Children in the forest

Brian Gannon

Some children are deep in a forest. No sunlight filters through the dark undergrowth to give them a bearing – north, south, east, or west? They take a few steps this way and that, but they aren't sure of the direction they are taking and they come to mistrust their own instincts. They don't know how they got into the forest. They have become frustrated and angry at their impotence in finding a way out. They lose hope. They sense that life in other respects is going on: there is the passage of day and night, weather and seasons, and occasionally they hear an airliner pass by overhead, but they don't feel part of any of this. What would change their situation is someone who knows they are there, perhaps someone in a helicopter up above, someone with a wider view of where they are, someone with maps and a compass, someone who understands what it's like down there, someone who knows the way.

Our helicopter can't land in the dense forest and pick the children up. They have to make it by themselves. But we could in some way accompany them on their journey home. It helps them just knowing that we are there. It helps even more knowing that we know they are there. But we could do even more from our vantage point high above the forest. Maybe we can see that the direct route home has impassable obstructions, and that they will have to take the long way round. Maybe they still have to spend quite a while in that forest. Perhaps most important, as they get to the end of each day's trek, when we drop them some supplies, we could also let them have a map which shows them where they are on the route along which we are guiding them. On this map we can show them how far they came today, so that their day's efforts have some meaning for them, how today's gains fit into the journey as a whole. It would offer hope. It would also show them that we noticed their progress, and that we believe in their ability to go on – which might encourage them and spur them on to greater efforts tomorrow.

There will be some difficult patches. They might spend a whole day hacking through a few yards of really tough bush, or working out how to cross a river – or just building up the courage to cross it. Maybe they won't get far in a day, but if we can help them see that the struggle was necessary and important, and that now they are indeed that much nearer to their journey's end, this could be enough. That's all we can do for them really – see that they get food and warmth each day, and give them enough information and feedback to help them fit each day's travelling into the wider picture of their journey home.

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These children are, of course, our children, the young people in our programme. Many of them feel this way about their lives – the separation, the lostness. Forces which they cannot understand often got them in their forest of confusion. People they trusted let them down. “Was it something I did?" They don't understand those big words people used. Now they take it a day at a time but things don't seem to get better. They seek direction, but they lose their way. They are frustrated and angry at their impotence to see the way ahead. They lose hope.

And the people in the helicopter are, of course, you and me, their Child and Youth Care workers – people who in the nature of their profession get thrown into this kind of relationship with children and youth. We do not know these kids – they are other people's kids – but for a period we come to know each other deeply. The maps and compass are our technical skills, as are our ability to track the children, to reach them, to communicate with them, and to build trust and hope. It is often disturbing for us to realise that we can't simply land and pick them up and take them home. This is their journey through their forest and we can't do this for them. They have to do it for themselves.

To feed them and keep them warm is easy enough, but it isn't enough. They can't stay forever where they are, and have to battle their way back onto the path home. The most helpful thing we can do is provide them with signposts, and then share with them regularly how they're doing. For our children, every day has its trials and discouragements – and hopefully, perhaps through what we are able to do, some achievements and joys. But these experiences can all be wasted if they are not consciously woven into the child's broader picture of his journey. A day's bush-bashing that remains unconnected to 'the big picture' is just another day survived. There is a hopelessness when things 'just happen' to children. The sense that life arbitrarily dishes out treats and disasters is the ultimate disempowerment for them. We should never allow life to be something that 'just happens' to these children: they will learn nothing about cause and effect, and nothing about their own responsibility for what happens. They are not helped to own their problems and their successes when things 'just happen'. During the time when we are in touch with them, we are busy reconnecting them to their own lives, to life as a whole.

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Our programs and personal practice often fail to move children beyond their forest and back on to the path of their own lives. As we busy ourselves with meals, schoolwork and routine, we are seduced into the easier roles of feeders and keepers. We tend to join them in the forest and forget the urgency of the journey they must make. And we forget that the journey, like that of all children, is a journey away from us and on into their world. The generosity of the Child and Youth Care relationship is that it is so real that it can make up for those relationships which failed the children before “but also that it is something for the children to take away with them, and not for us to keep.

What we get to keep are sharpened skills – at flying helicopters, reading maps, and tracking and relating to kids. And we get to know the forests better.