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133 MARCH 2010
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Crazy eights, relationships and CYW mentors

Theresa Fraser

I can’t remember her last name. In fact I may never have known it. However, Carol was the first Child Care Worker I ever met and she worked on a family unit at Toronto’s Sick Children's Hospital in the mid 70s.

My family lived on this unit for at least a month. It could be more but it was almost forty years ago and a month to a little person felt like a really long time. My father left the unit daily to drive to work in the suburbs and my younger sister and I attended the school on “the floor”. My mother attended parent education classes during the day and I assume that our three year old brother stayed with her.

I remember that there was horrible orange juice for snack in a tin can and really great fruit cup that came from a big tin can. The morning staff taught us how to make hospital corners and the night staff would stay up talking to my mother who chain smoked. The Toronto lights outside my bedroom window were beautiful and the carpet was always clean. It really was always clean and yet we never saw anyone ever vacuum it.

My family participated in family counselling, individual counselling, art therapy, and lots of therapeutic recreation. We were told at the time that our family was chosen for this program as it was a program for families of kids that were “hyper”. My young sister was the identified patient, the “hyper” one but I too needed unrecognized intervention.

However, not knowing any specific concerns, Carol seemed to recognize that I was a kid also craving adult attention maybe because I wasn’t the “hyper” one. Carol taught me how to play “crazy eights”. I had never played cards with an adult prior to learning this game. However, more than learning crazy eights I learned that an adult wanted to spend time with me for therapeutic reasons and thought that I was smart. I felt smart when with her and I not only learned crazy eights but also learned the importance of relationship.

I observed Carol professionally interact with other staff members, directly confront parents when they needed to be redirected, and intervene when a child was starting to escalate. She was respected by the other Child Care Workers and was undoubtedly the best crazy eight player on the unit. I became the second best in my own mind and I graduated from the unit feeling a little smarter and a little closer to my father who as a young man of 28 was a good provider but was the parent that I needed to feel closer to.

As a high school student I read the book, Dibs in Search of Self * by Virginia M. Axline and realized that I wanted to be a play therapist. However, there were no such college or university preparatory programs in the 80’s for this occupation. Yet, when I read the program description for Child Care Workers, I realized that this profession also recognized the power of play and then I remembered Carol.

So in honor of her, I currently tell my Child and Youth Worker students that if they have no other tools in their pocket but a deck of cards, then they have the beginning tools to initiate a therapeutic activity and subsequent therapeutic relationship. So Carol thank you. You inspired me to become a Child Care Worker (a.k.a. CYW), foster parent, therapist, play therapist and lastly CYW Professor and it all began with a magical eight because as CYW’s we never know who our work will impact or how their work will then impact others.

The International Child and Youth Care Network
THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK (CYC-Net)

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