Listen to this

January 2009

Laura Steckley

Like countless others, I make New Year’s resolutions every year. I’ve been doing so since I was seven or eight. Most years I write them down. Some years I make a long list, and when I look back on these lists, I can identify a couple of common themes that unite them. Two years ago I just made one. Some research indicates that making only one resolution can improve one's success rate. Funnily, though, in trying to meet that one, I ended up focusing on and improving two others instead – ones that I had considered adding to the list but didn’t. I guess I was rebelling against myself.

Statistics such as “99% of all people do not keep their resolutions" get thrown around at this time of year, and the more cynical among us consider New Year’s resolutions a complete waste of time. For me, however, it has become less about success or failure and more about looking back and looking forward. Interestingly, the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions started over 2,000 years ago when Janus, a mythical Roman god, was placed at the start of the calendar. He had two faces, symbolising the ability simultaneously to look backward and forward; January is named after him. I’ve included a more feminine version above.

Rituals are also an important element of good Child and Youth Care practice . They they are worth attending to in other realms as well, and this ritual that integrates looking back and taking stock with looking forward and making goals has stood the test of time. So, for 2009 I have resolved to write a monthly contribution for Child and Youth Care Online. Thank you Thom, for this opportunity and challenge.

This resolution to write a column actually serves the broader themes I referred to above. One relates to attending to my own personal and professional development, and the other to making a positive contribution to others. Writing is an anxious affair and I have all sorts of diverting behaviours that get in the way of doing it. It’s something I need to develop, though. Writing is also a core requirement of my work, and more importantly, I think it is central to the contribution I want to make to our profession. More concretely, I want to better support CYC-Net, and delivering this monthly column is one way of doing so. I know that writing is vital in the development of clearer thinking, and that writing regularly is necessary to find one’s voice. Voice is something I’d like to understand better and write about. Clearer thinking and voice can be important ingredients in empowering others (and in understanding how to do this better).

This is a nice illustration, actually, of the complex interplay of self and other within the context of service. In developing myself, I am better able to serve others and in serving others, I develop. This is also something I want to develop a deeper understanding of and write about.

I think there is another, perhaps even more important aspect of making resolutions (whether at New Year or other times of the year). The act of looking forward with aspiration requires a degree of hope, but it also stimulates and cultivates hope. Barak Obama’s recent presidential campaign clearly tapped into a healthy collective hunger for hope rather than fear to shape our political future. Above, I have included an image, designed by Shepard Fairey, which played a part in Obama’s election. Fairey – and Yosi Sargent, a dedicated Obama supporter – disseminated posters of this image so that it was plastered across democratic primary battle grounds around the country. These two individuals chose to believe that they could make a difference, in their own unique way, and they acted on that belief . The impact of this–surely now iconic–image cannot be measured, but if one is to go by the price of winning bids on eBay for rip off posters, then it continues to have an effect.

Hope isn’t something that I remember speaking about that much when I was in practice, and certainly not in terms of its importance for good practice. Yet I am becoming increasingly convinced of the fundamental need for hope, and the importance of holding and conveying hope to our staff and young people. I am also developing a better understanding of the destructive impact our lack of attention to hope has had on our young people, their families and ourselves. I will definitely be working to understand better the place of hope in practice, and will be sharing my thoughts about this in future.

So here’s to 2009. May we find the hope necessary to invest in our own development and to make our unique contributions to the lives of children, young people and their families. Happy New Year!