CHRISTMAS IN CARE.....CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Community in the main, it seems, have a loaded, idealistic sentimental idea of  Christmas with children and young people in care .A somewhat soppy image of a heart warming, soul satisfying moment of goodwill and sharing with less fortunate children. 

It could be so, but child and youth care workers sometimes experience Christmas from a somewhat different reality. There are good times and bad times. It's not all tinsel and glitter.

Non-governmental facilities,....the "Children's Homes" more especially, are coupled in the community mind with poor, orphans, abandoned, neglected, abused little children. In general, as we in child and youth care all know, is not entirely necessarily the reality. Anyway, the idea of the "poor little children" coloured by media sentiment at Christmas, triggers a wave of well intentioned giving to these "less fortunate". Some parents want to foster in their own children a mindset of giving. They help their children clear out the cupboards of old, outgrown toys and clothing and deliver them to the Children's Home,  So, here we go. ...A constant door knocking. Arms full of cast-off toys, sweets, clothes, expired date luxury food-stuff. Cast-off cupboard cleared goods for cast-off children. Shame ! I called them the "do gooders"
It is all well intentioned, but on the receiving end of all this, the messages can, for the children, build, if not re-enforce pervasive mind-sets, a world view, which may NOT in the longer term be that healthy into adulthood. 

We even have jargon for some of these world views. "learnt dependence", "second hand citizenship", "P.L.O.M. (poor little old me!".  In more extensive wording, "the world did this to me. The world put me here, SO the world owes me. It's now my RIGHT to be provided for".

.....a child and young person expectation of benefaction.  This is an experience vastly different from child and youth care goals of reclaiming restoratively the lives of children and young people through the provision of healthy life experiences in belonging, mastery, independence and generosity as say, in the Circle of Courage model. There is a disconnection in all of this Christmas thing with our concepts of ecological care. We are sometimes ourselves as child and youth care workers, and as facilities guilty of creating an experience of extravagance at Christmas that approximates, if not mirrors a middle class cultural lifestyle incongruent with the realities following the child's disengagement from the facility. 

My worst experience ever of all of this was a seasonal  extravaganza staged by the "Motorbike Boys" in Johannesburg and labelled "The Toy Run". It was me. I agreed to host it !! About 250 to 300 motorbikes with pillion  riders arrived and parked on the soccer fields with two mountains of toys. One mountain for boys. One mountain for girls. Mostly wrapped, they ranged from bicycles to teddy bears. I had invited other NGO Children's Homes. Then the big hand-out started and so did the ruction. Accusations abounded. Children had joined the queue more than once. They just went round and round it was said . Boys joined the girls queue and visa versa, held out their hands for toys as they had sisters, cousins family and others. The motorbike boys said that this was not the intention. But of course they did. The children saw these huge piles of toys and it is part of our culture that we share as much as we can with family and others. It is part of our community spirit. BAD VIBES !!! And I bore the brunt of it. "Never again,"they said,"Not here".

Christmas impacts further on the end of year realities as children and young people will in fact be "released" into their own ecologies. .....Boy aged 18  comes into my office, "I think I'll just "park off here" for longer". Girl. "My little brother can go home but, I'm staying. I have and will have a much better life here".

All this Christmas stuff happens for the most part, well before the actual Christmas day. The school holidays start well before and the system of "holiday placements "click in. Some with hosts, some with mentors, some with significant others, friends and some with family...parental homes. Family gatherings in many of these family situations is often not that congenial. Alcohol consumption can frequently be considerable. Old family tensions and ill feeling can be re-awakened with disastrous effects for the children. Statistics show that suicide, suicide threats and attempts escalate.  As does violence. Frequently, children and young people experience, in this so called season of "good will'', a re-enactment of the very  situations which brought them into the system in the first place. Over Christmas especially, we had what I called, "the many happy returns" These included the necessity of "call outs", Calls to collect children . Calls by children, Calls by community......even on Christmas Day.

Christmas day, then, left child and youth care workers on duty, with the unplaced, unplaceable, returned, disconnected children These are all too often the most troubled youngsters with the most troubling behaviours

Shift systems determine who is "On" and who"Off" on Christmas day. It means that some child and youth care workers are separated  from their own children and families on the day of Christmas ( or Christmas Eve) 

It really takes a very special kind of person. A very special kind of dedication and commitment in the working life of a child and youth care worker to live through a working Christmas day. It's a sacrifice. It's a  applaudable service. It is seldom recognised in the same way are are police, the fire department, paramedics, nurses and doctors.

Child and youth care workers are unsung HEROES.