The question went something like this: "What do you as a child and youth care worker regret or are reluctant to talk about for fear of humiliation or victimisation in the workplace?"
It took about three weeks self and soul searching to reach a place for me to put together some sort of list and then even now to gather the courage to talk abut the unspoken me in child and youth care - more especially in the facilities in which practice. It was all very personal and too exposing of my otherwise hidden vulnerabilities.
The same questioner, later posted a quote saying that leaders share their stories and knowledge.
In this week's blog, I'm not about knowledge...Stories maybe, but inner experiences as a child and youth care worker. Ok, let me try.
What I didn't talk about, share or say, was the real ME. The ME who had triggers, fears, often confused feelings. I didn't talk of what I knew about myself that I believed was unknown to others...Not to anyone...not my family, my supervisor and certainly not to the Board of Management or the staff. I was convinced that to speak these things out would severely damage my credibility, as a professional child and youth care worker and so erode my reputation, my image. In good organisational practice, this should not be.
SO, HERE GOES...
In my child and youth care work with boys, mainly in trouble with the law, I was afraid of being physically hurt through my having to intercede in any violent incident or by direct assault. It happened far too early in my practice that I was actually deliberately hurt, my head pushed against a barbed wire fence The bleeding of my forehead was excessive as it ran down my face. It wasn't as bad as it looked, but it left me with a lingering fear of, again being physically hurt by boys in the programme.
It was different with the girls. My fear was that at any time I might have false allegations of sexual abuse made against me.
That got sparked by two incidents, again, early in my practice. I probably over reacted to an incident of what I regarded as a planned attempt at seduction. The other was an incident of exposure...stripping off.
I refused to have any discussion with a girl unless the office door was open or at least ajar. A female staff member had to be within calling distance during any interview with a girl No stockroom entry unless on my own. I would not drive a girl in the car unless I was accompanied. Rules, rules, rules . My triggered over reactions stayed untold.
On Friday, after school he had gone home for the weekend. By Saturday mid-morning, he was back on his own volition. Tea was always set out in the foyer for staff. When I came in for tea - there he was, drinking from the saucer ( culturally the way it was done) with his feet on the coffee table.
Me: "What are you doing here. You're supposed to be at home. This is staff tea. Don't drink out of the saucer and TAKE YOUR FEET OFF THE TABLE !!"...volume building to a crescendo.
He raised himself a little, took the cup and saucer filled with tea and smashed it against the foyer wall. "You know f**k all !."
He was right. Turns out that he went home on Friday to find Mom with a boyfriend and she told him to go back to the facility as it wasn't convenient for him to be at home that weekend.
Eventually the link was made inside me. I was a teacher at the time. I went into the Main Hall to watch a talent competition rehearsal. I put my feet on the chair in front of me. I walked the Headmaster "Get your feet off that chair" very loudly, and then quietly, "Sorry, I thought that you were one of the boys." I felt so very humiliated, so belittled in front of my pupils. I had been spoken to, by the Headmaster asif a naughty child.
Putting feet on the table was a come-back of that moment.
Then, unspoken was the person, the being I am... the I ams. Knowing myself as what they call a perfectionist. Advantages and disadvantages as that affects practice performance. I can't ( couldn't ) delegate. My fear was that it wouldn't be done as well as I would have done it.. End result...burnout, not once but twice.
And then the fear of abandonment. I had unspoken fears that I would be left with only me to do what had to be done. It came to me ...I was able to make the link to a hospitalisation experience when I was about 5years old. I looked out of the hospital window during visiting hours to see two people - as I thought, my mother and father leaving without having visited me.
It wasn't them!
Abandoned, I thought, left by my very support system.
We can talk of child and youth care politics ( small p ) but my thinking is that we, as self, very often in child and youth care work unspeak and unshare our selves.
"And I never told my supervisor".
MISTAKE.
No comments:
Post a Comment