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.
.
Friday, 31 May 2013
Monday, 27 May 2013
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.
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.
Friday, 24 May 2013
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!
.
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!
.
Friday, 17 May 2013
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,
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,
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
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.
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.
Friday, 10 May 2013
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
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
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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
.
.
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
.
.
Friday, 3 May 2013
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.
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.
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