There is a well known saying among cat owners that nobody owns a cat. However vulnerable and domesticated they may appear, they are the most independent and strong minded creatures around. We may feed them, and refer them when necessary to a reputable vet, but beyond that, within the first six weeks of life, nature and their mothers seem to have taught them everything they need to know. We may pick them up and stroke them, but then we must put them back down and they will skip off into their own wholly inscrutable lives.

The kids we work with are in many ways like that. When we first meet them we have virtually no idea of their complex and tangled lives, their backgrounds, families and histories. Just like cats, most of them came to us because they were in some sort of fight, run over — or lost. Many of us are tempted to want to "own" them in some way, to rewrite their past, manage their present, and plan their future. Knowing nothing, we are all-knowing about how they should be.

But the world they want to go back to is not our world. Most are grateful for the respite, the food and the hospitality; they appreciate that we walked alongside them through some scary times and perhaps shone some light into dark places in their lives. We pick them up and stroke them, but we remember Gibran’s counsel that "your children are not your children ..." We must put them back down, and onwards they go.

Nobody owns a kid.