Certainly more than thrice on my watch, there was occasion for young people to be whipped off to the hospital emergency rooms for a stomach pump. They were not just drunk on alcohol, but unconscious with the risk of alcohol poisoning.
The one really did nearly die. He was 14 years old and was place as procedure had it from a facility that transitioned boys at that age. At 14, in our facility, he was put into a so called senior house.
Brandy was forced down him - held and poured down his throat. They said it was initiation. He was to prove he was a senior
Deeply unconscious the emergency room had to give him breathing assistance on a ventilator and an immediate stomach pump.
He was unconscious for three days, He could have died. The father and I sat bedside . Of course there was a threat of legal action. I would e held responsible.
Child and youth care workers in open facilities in particular and in community-based settings have to expect alcohol experimentation and more . Drinking to get drunk is not uncommon. Organisatio'nal procedures are established for dealing with drunk young people. I learnt a lot from first aid courses - how to position them in the recovery position and..and..and. When and how to talk this thing through.
Alcohol stories abound.
The 60 seater bus was pulled up just outside the main gate. The boys loaded themselves in it to go to the annual camp. The very back seat of the bus was highly favoured. A full bus width bench seat. I couldn't understand why it stayed empty
Roll-call. Some senior boys and a staff member not yet boarded. - '"wait.. wait they're coming" There came two large boys. They were carrying a long roll of blankets in which there must have been something heavy,
"Luggage in the luggage hold
" No.. It's needed for the journey.
"'Well put it on the back seat"'
Then came the staff member...clearly drunk...like, body swaying drunk.
Me: "Off, off. You're not coming like that. I can't deal with this now... when we get back from camp. Just go back to your flat now."
He did.
The bus was a good number of kilometers from the facility when the blankets were unwrapped. Inside, now revealed, was a boy, the brother of one of the resident boys...and what we called an old boy of the residential programme.
Broad smiles throughout the bus. They had smuggled him onto the bus to come to the camp holiday uninvited and disallowed. They had waited to unwrap him when the bus would not turn back.
The story behind this was that the brothers had sat with the staff member most of the night, fed him with alcohol and drank together. They then brought him in on their plan. Bribed and drunk he went along with it.
What do we have here? I had heard stories, totally in breach of ethical code, of drinking alcohol with boys. The boys would then say "We will tell if you don't".....whatever . It cut two ways. Child and youth care worker may have provided the boys with alcohol as a bribe to stay silent about something or boys buying drinks for a staff member to do something outside of protocol. Mostly boys who were of, or near to the legal age allowing for its purchase.
Young people come into a programme with gambling addiction, alcohol addiction, substance addiction and more.
We saw a viral video on Facebook which caused a huge outcry by and youth care workers in South Africa. It showed a young mother sitting at what appeared to be an outdoor picnic. She was drinking from a bottle. It looked like a bottle of cider or one of those fruit-flavoured vodka drinks. She put the bottle to the mouth of an approximately four year old girl obviously her daughter. The mother cheered, laughed and clapped when the little one drank from it Then she opened and gave a full bottle to the toddler as it's own. The child drank. Again the mother cheered, laughed and clapped.
The Facebook comments from child and youth care workers urged that the mother be identified and charged with abuse. No mention was made however of multi-disciplinary developmental intervention.
I have, in community, seen this very frequently .. such that in a drinking situation, young children put out their hands and cried for a guzzle or a full bottle...like it's a soda pop. It is very scary.
And worse. I have been told stories by grandmothers of children brought into care, that the mother put brandy in the baby bottle to make it sleep. That, and in some instances welcanol (pinks) a drug popular in the 80's, This to bring about sleep especially when a sex-worker uses her own home at night.
He was just eight and he had a substantial vocabulary of the names of pills and drinks.
Just a thought. All of this makes cigarette smoking seem rather trivial.
Once a year at year end, the Board of Management held it's end of year function. The idea was two-fold. They would meet staff who they had not face to faced during the year, They would introduce themselves. Names would be put to faces They would say an end of year thankyou to child and youth care and other staff.
The Board paid. The Chairperson gave an order for the purchase of the alcohol. There was never any skimping. The help yourself bar had everything...a full drinks bar. Snacks and glasses were bought out.
When the facility moved into a group home setting one of the houses had a large hall used by the previous owner as a caravan repair workshop. That year it was the Board's obvious choice of venue for the year-end function.
It had to be explained that there would be children and young people in the house - those who who had no holiday placements with parents or hosts. Secondly the house was a no alcohol , no smoking no drug area. It was not a good idea for the child and youth care workers ,other staff and Board members to be seen to break their own rules. I said it would be OK if there was no smoking and no alcohol.
Panic...a lot of tap-dancing, but we're adults arguments .
They found a training room in the main office building, said that it had to be cleared. "It's small but it will do. We'll have the function here. At least here we can smoke and have alcohol drinks from our bar"
No comments:
Post a Comment