OUR FIELD
It is this we celebrate – II
Part 2 of a Keynote Address by Dr. Thom Garfat delivered
last year at
the 15th Biennial Conference of South Africa’s NACCW
Curiosity
Murphey & Joffe have said that “Creating a caring relationship requires
genuine curiosity.”
I was riding along in a car the other day with a mother and her young child, and
he began to ask the ‘why’ question. Why is the truck there, Mommy? Because it
needed a place to park. But why did it need a place to park, Mommy? Because the
man had to go in to the store. Why, mommy? Why? Why? Why? And on and on it went.
Children have a natural curiosity about things – they want to know – to explore
– to understand.
There is something special about curiosity. For me, it is
one of the great Child and Youth Care skills – to genuinely ‘be curious’.
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To be curious about why things are the way they are
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To be curious about how it is that this person came to be
in this situation
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To be curious about how one might help
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To be curious about what will happen if you do something
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And, especially, to wonder about who this person is
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What their experience of themselves is
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What it is like to be them
Now, this is special indeed. For when someone is genuinely
curious about you, it causes you to be reflective, to wonder about yourself, and
you have a sense of ‘being special’ – for just that moment.
The other night someone asked me a question which went
something like this ... “So, now that you do what you do, what is that like
for you? How do you experience yourself?” And it got me reflecting, and
thinking, and feeling, just for that moment, special. If that is what it is like
for me, still after all these years, imagine what it might be like for a young
person who has had few experiences of someone being curious about who she is?
Who has, perhaps, never been the centre of someone else’s curiosity.
Becky eating from the floor
Becky was one of the first kids I ever met in residential care. When she
arrived at the residential centre, she was dirty, she seldom washe. When given
food, she put the plate on the floor and ate from it like an animal, guarding
her plate with one hand while stuffing food quickly into her mouth with the
other. All the while her eyes watch frantically to see if anyone was approaching
her.
For years Becky had been used by her father, and uncles, and
brothers, and god knows who else – used as an object for sexual release. She was
beaten constantly; raped regularly, fed her food on the floor, never loved, and
seldom heard a nice word about herself. But somehow she survived. She didn’t
die; she didn’t kill herself; she wasn’t killed by someone else in a rage.
And here is some of my curiosity ...
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How did she manage to stay alive when so many others in
her situation would have been dead by now?
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How did this sense of self protection,
demonstrated through the way she guarded her food, survive?
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How is it that she still had some sense of self left?
And she did have a sense of self. Hard to imagine but she
did.
Now. Aren’t you curious about how that happened? And aren’t you curious, simply about how she survived?
Aren’t you curious about how someone could do this to a child? Or how you could
help? Or what it might be like to be her?
Curiosity ... one of the greatest assets of a Child and
Youth Care worker. Curiosity about why things are; curiosity about what
happened?
We wake up in the morning and wonder:
And so this too we celebrate – your curiosity, and your
wonder. For it is this curiosity which leads to new insights, new ideas and new
ways of being, with self, and with other.
Creativity
Merle Allsopp and Zeni Thumbadoo in an article entitled
Towards an African Child and Youth Care Practice said that ...
“There appear to be three elements common to child and youth
care practice ... which are particular to an African expression of the
profession of child and youth care.
They are:
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Cultural expression
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Creativity
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Spirit or soul”
Creativity, too, then is central to effective Child and
Youth Care Practice:
We...
It has also been said, within our field that “Creativity
represents the most authentic expression of the Self” (Fewster & Garfat). If
this is true, then surely the ‘self’ of Child and Youth Care is authentically
present because our field is filled with wonderful examples of creativity.
Craft Night
Kelly was a child care worker in a small rural community. She had tried hard
to connect with the family she was working with – but there never seemed to be a
time. The mother was always busy, the kids were off somewhere with their
friends. There was only one time, during the week, when the family was all
together and that was in the early evening of a particular night of the week.
This was family time, and the mother and her children always spend this night
together working on crafts of some kind. It was something the mother insisted on
and it had many benefits. It drew the family together, engaged them in doing
something, and, as an aside, the mother sold the finished products to make a
little extra money for the family. They were, after all, poor.
Kelly was hesitant to interfere with this time the family
had together, but she needed to meet with them – they had things they needed to
talk about – that’s for sure – but more importantly, Kelly had to connect with
them as a family, not just as individuals.
So, she asked if she could come around on the evening when
they did crafts together. The mother was hesitant – she told Kelly that she
could not interfere with that night – that it was too important. Kelly told her
she was hoping that maybe the mother would teach her how to paint on wood. With
some caution the mother agreed.
When Kelly arrived she was dressed in casual clothes, ready
for ‘craft night’. And as the family got into their crafts, so did Kelly. She
asked the mother to show her how to paint; she asked the daughter to help her
choose a good piece of wood; she praised the son’s efforts. And as the evening
wore on, Kelly became, simply, a part of the group, doing crafts. She watched
how the family interacted; noticed how they responded to her lack of skill;
laughed with them as she made mistakes; saw and experienced the love in the
relationship.
As the evening came to an end, and no-one had spoken for a
while, the mother reached across the table and gave Kelly a gentle, little slap
on the hand, laughing ... “I hope your boss doesn’t find out you spent the
evening doing crafts,” she said. The kids laughed along with the mother. Kelly
laughed too.
“Oh, I hope he does,” she responded. He would be proud. Here
we see a Child and Youth Care worker, creatively using her self, and the
opportunity, to be with, to connect with, a family. To meet them on their terms;
to be with them as they lived their lives, the way they lived them. And in the
course of the evening, she learned so much: about what was important; about how
they were together as a family; about what they needed to do to help each other
a little more.
Probably a lot more than she would have accomplished in an
hour in an office.
Courage
Courage. Another characteristic shared by Child and Youth Care
Workers the world over. For ultimately, without courage, our field would not be
what it is today. First, as before, we will look a little at what our field has
to say about courage ...
Ross & Hoeltke (1987) in describing the characteristics of
effective Child and Youth Care Workers defined courage in our field as “an
ability to express emotionality in a positive, genuine way and a willingness to
risk rejection.” Linton. and Forster (1988) described courage in our field as
“the willingness and ability to engage with always stressful, usually
challenging, and sometimes dangerous youngsters”.
But these types of descriptions are too simple and somehow
distancing from what I think of when I think of the courage of Child and Youth
are Workers. Perhaps I am more interested in courage as it was described by
Ghandi, who said:
“Courage has never been known to be a matter of muscle; it
is a matter of the heart.”
There are many forms of courage, and courage shows up in our
field in many different ways. But the field is painted with courage. Like these
for example ...
“To be” means to stand up, open yourself up and say ‘this is
who I am’. To be yourself wherever you find yourself, not to change with the
passing wind, but to be consistent in who you are, wherever you are. It takes
courage to be.
The courage to talk, the courage to seek a different way,
the courage to become the me I need to be in order to be helpful to others.
Surely this is the finest of courage.
Let me tell one last story before I close.
Sindi
Sindi was 12 years old. He was a bright young man. A young
man any parent would be proud to call their son. And he was dying. His parents
were bright people as well. Perhaps too bright because they seemed to spend all
of their time living in their heads, working things out, thinking about things.
They always had.
But Sindi was dying. And no matter how much they thought
about it, or how much they planned, they couldn’t escape their pain. Or their
fear. They needed help and so, for whatever reason, they ended up seeing a Child
and Youth Care Worker.
And like all people who are afraid of losing someone, they
drew him close to themselves – too close it seemed to the Child and Youth Care
Worker who was working with them. And one day, as they were talking about how
they were all doing, the worker asked them to ‘show him’ what it was like in
their family. He asked them to create a family sculpture. And he asked Sindi to
be the sculptor.
Now family sculpting is a form of intervention where you ask
people to place themselves in physical positions that represent the family, and
themselves and the others in the family, as the sculptor experiences them. So,
for example, if someone in the family is abusive, the sculpture might represent
this by showing one person ready to strike the other person and they might show
the other person cowering down, trying to protect themselves. Or if someone in
the family is dominant they might be represented standing on a chair, with the
others in lower positions. It is a way of representing in physical form, that
which we experience.
And so with some hesitation, which is normal and to be
expected – and some trepidation, perhaps because of what he had to say, Sindi
made his sculpture.
First he placed his mother and father facing each other. And
then he asked them to embrace and hold each other tight, which they did, and as
they did this you could feel the desperation as they clung to one another. Then
Sindi told them not to move – no matter what he did, they were not to loosen
their embrace. And then with great effort, he squeezed himself up in between
them, in a space so small he could barely breathe. And that was his sculpture.
As is customary in family sculpting, after it was over the worker asked Sindi to
interpret the sculpture for the family. And this is what he said.
“You are suffocating me. I know I am dying but you are
suffocating me. You are holding on to me so tight I can’t breathe”.
Afterwards, the family and the worker talked about what
Sindi had said, and the parents realized that in their fear, and in their need
to hold him as close as they could, they were preventing him from living
whatever life he had left. And so they made changes to ‘give him a little more
space’, as the mother put it.
Well, eventually, of course, Sindi died. And some time later
the mother returned to talk to the Child and Youth Care Worker. And this is what
she said. We were suffocating him. I know that. We were so afraid we just wanted
to hold onto him as much as we could. But that day, when he did the sculpture I
knew that we were suffocating him. And so we had to let go a little bit – and
because we did, we found it a little easier to be together.
And so I just came to tell you thank you. Thank you for
having the courage to help us find the courage to let him live while he was
dying.
This courage. Your courage. This too we should celebrate.
For as another Child and Youth Care Worker, quoted by Merle and Zeni in their
paper, said, you are,
“— these courageous workers who with tender care minister to
the needs of these children, who swallow their pain, who wipe away their tears
and move to the next child who needs attention.”
And this, my friends, is courage.
Ending
So, it is time for me to end. And as I do let me just say, that I
know that all these comments, all these stories, – they all say the same thing.
They are all, in essence, a part of one single story – the story of Child and
Youth Care Practice. The story of our work with children, young people and
families in need. And the story of your courage in helping them to find ways to
live their lives with, hopefully, just a little less suffering and pain. It is,
ultimately the story of your relationship with those who need you.
And so, we celebrate – we celebrate the Caring, Commitment,
Curiosity, Creativity and Courage of this field, and you who work within it. As
Lesley duToit has said ...
“You and I now hold the future of the profession and the
future of our ‘children at risk’ in our hands. Let’s respond with courage
and integrity.”
References
Allsopp, M. and Thumbadoo, Z. (n.d.)
Towards an African Child and Youth Care Practice.
Austin. D. & Halpin. W. (1989). The caring
response. Journal of Child and Youth Care. 4(3). 1-7.
Jerome Beker Volume 15 (2000) and Volume 16
(2001) Welcome Home! Some reflections from the Cleveland Conference on the
future of our field.
Krueger. M.A. (1988) Intervention techniques for child
and youth care
workers. Washington DC: CWLA, pp,11-15.
Linton. T E. and Forster. M. (1988). The
child and youth care workers: Who needs them? Journal of Child Care, Vol.3(4)
p.4.
Laursen, E. (2002) Seven habits of reclaiming
relationships. Reclaiming Children and Youth. Vo1.11 No.1 pp. 11-13.
Mayeroff,
M. (1971). On Caring. New York: Harper Perennial
Murphey. E., Joffe S. From Creating a Culture
of Retention: A Coaching Approach to Paraprofessional Supervision.
Paraprofessional Health Care Institute.
Ross. A. & Hoeltke. G. (1987) A interview
tool for selection of residential child care workers. Child Welfare. 66(2).
175-183.
Watson, J. (n.d.) Transpersonal Caring and
the Caring Moment defined. Available at:
http://www2.uchsc.edu/son/caring/content/transpersonal.asp.
This feature: The second part of
Thom Garfat’s Keynote Address to the 15th Biennial Conference of South Africa’s
National Association of Child Care Workers held in July 2005, celebrating
thirty years of the NACCW’s foundation. Reprinted from Child
and Youth Care, Vol. 23(7), pp.6-9. [See part 1 in our
May 2006 issue] .
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