DEAR YOGESHREE: TV and being Phambile

This is the last in a series that explores the part that fantasy might play in the behaviour of children... again where fantasy is indeed a reality. It seemed that TV characters may have an impact on how children and youth in care may build an identity for themselves at a certain stage of development. and help us find meaning in some of the behaviours we encounter in our work as child and youth care workers we encounter.... and quite frequently too. I am referring to TV series and movies that children and young people are watching now.. at the time of righting. Surely these will change and new fantasy characters and digital figures will emerge as having such an influence... possibly and particularly in the area of digital games.

First , there's Superman. Now, Superwoman is wonderful. He starts his day as the insignificant un-noticed Clark Kent - a nobody and a dogsbody.BUT, he st5ransformes when someone is in distress into a powerful, unconquerable , flying hero.

 Superman flies at speed above the skyline. He is everything that dreams are made of and further, he saves downtrodden and unjustly treated people with his miraculous indestructible force.  

 Then there's Micheal Knight..... the Knight Rider.The black knight of the night in a car that is indestructible. He is the 'pretty 'boy'. charming and well mannered, YET, .... let some well, organised structure of planned injustice come to his attention and Micheal Knight climbs int o his car and literally penetrates it and blasts it to kingdom come . ... Micheal saves the downtrodden and unjustly treated with miraculous indestructible force.

 Batman and Robin fit the same profile. But the most exciting of them is Spiderman.

 Superman flies, but Spiderman !!!

 Spiderman is a wonderful hero. He can climb buildings to save the distressed. ........ Masked and anonymous, he uses his miraculous indestructibility for the threatened and the downtrodden.

 AND NOW ... LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... we are proud to present ....ten year old PHAMBILE ...He is a Superman, Micheal Knight, Batman and Spiderman ... all in one!!... a mousy no-body by day , but a dramatic hero when stirred. Phambile can climb buildings, throw a jujitsu blow like lightening n the name of justice and fairness and the fight against injustice. Phambile... ladies and gentlemen... is indestructible. He can even fly !!

And, in the system injustices abound. and call on Phambile to transform from the mousy, no-body he is in the day , to his avenging, justice- seeking, powerful self.:
                rules that don't make sense and are used against a fellow inmate rather than for him
                staff that rob the young persons of what should rightfully be theirs.. - its called 'creaming off'... taking the best of the donations for themselves ( clothing, food ,computer equipment ........)
                a group given punishment for the misdemeanour of one
                a child moved suddenly out of the programme with the excuse that she doesn't 'fit' the program

. The list goes on

But then when the power of Phambile strikes...staff.. watch your motor-car tyres, plates of food dashed against the wall , a breadroll at mealtime thrown at staff,..Phambilile at these times is totally unafraid of threatening and confronting staff...

Sometimes its the young persons and children that have to be taught a lesson in justice.... knocked out cold with the end of a broom.  punched-up in the grounds, ... windows smashed ... piddled on whilst sleeping, . ribs broken.. even setting fire.

 Don't forget that Phambilie can climb buildings....downpipes are up and down-pipes. Ledges and edges are grips and footholds... barbed wire means absolutely nothing to Phambile when he is on a mission to restore justice and fairness.


 AND THEN ... when the whole world breaks into apparent  chaos, superhero, Phambile escapes to return to his mousy daily  persona.


"Jump Phambile, Jump" . It waas the chant from below. He was on the third floor balcony. The others were chaning from below as they urged Phambilie to test his remarkable, TV character abilities.

"Jump, Phambile. Jump"

 There he stood on the ledge of the three story building , poised and ready.

The chanting crowd was hustled indoors.

The child and youth care worker sat on the other side of the cement balcony, lit a cigatette and said
"Come back in Phambile, You'll probably kill yourself. It's not such a good idea really."

 With the chanitng stoped and the audience removed, Phambile hesitated, then suddenly flew past the child care worker into the building to lock himself ont the veranda of the boys floor.

 He was Clark Kent again, crime reporter . The mousy one ..  there, waiting to be galvanised  into his persona, Phambile ...indestructible, justice-seeking and violent.




                   



  ...

DEAR YOGESHREE drugs, alcohol and fantasy..a child and youth care challenge.

DEAR YOGESHREE

Initially my thinking was that there would be three letters to you on fantasy as an experience in our work as child and youth care workers.. This is the third already and it seems there could be two more exploring the theme. This one relates an experience in which drugs and alcohol played a significant part in fantastical thinking but it struck me in the next letter it could be worth exploring the impact fantastical television characters may have on children's self concept and so on their behaviour.

Caroline pitched at the house where her son was in care with us. It was just before six in the morning and she was in a dreadful state. The child care worker didn't want to disturb me at that time so they had coffee and waited until eight. It was then I got the usual call. " You had better get here .. quick!"

 She looked particularly dishevelled. She had walked from the centre of Hillbrow in Johannesburg. For those who may  never heard of Hillbrow - - it's famous  for being the most densely populated high-rise apartment square kilometre in the world. It is well known for a night life that often doesn't bear scrutiny.

 Caroline lived in a small apartment in this area where she and her friends were well into the Hillbrow culture - drugs, alcohol and sex..... Its  great life if you don't weaken !!

 Her story....... she and some friends were into drugging together in someones apartment in Hillbrow. At about three in the morning she decided to have some fun, so she deliberately spiked a middle-aged man's drink. He was already far gone on drugs so he passed out almost immediately on the floor of that apartment and died.

 Caroline knew that she had overdosed him, panicked and left the apartment with his body on the floor, locked it and fled into the early hours of the morning and the anonymity of the Hillbrow millions, thought better of it and ran to the Children's Home.

"Mr Lodge, I murdered a man," she said.
"Caroline ... we must go there now" ... my response.
"You won't get in, the caretaker won't let you in", she argued, pale and very frightened.

 We went anyway into the dullness of high-rise Hillbrow. I woke up the caretaker.
"There's no way I can let you in to someones flat without their authority" , or words to that effect, "or a police search warrant. What he actually said was " Fuck off man you're wasting your time"
"Whats your name?" I asked.
" Phinandas"
"I'm the Director of the Children's Home in Jo'berg blah, blah blah - you come with me and stay with me all the time. We really need . we HAVE to see into that apartment - someone could be dangerously ill in there and need emergency treatment..... Please... etc etc.

I didn't have money on me otherwise I would have offered it to him.. We all know these stories.

Phinandas opened the door. We very cautiously went down the short passage into the lounge. It was necessary to switch on the light despite the time of day...../ NOTHING !!. not even a tell-tale mark on the carpet.

 Caroline couldn't believe it. She wasn't relieved (as I was). She became even more agitated.

"Mr Lodge", she said. " He must have recovered enough to go to Cookie's flat. She's his friend, and died there"

So off we go to Cookie's flat. Same story there, same patter same looking caretaker, same result - no body there - nothing - no corpus delecti

Three flats later, I got to the point...

"Caroline, we are running around Hillbrow looking for a dead man on a carpet"
"Dead men don't walk. They don't disappear into thin air."
"Mr Lodge" she said " He's lying dead in one of these flats, I know, 'cos I killed him. He must be dead somewhere. I'm a murderess.

We left Caroline in Hillbrow and came home



"        

DEAR YOGESHREE . fantasy/reality..a challenge for child and youth care workers

DEAR YOGESHREE

This letter is the second to you on a challenge that you will , without doubt encounter in your work as a child and youth care worker. It has again to do with the difficulty of separating fantasy from reality in the belief and world view of children and how we may might have to deal with it in practice. Again, the story in my last letter of the woman in the Psychiatric hospital and the intern who got into her world for a moment was the inspiration for how this particular challenge was handled.  My letters to you were never intended to be a type of manual of good practice. They have always been intended to be starting points for discussion and are written as incidents "warts and all" . In fact, the interventions and interactions in them may sometimes be questionable. Please use them as starting points for debate and reflection.

" Mr Lodge !"
"Yes"
"My name is Simon Ndlovu. I am in charge of security at the International Airport.
"I have Jennifer Karparkus here. We found her on the tarmac of the airport trying to get into the baggage hold of a Quanta's airliner. Please come and collect her."
"How the hell did she get there?"
"She got through all the security checks in the airport terminal Mr Lodge. We don't know how she did it. Please come and collect her."

It must have been the fifth time that airport security had found her. Each time she was trying to get onto a plane at the International Airport..... I knew the story only too well.

"I have to get to Celine Dion. I have to see her and talk to her. I have to tell her  - I told you  - they want to kill her." She would tell me this over and over."I have to get to Canada and speak to Celine Dion".

I didn't even know who Celine Dion was at first. ( she was just starting to make her mark as a singer). Jennifer's mother told me that Jennifer had all of Celine Dion's CD's in a large collection and spent her time listening to her music. So, I made it my business to find out as much as I could about Celine Dion and to listen to as much as I could of her music. It was easy to hear that Celine Dio0n was a star, probably a super star, a 'diva' in that musical genre..... and Jennifer was a fanatical fan.

The story unfolded over time.

She was apparently quite involved in a Satanistic coven. Some of the same group of members had moved into our care from the Child and Youth Care Centre ( Place of Safety) where she was placed when 'removed'(old terminology) from her home and her neighbourhood. ... So, her involvement in the coven continued with, she said, the threat of death for her if she were ever to reveal its secrets.

Through the different levels of her journey into Satanism, she was not allowed to be part of the discussion nor ritual of some of the deeper levels. She said that at one time she was sent out of the room while one of the upper level groups held their meeting.

Her story was that she listened through the closed door and heard them say there was a plan that Celine Dion would be assassinated for a huge sum of money. She was horrified. She loved Celine Dion.

Her problem was that she had to get to Celine Dion before the Satanists did... and she had to do it without any Satanist knowing.because she believed, she would become a target herself. .It was  to be Celine Dion or her.... a terrible and frightening trap.

We were working on releasing Jennifer from what she perceived to be the strangle-hold of her involvement and the approach was to help to release herself level by level. But the urgent need to warn Celine Dion, in Jennifer's mind, occupied each of her living moments It was all taking too longto release the ever present mixture of fear and desperation inside her.

 I suggested that she write to Celine Dion through her fan club address. It was the only address I could get. Jennifer did that.. Then Jennifer found an address for her manager and we penned a letter to him.... To this letter we got a reply from the manager of Celine Dion's security company. None of this satisfied Jennifer and it was then that she got so far as to be caught trying to limb into the baggage hold of the Quanta's aircraft.

Once back, I suggested that we there and then telephone the Manager of Celine Dion's security company in Canada to tell him the story. I 'phoned him first and told him to take whatever she will say very seriously.He  said they do that anyway with any suggestion of a threat against Celine. What Jennifer really wanted was to speak to Celine personally, but the security manager said  it was really impossible to do that. This seemed like the best compromise

When Jennifer spoke to him I left the room. Her call to Canada and the security manager lasted nearly half an hour. I have no idea what was said and Jennifer never spoke about it to me at all at any time.

I just know that she didn't ever run again.

I was there when Jennifer went back to live with her mother permanently again. Yet I felt that Jennifer never did lose something of her aura of a quiet mystery locked up inside of her and which hovered around her.

 She never did stop listening to Celine Dion and she hankered over her singers most recent CD's

Now Jeniffer sits back and listens to Celine's voice and the melodies flow over her.

.....and she smiles.
.

DEAR YOGESHREE entering the child's reality in child and youth care work

DEAR YOGESHREE

 A patient in a hospital for psychiatric disorders simply refused to eat.

"They are trying to poison me. They are trying to kill me through poisoning my food. They want me dead" she would say.

 It went on for far too long this no eating. Slowly she was wasting away and yet she refused to eat. No amount of persuasion changed her story. Persistently she stuck to it.  She just would not eat.

 "They are trying to poison me  They want me dead"

 The more experienced psychiatrists tried all they knew . But eat.... she would not.

In desperation they sent an intern to her as a sort of last resort. " You see what you can do" they said... "we have tried all we know"

The intern got the same story.

"You are right" he said . They are trying to kill you.... and they DO want you dead.   What you have wrong though,.. and I'll tell you the secret.. is this... they are trying to starve you to death !!"

That day she started to eat again.

That story (and I am told that it is true), was so helpful. It made me to understand the reality and the power of faulty belief, fantacy, world view and personal perceptions. It was also helpful because the intern psychiatrist entered into that reality of the client. He became part of her reality, walked with her and helped her from within her reality.

It got me thinking of a number of young persons who have somewhat dramatically lived out their fantacy realities in one way or another. It is often the dramatic incidents that help us to get transferred insight into the quieter, more subtle behaviours that might otherwise go un-noticed.

 There was Carlton. Tall, willowy, showy, hair -flicking Carlton Smith.

 Can you remember the Helderberg disaster Yogeshree?. The Helderberg was a Boeing aircraft carrying 159 passengers It had an on-board fire that was said to have started in the cargo hold. It crashed into the Indian Ocean.on the 28th November 1987. No one survived. Aboard were 52 South African passengers and 19 South African crew.

On the steps of the quad, right opposite my office, sat Carlton.... where he was unlikely to be missed. The willowy frame bent over, so his hair hung over his eyes. His long fingers spread wide over his face. His back jerked in short sharp sobs.

 Carlton was crying again. Tears would come easily to Carton so it wasn't really suprising . Everything seemed to be a drama for him. It was if he play-acted his his way through life, creating the plot, the scene and the persona to fit the hightened dramatic potential of almost any situation.

" What's up Carlton?"

 "My sister, my sister, my sister " repeated between sobs. "She went down with the Helderberg."

I wasn't too sure how to respond. My experience of Carlton made me cautious.

" How do you know?"

 She was on the Helderberg. She told me she was to catch a plane. I saw her name in the paper.

 Now Carlton was close to fainting - sobbing and talking does that.

 I called the chaplain. Father snapped into his role immediately. Priestly and compassionate., action followed. Sure enough there were the names of the Helederberg passengers in the Sunday paper of two weeks ago. Among them, Ms H.E. Smith .Calton described his older sister. What she did and what she was like.

Sobs now welled up more than before and he was accompanied to the Christian Care Centre to start the work of dealing with his grief. Beginning with coffee and doughnuts.

About half an hour later I got a call.  " I'll take him to Cape Town in my car."  It was the chaplain. "We will find his father and sort out his sister's memorial. Will you approve of that.?"

 I felt trapped. If I said "Yes" it was a yes to a lot of money what with hotels and transport costs for two for at least a week in Cape Town.  If I said "NO" ..... well it just seemed that "NO" was not a choice.

The plan was that they would travel to CapeTown after about a week from our first encounter with his Helderberg loss. During that week Carlton was weak, languid, limp, and alone. He cried most of the time. The other young people and the staff were wonderful. They singled him out for extra doses of care and concern. Carlton for that week became a type of Helderberg hero.... noticed and nurtured.

 I saw them off and extracted from the chaplain an undertaking that he would keep me informed freuqently as to how things were going. The mission was to get to Cape Town, make contact with Carlton's father . But especially to meet with the airways authorties and sort out with them the steps  to be taken in their programme of consolation for the relatives of the many who had simply disappeared into the sea.

 I got the "We arrived safely" call. Then on around the third day I got another call. Gaurded and diplomatic. ... more that was usual, the chaplain held his report back conversation.  I guessed that Carkton was in the same room.

 " Things turned out a little differently here from what we expected",  he said.

"You need to know that we eventually found out about Carlton's father. Unfortunately his dad died three years ago. I found out where he was buried in Cape Town and we visited his grave. That was good  'cause Carlton was able to come to terms with the loss of his father there.. It's made the journey worthwhile' he said.

"And the sister?" I asked.
" The  H.E. Smith on the missing passenger list wasn't Carlton's sister. It was someone else."

 A pause.... a longish pause...

 " Actually, Carlton doesn't have a sister " he said.

DEAR YOGESHREE Feelings, thoughts and behaviour...connecting the dots.. a child and youth care challenge..

DEAR YOGESHREE

This is the last in a series of letters that have focused on feelings as clues to the finding of meaning in the behaviour of children and of ourselves. This letter calls that exercise a 'challenge' for us as child and youth care workers. .. and it is. It is one of those elements of our practice which may well sometimes be the most difficult of all. But one, which in the immediacy of our life-space work with children combines empathy and intellect to make child and youth care work more satisfying than anything else I had ever done.... including my work as an academic at the university and my work as a therapist in the Child Guidance and Research Centre.

Every instinct in my body said "Get out and get out fast!".Just as the other boys in the dormitory had done. But my intuition said "Sit !". So, I sat. On a bed close to the dormitory door.

 Sibonga carried on flicking the knotted wet towel in every direction around the room and toward me as he shouted abuse. Sometimes directly at me and sometimes into the walls of the echoing dormitory of the old house.

 It wasn't submission my sitting on the bed. It was meant to tell Sibonga that I wasn't afraid and that I wasn't going to to threaten him with any of the languages of confrontation.

I'd been close to Sibonga with this type of behaviour before. He was allergic to bee stings, and one day whilst the 'bee man' was removing bees from an electricity box, I saw this same look on Sibongas face. Eyes widened, dark complexion grey.And when we were least expecting it Sibonga darted forward and pushed his arm into the box. He was stung twice. I dashed him to hospital. I was more worried about him than he was about himself.

It was that same wide-eyed look now,so I knew to expect the nexpected.

 I scanned the room _ especially the doors looking for my best escape posion, and watched every move.

 Flying around the room, Sibonga continued to shout and lick the towel menacingly. I couldn't hear the words except for the occasional 'f' and 'p' words.... it sounded like growling and barking.Twice in this ritual dance, he pulled down long curtains from the dormitory windows with a clutter that significantly hightened the tension in that cavernous room.

 At last I started to make out words, but couldn't make sense of them. I only know they were directed at me.

"It's alright Sibonga, it's OK" .... as calmly as I could.

 Even though it had happened so very long ago, the bees in the electricity box image came to me again. The same signals going up started to make this situation more scary.

 The inarticulate noise of a human in distress, slowly started to form into words I had heard all to often from adolescents especially.

" You don't know nothing; You don't know nothing" getting louder and louder.

 Sibonga was now focusing more often on me, making some glancing eye contact. I kept my eyes averted but still watched every move.

 "Its OK. We can sort this out somehow" repeated quietly.

 Then came the full barrage. Floodgates and emergency doors wide open now. Sibonga sobbed, yelled paced yanked on bed blankets, and it all came tumbling out.

" You don't know fucking anythi9ng. - what it's like. You think you know everything. . You think its alright, but it's not. It's not alright. You think "go home" and it's not alright"

Now at last it started to make some sense.

Sibonga had lived with his mother in Idukwe. His mother , so the story is told 'dropped out', 'hit the road' and the bottle to live on park benches in the big city. Sibonga was placed 'in care'  as a fairly small boy and  he was told by the extended family that his mother was dead. Well actually that is what we all understood... that mom had died.

 Then one day she pitched at the door of the 'Home' to claim her boychild

Sibonga was called , but fled upstairs and hid in a wardrobe.

 I was not part of the family re-unification. In those days what was called 'the external social worker'.I was however impressed by mom's sobriety, level headedness and determination to get family life together again for Sobonga. She had found employment in Idukwe and could clearly support him. He had been 'going home for weekends and holidays for over a year now and plans were underway to make this a permanent arrangement by the end of this year. The end of the year was approaching fast. Today was Friday and Sibonga was to go home for the weekend. Within the next hour mom would arrive at the front door just as she did when she came back from the dead. The last weekend visit before being home permanently.

 As far as I could make out there were no social, bonding, caring, safety, provisional reasons for Sibonga NOT to live at home now, with his mom. all the externals suggested that permanency was ensured.

I was clearly wrong. Inside Sibonga was residing unresolved distrust...the unfinished business of.deeply buried feelings of abandonment, fear and loss. Mom's expected appearance today and the proximity of losing the now familiar security of the 'Home" triggered this scary display of feelings.

"We're together at home. You die. You disappear.You die, You come back from the dead. We go home together now. When you're not there... I don't exist. Whenever you  leave you die  .Death follows life. dark follows light ....and you say its alright.... Shit !!"

Sibonga sat on the bed opposite me, his body limp and sobbed into his wet towel .

Sibonga was right. Barrie doesn't know a fucking thing!


.

DEAR YOGESHREE their feelings, his feelings, your feelings..the child and youth care experience

DEAR YOGESHREE

Karl was in what we called a four day programme. He was very soon to be 17 and was in the process of disengagement from care and being prepared to be returned to his family. It meant that he went home directly from school on a Friday and returned after school on Monday. He was still completing some programmes and winding down toward the end of that year.

He had been institutionalised since infancy.

Karl didn't pitch Monday.

The procedure was that absent young persons not returning after a leave of absence were reported to the Director after various other procedures had failed to locate them. There were different periods of tolerance in these procedures. In Karl's case, he would be regarded as having officially 'absconded' after 24hours and 'missing in legal system terms, in the same period.

The message I got was that the child and youth care workers knew where he was actually, and that he simply hadn't come back from his parent's house - he was still there. He should be at school of course but was not attending..so he was not missing. He was AWOL.

Considering everything I said that we would adopt a 'wait and see' approach. We knew he was safe and maybe he was 'voting with his feet' That perhaps might be quite healthy in the longer term - so I said that we should not contact him nor the family." Let's agree not to do anything for a while".

The child care staff were not at all happy with this.

Karl  re-appeared after five official days of absence. I got a call to say that he was back with.an official 'incident report' which concluded with an official request for a 'consultative meeting'. The request was worded by the primary care workers in a way more like a demand for a 'disciplinary enquiry'. The complaint being that Karl had been absent without official permission for five days. This was interpreted as outright disregard for the rules and had to be officially dealt with. The Director must be present as Karl's behaviour created a precedent and could have further repercussions among the others in the group. The report concluded rather punitively, that Karl may not be ready to be returned to his parental home at the end of the year.

'Consultative Meeting' was a term I coined to take the punitive element out of the previous 'Disciplinary Hearings'. I found that all too often a so called 'Disciplinary Hearing' turned out to be more like a group therapy session, so the name and the intetnion changed to comply with the concept of restorative work..... an idea that seemed  frequently to be far from the minds of the child and youth care workers  who looked to me to be judge. jury and a sort of magistrate metering out a ' sentence'. This appeared to be the hope for Karl and the expectation on me.

We met in the group home that morning.and were to sit around the diningroom table..(mind you with Karl having been excused school to allow him to attend !??).  This was the workers idea to stage manage the formality of the meeting and to stress its seriousness. For me it was a charade, but for the worker couple it was real business.

What unfolded around that table was to be for me a life changing event.... these thing happen at the most unexpected moments.

Karl sat facing me across the narrow side of the table. The child care workers positioned themselves at the top and bottom. The male worker took the lead. He outlined the complaint he had against Karl, giving evidence with dates, times and the procedures that had been followed.

Karl sat emotionless.

Then the worker asked questions to get clarity. And it was in the time of this questioning that the fiirst set of feelings stirred in me.

"What did you do while you were away so long?"
"Nothing"
"'Your Mom was ok, so you didn't stay to look after her or anything?"
"No"
"Why did you just stay then?"
"Don't know."
Why didn't you send your younger brother to tell us where you were?"
Silence.
"Have you heard of this thing called a telephone Karl? Couldn't you have phoned or something?"
Silence.
Did you think tha maybe we were worried about you, or that Ma was worried ( Ma being the female married partner of the child and youth care couple)

Now the feelings in me were strong and I could identify them. They were disappointmant, loss, terrible hurt and let down injury and grief. It was asif Karl had deliberately punctured them.

'Ma' was close to tears

Silence.

The tone of the questions hardened, became more pointed . The boy had to feel their pain.

 " Have you no idea after all the time that you have been here that Ma and I might care enough for you that we would worry about you?"

Silence.

This wasn't going well. I would soon have to get this back on track.

That's when the quiet movement of another range of feelings started to swell to a point that I could just begin to identify them.....total stunned confusion, like a voice crying out " Will somebody please tell me what is going on here?",.. trapped in a void and very frightened by the nothingness of it. .. irritation

Then it came.It's not that Karl didn't want to care nor that he simply tried to injure anyone. Karl was not able to care!... Blank !! He had no idea that what he does matters to anyone. "This whole thing is meaningless", he thought  "and starting to become frustrating"

 When it started to dawn through the feelings to some kind of sense, that Karl. was not able to feel care and so couldn't feel anyone's injury through anything that he did..., the enormity of this for me was overwhelming. .... Karl can't feel caring because his very early history and long- term institutionalisation had left him unable to interpret messages of caring as genuine and real.

 I felt the stone wall around him. His motionless and the silences were not fefiance . they were paralysis...This whole thing didn't make sense to him.

 The feelings,.. a third wave, were my own this time. Up until now I had been feeling with Karl. Now I recognised that I was feeling for Karl. Not only for Karl, but for all the young people like Karl and for all the children who had experinced me and these child and youth care workers as Karl experienced them now. Pretending  The sadness for children who couldn't care because they couldn't or wouldn't allow thelmselves to be cared for formed vague imagesof isolation, prolonged emotional isolation asif people were trees walking around.

"Can we please take a break for about five minutes? Maybe you can have some tea" I said.

 I went out onto the verandah, opening the net curtained french doors,  - and closing them behind me for privacy - and sobbed... I had no control over it for a good five minutes.

 In 20 years of child and youth care work I have cried five times ... and this was one of them. I always have felt so stupid each time it happened, Each time was because of the pathos of a moment with a child or children.

 "This is so unprofessional, just so unprofessi0onal". I chanted until it was under control.

 I came back into the room through the curtained french doors.

"Now..... let's start again". I said.



 Love

 Barrie,

DEAR YOGESHREE child and youth care workers in the cross-fire of feelings .

The story of Sendisiwe and Ndabankulu that is now to be told,  was a world-view changing moment ... one of those "Aha!" experiences that was to colour forever my child and youth care practice .

The last letter to you promised that this experience would be used as an example of how we, as child and youth care workers, can get put into the middle of a rapid, intense cross-fire of feelings that  must be sorted  in the moment.  If others "dump" their feelings on us, and we adopt their load, we can be influenced  to think, and so to react, instead of to respond.. I learnt in the Sendisiwe experience that my own feelings and intuition can be trusted,  but had to learn to sift out ME the CHILD and the FAMILY, from the rest of the confusion.

It was an important meeting, held at a critical moment Sindisiwe the mother of Ndabankulu would be there. She had just been released from jail where she had been for eight years on a charge of murder. The story was that she had taken a kitchen knife one evening and in an overflow of frustration and amidst a loud outburst,  stabbed her husband to death in front of the three children. The two little girls and the older Ndabnkulu ran into what was said to be a rainy and stormy night. They were found huddled together in a bus shelter. Mom was jailed and the children were separated into two different "Children's Homes". ... and there they stayed.

The underlying story was that Sandisiwe struck out at her husband that night because she reacted to consistent and continuous abuse from him. She'd simply enough.

Needless to say she was labelled "murderess".... and that in front of the little children too.

Ndabankulu was now fourteen. He hardly knew his sisters, but had formed what appeared to be loose bonds with families known in the system as "hosts". Over the last while however on of these had strengthened to the point where more permanence was considered by his Social worker and arrangements were underway for him to be fostered by Nozipho and her family. Ndabankulu wanted this. His mother unexpectedly released on parole, did not.

 The meeting was to discuss the way forward now.

Everyone had investments here .Me, as the legal guardian of the boy, the mother whose son he was, the child-care worker who had developed the hosting arrangement , the social worker who had prepared the foster family, Nozipho who had bonded with Ndabankulu and had prepared to take him as part of her family, and of course Ndabankulu.

The foster-placement social- worker  asked to met with me to strategise the process of the meeting to come and to discuss the complexity of it.

Mrs Naude was immaculate.......  floral suit from the best boutiques in Pretoria... the political powerhouse and the powerhouse of social work. The frilly blouse matched her nail polish. I knew this as Pretoria fashion.

"Do you know Sendisiwe? she asked.
"No" say I.
"She's a murderess you know that !?
"Yes"
Then proceeds the story of the gore and the blood and the rainy night . Details of the knife that was drawn and the children, then very little traumatised eight years ago huddled in a bus shelter. I couldn't trivialise the incident. Slowly slowly unwound the words that carried images. Images that raised spectres, fear, suspicion, anxiety born of risk, outrage, righteous outrage, protective courage and defencive power.

When she arrived for the meeting Sidisiwe met all my stereotypes. Deprived or rationed in jail she now chain-smoked, so that wrinkled her face in smoke induced skin patterns. The mobility of her mood moved her face in ever changing waves of expression, enhancing the shadows of the wrinkles. She was small. Smaller than I expected, but taut and wiry, fast moving - that fitted.  A word came " unpredictable" , yes that's it,  "unpredictable".

The meeting went according to the usual ritual of niceties and the mummy wrappings unwound slowly until the preservng formalities could no longer mask the real issue.

 Voice tones changed into something more soprano. The pace quickened. Everyone was leaning into the circle of feet that was supposed to define our democracy.

 Sendisiwe became the most vocal of us all.

The range of feelings now started to take some shape in me . They loomed large over all the other tones and nuances coming to me from Ndabankulu and Nozipho.

 Strangely, Mrs Naude, dressed today in a paler suit of violet was still and sitting further back.

 A small harmonic resonance inside me was troublesome - it had a well known set of chords of a tone of feeling . It spoke of a lioness who struggles valiantly to protect her cub and her fear of him on its first hunt. It was like a melancholic violin playing a Paganini caprice..... distantly painful yet victorious

And then the the horns and the brass and the drums suddenly drowned the melody of feeling.

" Sendisiwe"
'Listen to me"
After everything that happened, you have to know - for as long as I am here, you will never be able to be the permanent mother of Ndabankulu again"..... it burst out  in a fanfair.,

Mrs Naude settled back further in her chair and drew her feet under it.

Sindisiwe sprung up and rushed outside through the kitchen back door. It was though she was part of the group and yet she wasn't, transported out there with no time or space inbetween.

 She lit a cigarette and paced up and down.

 "Bitch" I heard her say as I watched through the window.  Well it couldn't be missed . Everyone else was absolutely silent.

Ndabankulu sat transfixed.

 "Bitch, Bitch, Bitch' Shit, Shit, Shit !!!".

As the cigarette finished so the two words repeated slowly subsided with it. Sendisiwe came back into the circle and said" You don't even give me a chance. You don't even listen"

Within three months of that meeting the foster placement broke down. Nozipho phone to say that Ndabankulu had run away during an outing to a park.

 I knew exactly where to find him.

 There he was. Re-united with his mother in the very same kitchen in which the dreadful incident had taken place. He's probably still there because Sendisiwe was a perfectly stunning mother to an otherwise difficult teenager. The bond is remarkable and generous.