RUNNING DESPITE FENCES...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

It is said that we are wired to flight or fight. 

There are any number of running stories. It's difficult to choose among illustrative examples.

The Board of Management expressed surprise, when, at my very first meeting, I reported the 'absconders register'. It's a requirement, but  they had never previously heard it reported. The biggest surprise for me and for them, was a young person who ran away 52 times in a 30 day month". Always to his mother who brought him back.  I said to mom "Keep him, he's a very unhappy chappy" She said she wouldn't. 

 The lone runner: This is Petrus. First indication of a stressful incident or a stressful incident and ...djip! He was gone...just as he was. No planning, no packing. Just gone !! Usually in three days he would walk back in.

Generally, 'runners'  don't like running alone.' They tell others "I'm planning to run - come with me. It will be an adventure.. Clothes are packed and the time of making the run carefully planned. 

Three girls did this. We found out later.They first ran to a house in the neighbourhood which advertised itself as paying girls as 'models'.  It meant stripping naked for photographs. They then hitched to Durban. When it got really very hectic, one gave herself up to the police and they were placed in a 'Place of Safety'. A carefully planned adventure turned sour and dangerous.

 This planned runaway pattern was mainly used among the girls. Incidents happened every now and again. Problem is, running can be something like measles - it's catchy. It's also an offence to harbour a run-away.

A non- governmental organisation ( NGO ) had a programme to support parents in the event of a so called  "missing child". It was good. Photographs were taken of each child. Personal descriptions were recorded. If a child went missing you notified the organisation which put out alerts with the information they now had on record. It started a procedure with us that we took pics of each child and young person as they entered the programme.

Apart from the fight or flight neuronal syndrome, there is another theory.  This one -  bio-chemical . It is said that when children or young people are reared and live in situations characterised  by constant drama and hightened negative excitement, the body produces adrenaline. I've heard of the 'adrenaline rush', but the theory is that the body retains an unusually high adrenaline level. When life changes and the constant excitement is removed, the body needs to raise its adrenaline.to its accustomed level. To 'top up' as it were. The young person craves excitement and creates situations of hightened drama to obtain it. I called it "Making a movie". This could explain quite a lot of the behaviours we experience in our programmes and might well explain some incidents of 'running'. I used to call the 'running ' excitement "walking on the balls of your feet" , having to survive in situations of risk raises the body to the required levels of adrenaline. Thinking... Structured adventured activities may help. 

"Running always brings to mind Alan Paton's book  Diepkloof - Reflections on Diepkloof  Reformatory. originally published in 1996 , an edition by Clyde Broster. Put simply, Alan Paton became the Administrator of the high fenced barbed wire Reformatory for sentenced young people in trouble with the law. He reached a point in his experience and in his  programme and in the midst of considerable opposition, he said "Fences do not hold young people, the programme does" He removed the fences.  If I remember, he had one runaway who returned.  The book is very descriptive of the relational practice of the programme, the levels of responsibility given to the young people and the activities which held them. The need and the desire to run was contained by the effectiveness of the programme and relationship.

"Fences don't hold children, the progranne does". 

Issues of care arise when having to deal with running.  As the Alan Paton story clearly showed, there are issues that can arise from the programme and relational practice that need to be integrated.

On return the young person may well need de-briefing, talk about the programme itself and whether it met the needs of the young person or not. Was the young person running from the programme? 

The experience of being 'in the streets' or 'taken in' with all the risks has to be considered in case there are other measures that have to be take medically or legally.

 The re-introduction of the runner into the group.  Runners, I found were often were often given hero status - all work for the child and youth care worker.

 One problem I encountered was when we admitted a habitual runner. On at least one occasion, I was rectant to do y, but had to say that care in the programme can't be provided if the young person was never there. Bottom line, Young people must want to be in the programm
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I agree with Alan Paton.It would be great if we had the courage  to remove the fences but I yet agree with his dictum " Fences do not hold children. The programme does". 









    



  

BEDWETTING...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Three bedwetting memorable moments...which surely, only a child and youth care worker will have !  

A visit to a dormitory facility for about 50 girls in a township setting in the Eastern Province. It was early days for me in child and youth care work.  Against the perimeter walls were lined up about 15 mattresses drying in the sun from bedwetting the night before. The Director said that the bedwetters were mainly 15 to 16 year old. The number overwhelmed me.

My very first exploratory visit - the "do I want to work here?" visit. Sitting in the foyer I heard the whack whack whack of a cane and a girl crying out in pain. The child and youth care worker came down the stairs kweperlat  (quince stick) in hand.
Me "Why did you beat her?"
She "She wet her bed last night and didn't take her sheets, rinse them, didn't make her bed and it's 3.o clock in the afternoon already". 

Boy's dormitory. Child and youth care worker frog-marched a 12 year old to the toilet, pushed his head into the bowl. "Sies man, You pissed your bed last night. This is where you piss. See! ..not in your bed" Then she flushed the toilet on his head.

All three incidents raise questions about bedwetting and child and youth care work

The first, I guess is frequency by age. Accepted statistics appear to more or less agree: up to 3 years 4 months - 1 in every 2 children wet the bed (50%). At 5 years 1 in every 5 children  At 8 years 1 in every 20 children. At 15 years 1 in every 50 young people.

The girls in that dormitory facility were way above the normal pattern  A social worker in a dicussion on bedwetting. its prevention and reduction said, "Unless you can deal with and reduce the young person 's anxiety, you wont prevent bedwetting".  She got me going.!  Was there something in the girl's  facility's approach or tone which hightened anxiety?  Was there a style of interaction going on that increased anxiety rather than help young people to self-regulation.. a pervasive culture of adversary, perhaps? As a visitor I was not allowed to see, but I do know that in some programmes, child and youth care workers used to walk around with rulers in their hands, as then did teachers.

Apart from stress, anxiety, night fears and the like, there are other possibilities or reasons given to explain bedwetting. Obviously the possibility of a physical condition. It's always useful to first check out the possibility of an underlying physical cause. Listed is: diabetes, urinary tract infection, urinary tract stones, anatomical abnormalities and sleep apnea.   

The sleep apnea story is interesting. Had one 10 year old with disrupted sleep. Apnea woke her up then she would wake up others She was put onto a medication which literally knocked her out at night. She then, what is called "flooded". Not just a patch on the mattress...sheets, duvet, pillow, the works.

Then comes the usual list of prevention methods. Nothing liquid for an hour before bed-time. Reduce the coffee intake    (coffee is said to be a diuretic and increases urination), To be woken up at night ans accompanied to the toilet, pills which are anti-diuretics, the bedwetting alarm...a cover on the mattress which sounds at the first drops and star charts. A 'social reward' system was said to be effective. It meant "go without wetting for say 3 consecutive nights and you are given an age appropriate  'social reward' Its not a physical reward...not sweets nor money, but a an appropriate activity usually with others that fits the social developmental stage of the bedwetter. Child and young people are quite good at suggesting what it might be.

Child and youth care workers say that this is all very useful but offers no guarantee of working. They are right. I rather like the 'social reward 'idea coupled with some of the others

Then we tackle the "What do we do when in the morning or in the night bedwetters wake up and we find a wet bed?" Certainly not the head in toilet routine nor the quince stick. Most thinking is that the child or young person should take some responsibility for wet bedding. Which reminds me, It caused a problem when I insisted on a plastic sheet across the usual bedwet area of the mattress.  They would take it off saying that they were being singled out to be babies  I then only used fully plastic covered mattresses throughout as standard equipment.... no discrimination and no singling out.
Taking responsibility varied from rinsing out sheets themselves in the bath to simply stripping them off and putting them into a laundry container...the least fuss the better. Mattresses do have to be aired if they are not plastic covered but the child and youth care workers made this as discrete an exercise as the possibly could. Making any kind of fuss, clearly doesn't work.

Techniques and procedures aside. Good child and youth care practice in any programme, aims at reducing any psychological stress and anxiety. Reduction of anxiety, confidence building, learning to feel good about themselves, a culture of acceptance and predictability go a long way. I have seen bedwetting considerably reduced through good child and youth care practice