternoon.The feet on the coffee table got me going and I misread all the signs that things for Nceba were not what I though they were. I didn't actually see them until the sobbing and then it was too late.At least we could still pick up the pieces . Nceba got the blast from a fuse that was lit in me some twenty years before.

 I was a teacher at a High School at the time. I had a free period so I went into Great Hall to watch the rehearsals for a Talent Competition to be held that night, I sat in one row near the side entrance to the hall and put my feet on the chair in the row ahead of me. The Headmaster came up the stairs to the door of the hall, saw the feet on the chair, thought I was a pupil ,and red faced screamed at me  " Get your fett off that chair"... right in front of a bunch of schoolboys who were my pupils. The event lives with me even now. My feet broke the sound barrier and as he passed me . he said very quietly "Sorry, I though that you were one of the boys"       I sank between the floorboards and disappeared in my embarassment

I can't explain this rationally, but I know that that incident sparked my reaction to Nceba's feet on the coffee table. I still cant condone the behaviour and I still don't like dirty tackies, but I think I have learnt to see more now of Nceba, and less of tackies and tables... to shoot less from the hip and not to come in with six guns blazing... to ask the question "What's really going on in me?".... and   "What's really going on here?"

Love

 Barrie

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Professionalisation, The South African Professional Board for child and youth care work and the way forward

The first South African Professional Board for child and youth care work was inaugurated in 2004 and met in 2005. It worked through its five year term of office. This  however was interrupted by an effective one  year when it could not meet officially as a result of it being suspended by the South African Council to await the outcome of a dispute it had on the issue of the Council's view that  child and youth care workers at the so called "professional level" would not be registered at the same time as the 'auxiliary level' workers but phased in over an unstipulated period of time. The Professional Board refused to be associated with this concept.

So the first Board had an effective 4 year period of office. In this time it wrote and approved regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both levels which as a result of considerable backwards and forwarding as well as legal advice reached its 16th or 17th draft before the Council submitted a  proposal to the Minister and the dispute kicked in officially. It also had written the required 'Principles and Guidelines for Policy for the Code of Ethics for Child and Youth Care Workers'.

Its term of Office expired and the election of child and youth care workers/practitioners to the second Professional Board took place in late 2011. It was inaugurated by the Deputy Minister in March of 2013.

In the interregnum, the Department of Social Development established and recognised an 'Interim Committee for Child and Youth Care Work'  (ICCYCW) . This 'interim committee' completed what was called the final regulations for the registration of child and youth care workers at both the auxiliary and the professional levels. It also approved the final 'Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics for child and youth care workers. The Ethical Code and the rules of Conduct... all in a form that awaited the Minister's approval and would then be ready for publishing in a government gazette. The Departmental lawyer said at the time that this was all that was needed procedurally and that child and youth care workers on the ministers approval of the documents were positioned to be regulated and so to be registered as professionals.

 The second Professional Board for child and youth care workers was inaugurated on the 11th March 2013.after a delay of over one year from the date of the election results.

It met informally after the inauguration to get to know each other and to roughly sketch the the present position in the work already done and what the Board was likely to have yet to do.

 There seemed to be some common agreement that the final regulations, the Principles and Guidelines for the Code of Ethics, the Code of Ethics and the Rules of Conduct were best served before the new Board and therefor the present Council for approval and forwarding again to the Minister.

It was also agreed that no time should be permitted to be wasted in the completion of this process.

 2013 is still the year of the child and youth care worker.. the movement toward  professionalisation and recognition is still a movement of all the child and youth care workers  and not just the Board.

Together, 2013 must be made to work as the year of the child and youth care worker in South Africa.

DEAR YOGESHREE. Transitional objects, termination and time

DEAR YOGESHREE

Tammy at six and a good half was to be transferred to another Children's Home in another city

Part of the rites and ritual of disengagement entailed the collection and putting together of memorabilia. You know, taking something of the past with you. So, time was spent going through bits and pieces that made up her life story.... especially photographs. During this exercise, Tammy gave me a school photograph of herself so that I would have a transitional object too! .It was by far the worst photo of her that any lousy school photographer could have produced.  In it her face was screwed up in one of her special 'get off my back' expressions asif she was gearing up to tell the nice photographer where exactly to get off, but at the same time to try to comply. It was a photograph of the best of times and the worst of times and that was fair I suppose. I felt sure it was one she chose not to be included in her package anyway. At the time it thrilled me considerably.  Tammy had given ME a transitional object and without any prompting.

 It was all carefully worked out.I was to transport her to the next town from where the State procedures for the transportation of children was organised.. So Tammy and I traveled 300 kilometers together leaving so early in the morning that she would sleep most of the way and arrive in time for breakfast. I had done this before, so I knew exactly how it worked. When you get there the staff don't give you time to say long goodbyes. They allow a very hasty 'goodbye' and then whip the child into the areas where the accompanying adult is verboten. So I strategically lingered in the car park with Tammy to prepare her for what was about to happen and what she should expect when we put our feet in the doorway.

"So, Tammy, this is it. You and I will not see each other again now."
'Uncle Barrie"
'Yes Tammy"
 " I will never forget you"
" And I wont ever forget you. I have your photograph to remind me too"

 No tears, no hysterics. "We did a fairly good job here" , I thought. And she was whipped swiftly into the caverns of the Care Centre.

 Ten years later Tammy's name was mentioned very casually at a meeting of child care workers.
"We have someone in our Children's Home I think you know, Looking through the file I came across some reports with your name on them."

 There was some discussion about whether it would be in her interests or at least not harmful to her re-unification plans if I visited to say hello after ten years. Tammy was now sixteen and a good half years old.

 At last I got a phone call to say that they had prepared her to meet with me.

I got ushered into a counseling room. It had in it two chairs on either side of a set of  triangular tables.I sat with my back to the door and waited. The Social Worker opened the door behind me holding Tammy by her arm.
" I believe you know one another" she said. and closed the door.

 Tammy looked bewildered and scared.I could see that she didn't have the foggiest idea who I was and quite honestly is she wasn't introduces to me as Tammy, I wouldn't have known her either.

All I wanted to do was to get out of there. So I guessed that was how Tammy felt too.She made her way to the other side of the table and there we were facing each other with no recognition and absolutely nothing to say.. "Hi Tammy, I'm Barrie". We shook hands.

 I couldn't believe how big she was. Only now, the image of her photograph started to form slowly behind the teenage face.I saw opposite me until the two faces somehow started to fit. and I realised that this was the Tammy I knew. It was that same expression. .. somewhere between telling this nice man where to get off and trying to comply.

 I had lost the Tammy photograph long ago and a strange sense of guilt crept in that I could not produce it and say "Here let me show you"

"Were you at that other place?" Tammy filled the pause and I remembered that she was good that.
"Yes"
" I was there also", she said.

 The screwed up face of the school photograph now came sharply into focus as the two Tammys  merged.

..... and I knew this was a mistake.

 Love

 Barrie
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