DEAR YOGESHREE
You must be very pleased that everything is going so well for you. The work that you have accepted at the drop-in facility is an ideal place to get first hand child and youth care experience, whist your part-time lecturing position will give you a place to real experiences with young people into you the theoretical component of your teaching materials.
I cant remember where I read this, but I know it came from an African source. Roughly the quotation is something like this: We do not learn most effectively from logic or rational argument, but rather from being exposed to sensitive images. This is clearly African but probably universally helpful. In our profession these sensitive images are most likely stories that tell of life-space encounters with children and young people which talk to us and others about the human condition.The most powerful moments and the most helpful stories are those that change our and other's view of life.
When I reflect over what must be a thousand incidents, a few stand out as life changing. Used reflectively, those incidents become milestones, light-houses, beacons in making me who I am and how I have learnt to respond to children and youth.
I want to share these moments, these stories with you.I have a hope that you will be able to use them in your lecturing material if they are relevant and useful. I am also hoping that they may help to give you "aha" moments and they did for me.
But first I want to pick-up again on the theme of motivation and self-awareness.
Some scholars in the field of motivation the caring professions go time and time again to the idea that many care-workers have a need to care for others because they are unconsciously hoping that being in a caring environment may help them with some of the issues of their own hurt.
These people would come in for interview and say, " I've been where these children have been and and I can help them because it is my experience also..
It was my worry that living through the incidents of hurt in the lives of the children would trigger again their unfinished business , open old wounds and make them too introspective to be useful to the child.
I always liked to think that the care workers doing the best work with children and young people were not doing it from this level of motivation.
But that was not always the case.
There are carers who had experienced 'the valley of tears' and somehow really come to terms with their hurts and somehow risen above their personal suffering and come to terms with it.. These people worked in child and youth care at another level of motivation and skill. These care givers knew who they were, what to expect when they encountered the pain of others and were able to be truly empathetic. and they did this at a depth of empathy that allowed them to grasp the experience of the child through the child's world view. These care workers were really able to walk a journey with the child because they have an uncanny way of getting under the child's skin and working with the child from what I call . the inside out'. They say things and do things in their interaction that reflect to the child that they are right there in the centre of the child's being and walking his journey with him.
I am sure that the care workers have to come to a point where they know, and yet be at some kind of peace with their own feelings, and in the moment to allow that energy to be useful to children and to others.
My next letter will tell a story of such a moment.
Love
Barrie
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Sunday, 10 February 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE: knowing yourself in child and youth care work
DEAR YOGESHREE
In my last letter to you I said that the starting point in "starting-out" in this work , if you are to be one of those people who really make a difference, is your motivation to be in the profession But I think that there is another pre-requisite if you are to stay in it when the going gets tough..... it's "knowing yourself" , or at very least, allowing yourself to know yourself.
I think we all come into this work somewhat starry eyed and have expectations about the nature of the work and about ourselves. I have experienced time and time again, people who come in thinking that they know themselves only to find that the experience of the work with distressed and so distressing young people, opens to them parts of self that were previously hidden Sometimes when the going gets tough, even those who see themselves as tough, get going..... some literally, into their rooms, behind doors, into their car, drive off, or worse, pack their bags and leave overnight. Others sometimes, react in ways that surprise themselves and others.
I think it has to do with wrong expectations about the nature of the work and this is tied to the idea of self.
My way of testing out the boundaries of reactive outrage and to dispel any wrong expectations about the nature of the work...... I always made it my business to hire negatively.to paint worst case scenarios for applicants into the agency.
"You will be threatened and so will your wife. There are guys that can be insultive and at times and assaultive."
" It,s alright . I can take it."
" I want to tell you that it is very hard when things and beliefs that you hold dear to you are challenged, like your ideas about God and religion and sexual behaviours.......let me tell you about the first time I came across bestiality in one of the houses............."
You are Christian and you will experience a number of challenges to what you hold dear to you. There is sometimes a whole lot of things like demonisation, witchcraft, slaughter and also Satanism in the work that you encounter."
" No problem, we are protected "
"Don't misunderstand. It's not that you will simply have to get accustomed to having these things around you and in your face, but that you will have to interact with them as individuals in ways that are helpful and growing for them.... we call it healing... and supportive."
" Good. That's what I have been called by God to do."
"At the moment, in the unit that you will be allocated to there are young people showing all these behaviours ..... almost like a kind of institiutional syndrome; threatening, violent, assaultive. .. different sexual practices.. These thing often go with drug-taking - so there's a lot of work to be done with them."
" I believe that this is my calling.... my ministry"
That's is exactly what I thought too when I came into the work of child and youth care... it was my calling, my ministry, my destiny so to speak.
But I soon learnt that I had issues within myself that had to be dealt with somehow. and hopefully dealt with positively and in a way useful to the young people.
In Johannesburg, when the honeymoon period was over, one of my inner fears was that I would get hurt physically -or more that my family would get hurt. I really didn't deal well with threats of aggression and with aggression. I wanted and often tried to avoid aggression, even confrontation .. I wanted others to do that for me.
Of, course it couldn't be avoided and I had to find ways of responding to it with as much inner and outer calm I could muster. Within a year of constantly having to face and deal with my fear and my forever pounding heart, I was able to deal with it, But for me the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, I started to think that I didn't easily get hurt or injured. We were visiting a family once in a very rough situation and place and the social worker said "I'm not worried, I don't get shot easily". That is how I felt," I don't get shot easily" I lost all fear of getting hurt and that was not a good thing.
Actually, I then found that I was more afraid of strong feelings expressed by the staff. than I was of facing aggressive, assaultive behaviour in the boys. I started to experience strong feeling expressed in the young people as opportunities. But, ... expressed to me by the staff. This to me was threatening and painful.... and so it goes on...
The mirror that is held up and reflects the self as a result of the work we do makes work for us in itself. Nobody told me that the work we do with ourselves in this profession was going to be as important as the work we do with young people.
But it is. ... and it is ongoing....... work in progress...
My advice is two-fold. Do become reflective around yourself and your reactions inside you and try to find links between them and your own history. And, use personal supervision as a safe place to help you deal with your unfolding self.
Love
Barrie .
In my last letter to you I said that the starting point in "starting-out" in this work , if you are to be one of those people who really make a difference, is your motivation to be in the profession But I think that there is another pre-requisite if you are to stay in it when the going gets tough..... it's "knowing yourself" , or at very least, allowing yourself to know yourself.
I think we all come into this work somewhat starry eyed and have expectations about the nature of the work and about ourselves. I have experienced time and time again, people who come in thinking that they know themselves only to find that the experience of the work with distressed and so distressing young people, opens to them parts of self that were previously hidden Sometimes when the going gets tough, even those who see themselves as tough, get going..... some literally, into their rooms, behind doors, into their car, drive off, or worse, pack their bags and leave overnight. Others sometimes, react in ways that surprise themselves and others.
I think it has to do with wrong expectations about the nature of the work and this is tied to the idea of self.
My way of testing out the boundaries of reactive outrage and to dispel any wrong expectations about the nature of the work...... I always made it my business to hire negatively.to paint worst case scenarios for applicants into the agency.
"You will be threatened and so will your wife. There are guys that can be insultive and at times and assaultive."
" It,s alright . I can take it."
" I want to tell you that it is very hard when things and beliefs that you hold dear to you are challenged, like your ideas about God and religion and sexual behaviours.......let me tell you about the first time I came across bestiality in one of the houses............."
You are Christian and you will experience a number of challenges to what you hold dear to you. There is sometimes a whole lot of things like demonisation, witchcraft, slaughter and also Satanism in the work that you encounter."
" No problem, we are protected "
"Don't misunderstand. It's not that you will simply have to get accustomed to having these things around you and in your face, but that you will have to interact with them as individuals in ways that are helpful and growing for them.... we call it healing... and supportive."
" Good. That's what I have been called by God to do."
"At the moment, in the unit that you will be allocated to there are young people showing all these behaviours ..... almost like a kind of institiutional syndrome; threatening, violent, assaultive. .. different sexual practices.. These thing often go with drug-taking - so there's a lot of work to be done with them."
" I believe that this is my calling.... my ministry"
That's is exactly what I thought too when I came into the work of child and youth care... it was my calling, my ministry, my destiny so to speak.
But I soon learnt that I had issues within myself that had to be dealt with somehow. and hopefully dealt with positively and in a way useful to the young people.
In Johannesburg, when the honeymoon period was over, one of my inner fears was that I would get hurt physically -or more that my family would get hurt. I really didn't deal well with threats of aggression and with aggression. I wanted and often tried to avoid aggression, even confrontation .. I wanted others to do that for me.
Of, course it couldn't be avoided and I had to find ways of responding to it with as much inner and outer calm I could muster. Within a year of constantly having to face and deal with my fear and my forever pounding heart, I was able to deal with it, But for me the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, I started to think that I didn't easily get hurt or injured. We were visiting a family once in a very rough situation and place and the social worker said "I'm not worried, I don't get shot easily". That is how I felt," I don't get shot easily" I lost all fear of getting hurt and that was not a good thing.
Actually, I then found that I was more afraid of strong feelings expressed by the staff. than I was of facing aggressive, assaultive behaviour in the boys. I started to experience strong feeling expressed in the young people as opportunities. But, ... expressed to me by the staff. This to me was threatening and painful.... and so it goes on...
The mirror that is held up and reflects the self as a result of the work we do makes work for us in itself. Nobody told me that the work we do with ourselves in this profession was going to be as important as the work we do with young people.
But it is. ... and it is ongoing....... work in progress...
My advice is two-fold. Do become reflective around yourself and your reactions inside you and try to find links between them and your own history. And, use personal supervision as a safe place to help you deal with your unfolding self.
Love
Barrie .
Thursday, 7 February 2013
DEAR YOGESHREE,Why did you choose child and youth care work
DEAR YOGESHREE
The place where it all starts is your motivation. Your reason for starting this work in the first place. If your motivation isn't genuinely right then you can be sure that any hurt that you experience through being a child and youth care worker and working with hurting children, can be quite damaging to you personally. If your motivation is right, then you are more likely to stay in the profession through its sorrows and its joys.
The reality is that you CAN get hurt in this profession. Before you actually come into the reality of working with other peoples raw emotions and feelings no-one can really describe it to you. My mentor said to me before I came into the work . "I can't tell you what it is really like. You have to experience it yourself... all I can tell you is that it is not a Sunday School picnic.You don't spend your time just playing with children"
What I found was that my hurt came about when almost everything that I held dear to to me was challenged. My personal values, beliefs and ethics were challenged. Sometimes the children and their behaviour challenged my idea of what was right and important quite directly.......and at other times I found that there was a sort of insidious shift in what I held to be good when I first came into the work... I was part of a new "normality". I found myself defending and sympathetic to what would have caused me to be outraged before I came into the work. When our personally held values are challenged both by the young people in our care and often by the agency itself, then a lot of people leave .
I once had a social worker who left because she told her husband that there were kids in the home that were either into Satanism or practicing it secretly He told her to leave as she couldn't work in such a place.
So whether you stay or leave depends on your motivation for coming in, or your changed motivation once you are in.Some of us bounce back some drop out to nurse their wounds .. Your motivation decides whether you stay focused and effective.
So you have to do some soul searching before you come in. and be prepared to have to face who you really are and what you are about and what drives you.
It is difficult to pinpoint the motives that work for everyone in child and youth care work. A lot of people define them in sort of spiritual terms . Its not a job its a "calling" they say.
I think that you must at least "like " children and youth. You must will be working with some children and young people who make themselves un-loveable" as part of who they are. So you have to be driven to keep on liking them especially when they are at their very worst. You have to be driven to make connections and relationships with children who by their very 'now' nature try to test, avoid, challenge or distort those connections and relationships.
It seems to me that it all has to do with recognising that we all share a common humanity and that we are all part of the valley of tears together and that from the beginning you are motivated, want to be a fellow traveler on the journeys of these children in a very special way no matter what !
This then bring us to the second of the core motivations that seem to drive the people that really make a difference in the lives of children and young people. They want to be really good at what they do. It seems strange that the unselfishness of the first is paradoxically in bed with the second core motivation. They are driven to be the best. The value their practice , the knowledge and skill on which it is founded . They want to be professional and set high standards for themselves in their interactions and interventions. These child and youth care workers often are driven to be super self aware. and reflective so that they can know whats going on inside of themselves personally and yet be "in the shoes", the feelings and the world of the children they work with, They deal with their own feelings later, especially in supervision.
If I can refer to myself. I found that the values and ethics of the profession started to merge with the person I was becoming so that I found it sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. When the values and the beliefs of the profession became my values and beliefs, that is when I started to get hurt less personally.
And finally, another core motive appears to be a drive, a wish to model a new world in which people live in dignity and freedom, with a very strong desire for democracy and a climate of "AGAPE" love... these child and youth care workers stay in the profession because with the other motivations that they have, they appear to be motivated not just to be a facilitator, an agent for change in the lives of children and young people, but an agent and a facilitator who will somehow contribute to building a new world
Love
Barrie
The place where it all starts is your motivation. Your reason for starting this work in the first place. If your motivation isn't genuinely right then you can be sure that any hurt that you experience through being a child and youth care worker and working with hurting children, can be quite damaging to you personally. If your motivation is right, then you are more likely to stay in the profession through its sorrows and its joys.
The reality is that you CAN get hurt in this profession. Before you actually come into the reality of working with other peoples raw emotions and feelings no-one can really describe it to you. My mentor said to me before I came into the work . "I can't tell you what it is really like. You have to experience it yourself... all I can tell you is that it is not a Sunday School picnic.You don't spend your time just playing with children"
What I found was that my hurt came about when almost everything that I held dear to to me was challenged. My personal values, beliefs and ethics were challenged. Sometimes the children and their behaviour challenged my idea of what was right and important quite directly.......and at other times I found that there was a sort of insidious shift in what I held to be good when I first came into the work... I was part of a new "normality". I found myself defending and sympathetic to what would have caused me to be outraged before I came into the work. When our personally held values are challenged both by the young people in our care and often by the agency itself, then a lot of people leave .
I once had a social worker who left because she told her husband that there were kids in the home that were either into Satanism or practicing it secretly He told her to leave as she couldn't work in such a place.
So whether you stay or leave depends on your motivation for coming in, or your changed motivation once you are in.Some of us bounce back some drop out to nurse their wounds .. Your motivation decides whether you stay focused and effective.
So you have to do some soul searching before you come in. and be prepared to have to face who you really are and what you are about and what drives you.
It is difficult to pinpoint the motives that work for everyone in child and youth care work. A lot of people define them in sort of spiritual terms . Its not a job its a "calling" they say.
I think that you must at least "like " children and youth. You must will be working with some children and young people who make themselves un-loveable" as part of who they are. So you have to be driven to keep on liking them especially when they are at their very worst. You have to be driven to make connections and relationships with children who by their very 'now' nature try to test, avoid, challenge or distort those connections and relationships.
It seems to me that it all has to do with recognising that we all share a common humanity and that we are all part of the valley of tears together and that from the beginning you are motivated, want to be a fellow traveler on the journeys of these children in a very special way no matter what !
This then bring us to the second of the core motivations that seem to drive the people that really make a difference in the lives of children and young people. They want to be really good at what they do. It seems strange that the unselfishness of the first is paradoxically in bed with the second core motivation. They are driven to be the best. The value their practice , the knowledge and skill on which it is founded . They want to be professional and set high standards for themselves in their interactions and interventions. These child and youth care workers often are driven to be super self aware. and reflective so that they can know whats going on inside of themselves personally and yet be "in the shoes", the feelings and the world of the children they work with, They deal with their own feelings later, especially in supervision.
If I can refer to myself. I found that the values and ethics of the profession started to merge with the person I was becoming so that I found it sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. When the values and the beliefs of the profession became my values and beliefs, that is when I started to get hurt less personally.
And finally, another core motive appears to be a drive, a wish to model a new world in which people live in dignity and freedom, with a very strong desire for democracy and a climate of "AGAPE" love... these child and youth care workers stay in the profession because with the other motivations that they have, they appear to be motivated not just to be a facilitator, an agent for change in the lives of children and young people, but an agent and a facilitator who will somehow contribute to building a new world
Love
Barrie
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Dear Yogeshree... child care as a bridge to a new world
DEAR YOGESHREE
This is being written on an air-flight to Namibia - so if the writing is shaky - then it's turbulence.
Mighty congratulations on your pass. How proud your family must be that you now have the degree and that you have done so well, I see from your CV.that you have a record of doing well. I,m not suprised that you have found work already. I do hope that you will be happy in what you have chosen. I am sure you will do as you say - find creative ways of making young people (and no doubt adults too) literate.
I am sorry that you have had losses in you family. To spend a peaceful , quiet but reverence filled Diwali makes good sense to me..It is the way I see the Christ-mass - not really a time to party, but more of a time of reverence , quiet fellowship and thanksgiving . You are a resilient person. Your CV shows that you are an achiever and a performance orientated person. you are personally an energetic, driven cheerful soul , so, with all the signs of resilience - you will and can go far. I am more than happy to be a companion on your journey. I do feel that I have done very little for you up to now. So, maybe this is where I can start to give you early guidelines for the climb to the top.
Sharpen your alpine boots.
I once met a person who headed a huge engineering company. On top of this he undertook to raise R1m for his old High School Building fund. He gave half an hour a day and another one hour a week for a meeting of the project, In 'those days' a R1m was a very big sum of money..... he raised it in three months.
This man gave me a lesson I will never forget.
He said that when you build a massive bridge you have to have a grand design. It the vision of the big picture that you have of the finished bridge, but there is an even bigger picture that you have to have. It has to do with how the bridge will impact on a societal system. It must at once serve and uplift communities and the quality of life.... benefit the world, so to speak. ...and yet be in harmony with it.
The bridge , he said has to be beautiful in itself, yet very practical. It has to improve the quality of life. It has to contribute to a better world.
"Yet", he said " as an engineer, I have to know and pay attention to every nut and bolt - that's my job.Any oversight in the minutest detail and the beautiful bridge has a weakness that may cause it ti collapse with catastrophic results.... the end of any thought of social upliftment, just hurt, injury and possibly ... death."
"That's my job, "he said," I build bridges".
The analogy fits perfectly the work we do in child and youth care. Bridge building is what it is all about.
Some of us work with the children and youth who must be supported as they make a crossing from disharmony into a better world. Some of us build the bridge, some of us visualise it, design it and fit it into the bigger vision for a better world. Some of us do all of these. All of us are part of the visions and we all have to give the same minute attention to detail as does the engineer. All of us are part of the planning and the plan to put all the bits together at the right times to make the transition happen.
Over a period of time I think that I have put together little pieces into a bigger vision that has to do with a new world. Not just a changes world, because I find it difficult to believe that by tweaking the world we have will bring about the transformation that is needed. I know that I will not be completely part of the new world whist I am in this earthly life (unless the end of the world comes soon), but I do know that I have this one chance to work with children and youth so that they can catch the vision of the new world I think the children and people like you will have the power then to create.
I hope that my letters to you an help you to build bridges, to do this for your sake , for the sake of the children and for the sake of a new world.
This is being written on an air-flight to Namibia - so if the writing is shaky - then it's turbulence.
Mighty congratulations on your pass. How proud your family must be that you now have the degree and that you have done so well, I see from your CV.that you have a record of doing well. I,m not suprised that you have found work already. I do hope that you will be happy in what you have chosen. I am sure you will do as you say - find creative ways of making young people (and no doubt adults too) literate.
I am sorry that you have had losses in you family. To spend a peaceful , quiet but reverence filled Diwali makes good sense to me..It is the way I see the Christ-mass - not really a time to party, but more of a time of reverence , quiet fellowship and thanksgiving . You are a resilient person. Your CV shows that you are an achiever and a performance orientated person. you are personally an energetic, driven cheerful soul , so, with all the signs of resilience - you will and can go far. I am more than happy to be a companion on your journey. I do feel that I have done very little for you up to now. So, maybe this is where I can start to give you early guidelines for the climb to the top.
Sharpen your alpine boots.
I once met a person who headed a huge engineering company. On top of this he undertook to raise R1m for his old High School Building fund. He gave half an hour a day and another one hour a week for a meeting of the project, In 'those days' a R1m was a very big sum of money..... he raised it in three months.
This man gave me a lesson I will never forget.
He said that when you build a massive bridge you have to have a grand design. It the vision of the big picture that you have of the finished bridge, but there is an even bigger picture that you have to have. It has to do with how the bridge will impact on a societal system. It must at once serve and uplift communities and the quality of life.... benefit the world, so to speak. ...and yet be in harmony with it.
The bridge , he said has to be beautiful in itself, yet very practical. It has to improve the quality of life. It has to contribute to a better world.
"Yet", he said " as an engineer, I have to know and pay attention to every nut and bolt - that's my job.Any oversight in the minutest detail and the beautiful bridge has a weakness that may cause it ti collapse with catastrophic results.... the end of any thought of social upliftment, just hurt, injury and possibly ... death."
"That's my job, "he said," I build bridges".
The analogy fits perfectly the work we do in child and youth care. Bridge building is what it is all about.
Some of us work with the children and youth who must be supported as they make a crossing from disharmony into a better world. Some of us build the bridge, some of us visualise it, design it and fit it into the bigger vision for a better world. Some of us do all of these. All of us are part of the visions and we all have to give the same minute attention to detail as does the engineer. All of us are part of the planning and the plan to put all the bits together at the right times to make the transition happen.
Over a period of time I think that I have put together little pieces into a bigger vision that has to do with a new world. Not just a changes world, because I find it difficult to believe that by tweaking the world we have will bring about the transformation that is needed. I know that I will not be completely part of the new world whist I am in this earthly life (unless the end of the world comes soon), but I do know that I have this one chance to work with children and youth so that they can catch the vision of the new world I think the children and people like you will have the power then to create.
I hope that my letters to you an help you to build bridges, to do this for your sake , for the sake of the children and for the sake of a new world.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
About 'Dear Yogeshree'
During this year a number of writings on this blog will be introduced in the form of a letter and addressed to 'Dear Yogeshree', They are in fact a collection of actual letters written to Yogeshree when she was just about to enter - 'start out' - into practice as a child and youth care worker. Actually we anticipated that she would find a position in a Residential Treatment Centre somewhere in Durban and I remember giving her names of creditable agencies I thought would give her an experience of good practice. But it wasn't to happen that way. She was immediately appointed as a part-time lecturer at the University of Technology at which she had just received her professional degree.
This concerned me......straight out of the door of the University as a student, and straight into the door of lecturing in the field meant that Yogeshree had no real vocabulary of experience to draw on as illustrative examples of theory in practice, no background of practice to give her insight into what works and what doesn't . She would not have a store of case histories to draw on and no interventions to describe.
The 'Dear Yogeshree' letters were written to her with the intention of making my experience available to her. An elder writes to a 'starting out' child and youth care worker..
But let me go to where it all began.
12 years ago I was chairperson of the National Association of child youth care workers in South Africa and therefore the President of FICE South Africa. At the bi-annual conference of the Association held that year I was given the tradition seat in the front row. At some stage, a South African Indian woman student came and sat next to me rather deliberately.. There followed a conversation.I will forever remember..
"Are you Barrie Lodge?" she said.
'Yes"
" I've been wanting to meet you for a long time - I'm Yogeshree.
"Hi"
" Move over Barrie", she said." I want your job".
'ME " That's fine, you can have it now if you like"
" In five years, I'm going to be sitting here"
"Tell you what Yogeshree - I'll help you. I can advise you and give you guidance on how to get here in less than five years."
The conversation didn't end tere and we exchanged contact details.
After Conference we spoke. Yogeshree from Durban, me from Johannesburg. Then one day I got a letter, handwritten, in which Yogeshree asked me if I would be her 'mentor'. I agreed at once, but wasn't sure how that would happen from such a distance.
The letters started in 2001 and became a regular stream of correspondence until sometime in late 2003. I was in any case trying to write for the field for about an hour every day and my letters to Yogeshree were then included in my writing schedule. The collection I called 'Dear Yogeshree' - an elder writes to a starting out child and youth care worker.
Barrie talks child and youth care will continue with writing and so talking about issues in the field and matters of concern in general and in the African setting in particular, but there will be ' Dear Yogeshree" letters appearing in the blog. They will always be introduced that way. Yogeshree has give her permission for the letters to be blogged. She says they were helpful to her.
I hope that they might prove to be of interest to you.
Watch out for the first of these next week,
This concerned me......straight out of the door of the University as a student, and straight into the door of lecturing in the field meant that Yogeshree had no real vocabulary of experience to draw on as illustrative examples of theory in practice, no background of practice to give her insight into what works and what doesn't . She would not have a store of case histories to draw on and no interventions to describe.
The 'Dear Yogeshree' letters were written to her with the intention of making my experience available to her. An elder writes to a 'starting out' child and youth care worker..
But let me go to where it all began.
12 years ago I was chairperson of the National Association of child youth care workers in South Africa and therefore the President of FICE South Africa. At the bi-annual conference of the Association held that year I was given the tradition seat in the front row. At some stage, a South African Indian woman student came and sat next to me rather deliberately.. There followed a conversation.I will forever remember..
"Are you Barrie Lodge?" she said.
'Yes"
" I've been wanting to meet you for a long time - I'm Yogeshree.
"Hi"
" Move over Barrie", she said." I want your job".
'ME " That's fine, you can have it now if you like"
" In five years, I'm going to be sitting here"
"Tell you what Yogeshree - I'll help you. I can advise you and give you guidance on how to get here in less than five years."
The conversation didn't end tere and we exchanged contact details.
After Conference we spoke. Yogeshree from Durban, me from Johannesburg. Then one day I got a letter, handwritten, in which Yogeshree asked me if I would be her 'mentor'. I agreed at once, but wasn't sure how that would happen from such a distance.
The letters started in 2001 and became a regular stream of correspondence until sometime in late 2003. I was in any case trying to write for the field for about an hour every day and my letters to Yogeshree were then included in my writing schedule. The collection I called 'Dear Yogeshree' - an elder writes to a starting out child and youth care worker.
Barrie talks child and youth care will continue with writing and so talking about issues in the field and matters of concern in general and in the African setting in particular, but there will be ' Dear Yogeshree" letters appearing in the blog. They will always be introduced that way. Yogeshree has give her permission for the letters to be blogged. She says they were helpful to her.
I hope that they might prove to be of interest to you.
Watch out for the first of these next week,
Friday, 1 February 2013
The Child and Youth Care worker in family work
We appear to have some assumptions about the core reasons for relational, marriage , partnership or family problems: lack of income, unemployment, that the partners are from different cultures, race or religions, that there is alcohol abuse in the family , that it is a marriage or relationship where they are too young ......or 'family disorganisation'
Family disorganisation includes these possibilities: the incomplete family unit, normally it is the father who is missing; members who continue to live together but with no meaningful communication or interaction; a member dies, is in jail,at war or suffers from depression.- there may be some tragic loss of a family member; one person may have a mental pathology. (adapted from Goode 1964)
The research shows that there may be some cases of family breakdown because of these factors, but the number which are DIRECTLY caused by these factors is few.. Tiny percentages.
What the research is saying is that there is another core, or central reason why families become disorganised. In fact a 'good-enough' family system may survive poverty, unemployment, migrant labour separations and other stressors. The research shows that the central factor seems to be the loss of the expectations that each person has of the other in a relationship or a family.
To understand this we first have to understand something about how people choose a partner.
Often each partner believes that they see in the other, at least the potential , the possibility to continue some of the ways they believe relationships work as experienced in their own upbringing; in values, in the role that each family member plays in the family or relationship, in communication styles, in problem solving, i patterns of interdependence, in the way they believe children are supposed to be raised and behave. They both often expect the the relationship and the family will meet certain very deep learned expectations.
Drawing on the responses of couples during pre-marriage counselling, a pattern of expectations emerge around such issues as, money-management, domestic responsibilities, decision-making, family systems ( patriarchal, co-leadership,democratic, mutual submission), problem solving practices, cultural practices, sexual behaviours, values, child rearing.... the list goes on. It is seemingly very complicated and inter-related.
When these expectations are not or cannot be met, then what Goode calls 'role failure' is blamed for relational tensions and possibly even disintegration.(van Pelt 1980).
The issue is often explained as a need for members to either make some agreed adjustments to their roles or to re-contract their expectations by mutual agreement. But most frequently they need to be helped with communication skills that will allow them to 'tell each other the truth in love' ( Backus 1991) The thing is that its not just a matter of who does what, but how each does what in a complex pattern of the others anticipations .responses and reactions Anger, frustration, infidelity ( cheating )and even violence or withdrawal can result
Now this is where child and youth care workers can play their part in preserving family life as there are invariably children in the system, often victims of the tensions and sometimes they too need to learn the skills to "tell in love" or themselves be influenced and supported in adjusting to healthy family expectations.
The child care worker has a unique part to play . They work in the life-space of the and it has become very clear that some skills are best facilitated and practised in the family life-space, with perhaps only some practised in the safety of the agency facility. What the child care worker does is to facilitate that members articulate the issues in the family conference and to assist in the process of re-defining and re-contracting role expectations and behaviours. They support family members as they make adaptations and re-learn the habits that can preserve family life. They provide and rehearse skills, relationship and negotiation skills. They help learn communication skills .... how to tell each other the truth in love. Child care workers help families practically with the everyday events of their lives.They support members to cope with the endings of old habits, styles behaviour patterns and expectations and how to deal with the wilderness and confusion that goes with learning new ways of behaving with each other.
Child and youth care workers model and influence, build on the strengths of the members within the family system and on what happens in the moment to moment living space of the child and the family. They work practically to build a climate of acceptance and growth for children and youth. They provide opportunities to break old cycles of developmentally destructive or distorted experiences and they help to build a new vocabulary of good-enough life experiences in the important and significant areas of life.... belonging, competence through Mastery, Independence and virtue through generosity. (Brokenleg, Brentro and Van Bockern 1990)
The child and youth care worker in facilitating family preservation, is a key professional in reclaiming children and youth at risk and so in nation-building in this country.
Goode., William J: The Family. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series 1964
vav Pelt., Nancy: To Have and to Hold . Southern Publishing Company 1980
Backus., William: Telling Each Other The Truth . Struik Christian Books 1001
Brentro., L.K, Brokenleg.,M, Van Bockern.,S: Reclaiming Youth At Risk. Natioal Education Service 1990
Family disorganisation includes these possibilities: the incomplete family unit, normally it is the father who is missing; members who continue to live together but with no meaningful communication or interaction; a member dies, is in jail,at war or suffers from depression.- there may be some tragic loss of a family member; one person may have a mental pathology. (adapted from Goode 1964)
The research shows that there may be some cases of family breakdown because of these factors, but the number which are DIRECTLY caused by these factors is few.. Tiny percentages.
What the research is saying is that there is another core, or central reason why families become disorganised. In fact a 'good-enough' family system may survive poverty, unemployment, migrant labour separations and other stressors. The research shows that the central factor seems to be the loss of the expectations that each person has of the other in a relationship or a family.
To understand this we first have to understand something about how people choose a partner.
Often each partner believes that they see in the other, at least the potential , the possibility to continue some of the ways they believe relationships work as experienced in their own upbringing; in values, in the role that each family member plays in the family or relationship, in communication styles, in problem solving, i patterns of interdependence, in the way they believe children are supposed to be raised and behave. They both often expect the the relationship and the family will meet certain very deep learned expectations.
Drawing on the responses of couples during pre-marriage counselling, a pattern of expectations emerge around such issues as, money-management, domestic responsibilities, decision-making, family systems ( patriarchal, co-leadership,democratic, mutual submission), problem solving practices, cultural practices, sexual behaviours, values, child rearing.... the list goes on. It is seemingly very complicated and inter-related.
When these expectations are not or cannot be met, then what Goode calls 'role failure' is blamed for relational tensions and possibly even disintegration.(van Pelt 1980).
The issue is often explained as a need for members to either make some agreed adjustments to their roles or to re-contract their expectations by mutual agreement. But most frequently they need to be helped with communication skills that will allow them to 'tell each other the truth in love' ( Backus 1991) The thing is that its not just a matter of who does what, but how each does what in a complex pattern of the others anticipations .responses and reactions Anger, frustration, infidelity ( cheating )and even violence or withdrawal can result
Now this is where child and youth care workers can play their part in preserving family life as there are invariably children in the system, often victims of the tensions and sometimes they too need to learn the skills to "tell in love" or themselves be influenced and supported in adjusting to healthy family expectations.
The child care worker has a unique part to play . They work in the life-space of the and it has become very clear that some skills are best facilitated and practised in the family life-space, with perhaps only some practised in the safety of the agency facility. What the child care worker does is to facilitate that members articulate the issues in the family conference and to assist in the process of re-defining and re-contracting role expectations and behaviours. They support family members as they make adaptations and re-learn the habits that can preserve family life. They provide and rehearse skills, relationship and negotiation skills. They help learn communication skills .... how to tell each other the truth in love. Child care workers help families practically with the everyday events of their lives.They support members to cope with the endings of old habits, styles behaviour patterns and expectations and how to deal with the wilderness and confusion that goes with learning new ways of behaving with each other.
Child and youth care workers model and influence, build on the strengths of the members within the family system and on what happens in the moment to moment living space of the child and the family. They work practically to build a climate of acceptance and growth for children and youth. They provide opportunities to break old cycles of developmentally destructive or distorted experiences and they help to build a new vocabulary of good-enough life experiences in the important and significant areas of life.... belonging, competence through Mastery, Independence and virtue through generosity. (Brokenleg, Brentro and Van Bockern 1990)
The child and youth care worker in facilitating family preservation, is a key professional in reclaiming children and youth at risk and so in nation-building in this country.
Goode., William J: The Family. Foundations of Modern Sociology Series 1964
vav Pelt., Nancy: To Have and to Hold . Southern Publishing Company 1980
Backus., William: Telling Each Other The Truth . Struik Christian Books 1001
Brentro., L.K, Brokenleg.,M, Van Bockern.,S: Reclaiming Youth At Risk. Natioal Education Service 1990
Monday, 28 January 2013
Child care worker fostering a child in his care ???
Derrick was about 10 or 11 I remember, but small for his age which made him rather cute.Truth was that he was a really handsome boy, blonde and god looking as boychildren go He had a much older brother in care in the same 'Home". His background history was complicated and painful, like every child in care, but his biggest need was to somehow experience a safe reliable adult male figure, ... a sort of 'father' model so to speak.
I was designated that role. I was to be that figure for a period of time.
At first it was as was planned in his 'treatment programme'.- conscious, planned, professional. The idea was that that this would happen for three to six months and then I would help to make another male worker acceptable to him . We were to build on my relationship to allow him to make 'good-enough', trusting relationships with adult males.
It didn't quite work out like that. In a few months I found myself saying, "my Derrick" and "that little Derrick of mine". "my boy ". The professional relationship was becoming, No, dare I say ... had become a filial one. The staff saw it. I didn't really. At staff and case discussions it was discussed and they would warn me and say that some other male worker should be used. But by that stage I didn't care or bother myself with the warnings because I knew that I wanted to foster Derrick.
So, I took the idea to my wife..
"Let's foster one, Let's take in Derrick.. he has a mother, but I think that he is pragmatically orphaned."
Well two events happened at approximately the same time. My wife and I had two of our own biological children both teenagers. We lived in a house on campus. I was the Director of the "Home" ( Residential Treatment Centre). We called a family meeting and I put my proposal.
My own children were remarkably rational. "If we take him in as our own", they said, " He would always be a "Home boy" who we have 'borrowed , from the organisation - singled out for special care, given the best and ... you can say 'loved' more than the others". It's not fair on him, on the others nor on us who have to face the other boys every day somehow or another.It's not a good idea unless you leave the "Home" and we live somewhere else. It's not a good idea",they said.
My children were right. I couldn't argue against their logic. I could only say, But he will fit in" and He needs to be fostered" amd I really like the boy" ( I avoided the "love" word).
In that same week, Derrick was apprehended by the police and charged with malicious damage to property. Secretly he had been making his own collection of motor vehicle bonnet badges. hen he was caught he was busy breaking off the bonnet badge of a Mercedes Benz which was parked in the city street. He need it in his collection.. The incident forced him to reveal his full little hoard of broken off bonnet badges. They were mainly from luxury cars.
" Whats the bid deal/" He said. "It's no problem man" . the cars belong to 'larnies', and I hate 'larnies' (slang for rich middle class people) They just buy another one man"
It was this incident that thrust me into a reality check and I was forced to rethink about what I had been denying all along. I had forgotten that Derrick was in the Treatment Centre in the first place because he was in need of specialised residential care. he was a deeply troubled child with behaviours that typified almost every boy in the Centre. The treatment he needed was group residential treatment of the type that he would really only get in the "home". It was not the stealing incident itself that made me rethink. It was the realisation that if I 'professionally' took everything into consideration then it was clear that foster care with my family whist I was a child care worker for his friends and his group in care , .... if I took into real consideration his own mother and his brother, as well as the reality that he would be the 'chosen" amongst the others ... then it wasn't a good idea. fostering him would complicate his life .It was likely to bring him hurt rather than healing and my family was likely to get hurt too. There was a lot going for it and there would have been some benefits but the cost outweighed them. It was noble, but not the solution for Derrick.
We did not foster Derrick,
NOTE
This is a purely hypothetical narrative for the purpose of putting forward the issues of fostering a client .... Derrick is based on a combination of a number of children and does not exist as an individual. .
I was designated that role. I was to be that figure for a period of time.
At first it was as was planned in his 'treatment programme'.- conscious, planned, professional. The idea was that that this would happen for three to six months and then I would help to make another male worker acceptable to him . We were to build on my relationship to allow him to make 'good-enough', trusting relationships with adult males.
It didn't quite work out like that. In a few months I found myself saying, "my Derrick" and "that little Derrick of mine". "my boy ". The professional relationship was becoming, No, dare I say ... had become a filial one. The staff saw it. I didn't really. At staff and case discussions it was discussed and they would warn me and say that some other male worker should be used. But by that stage I didn't care or bother myself with the warnings because I knew that I wanted to foster Derrick.
So, I took the idea to my wife..
"Let's foster one, Let's take in Derrick.. he has a mother, but I think that he is pragmatically orphaned."
Well two events happened at approximately the same time. My wife and I had two of our own biological children both teenagers. We lived in a house on campus. I was the Director of the "Home" ( Residential Treatment Centre). We called a family meeting and I put my proposal.
My own children were remarkably rational. "If we take him in as our own", they said, " He would always be a "Home boy" who we have 'borrowed , from the organisation - singled out for special care, given the best and ... you can say 'loved' more than the others". It's not fair on him, on the others nor on us who have to face the other boys every day somehow or another.It's not a good idea unless you leave the "Home" and we live somewhere else. It's not a good idea",they said.
My children were right. I couldn't argue against their logic. I could only say, But he will fit in" and He needs to be fostered" amd I really like the boy" ( I avoided the "love" word).
In that same week, Derrick was apprehended by the police and charged with malicious damage to property. Secretly he had been making his own collection of motor vehicle bonnet badges. hen he was caught he was busy breaking off the bonnet badge of a Mercedes Benz which was parked in the city street. He need it in his collection.. The incident forced him to reveal his full little hoard of broken off bonnet badges. They were mainly from luxury cars.
" Whats the bid deal/" He said. "It's no problem man" . the cars belong to 'larnies', and I hate 'larnies' (slang for rich middle class people) They just buy another one man"
It was this incident that thrust me into a reality check and I was forced to rethink about what I had been denying all along. I had forgotten that Derrick was in the Treatment Centre in the first place because he was in need of specialised residential care. he was a deeply troubled child with behaviours that typified almost every boy in the Centre. The treatment he needed was group residential treatment of the type that he would really only get in the "home". It was not the stealing incident itself that made me rethink. It was the realisation that if I 'professionally' took everything into consideration then it was clear that foster care with my family whist I was a child care worker for his friends and his group in care , .... if I took into real consideration his own mother and his brother, as well as the reality that he would be the 'chosen" amongst the others ... then it wasn't a good idea. fostering him would complicate his life .It was likely to bring him hurt rather than healing and my family was likely to get hurt too. There was a lot going for it and there would have been some benefits but the cost outweighed them. It was noble, but not the solution for Derrick.
We did not foster Derrick,
NOTE
This is a purely hypothetical narrative for the purpose of putting forward the issues of fostering a client .... Derrick is based on a combination of a number of children and does not exist as an individual. .
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