and reach thousands of daily visitors
26 NOVEMBER 2008
NO 1378
Helping transitions
For the purpose of the paper, it may be helpful to outline the story of Finn McCool, so that we can then describe how we used different aspects of it to work with the children. In the story Finn is put under a 'geise', an oath to come to the aid of a young man whose first two sons were stolen on the night of their birth by a giant. His wife is about to give birth to a third child and he asks for Finn's protection. A group of men and women with different talents assist Finn in the task; a listener, a climber, a tracker and an archer. They fail to prevent the giant stealing the third baby but as they journey, each person plays a vital role in the rescue of the three children from the giant. In the end the giant is destroyed due to Finn's ability to divine his one weak spot and the archer's keen aim.
From the Finn story we asked the children what they would see as their main strength if Finn asked them to take part in this adventure. Many of the children highlighted football as their greatest skill and we drew them out on which aspects of football they excelled in so we had roles like 'the scorer' and 'the defender'. Some children struggled to think what skill they had, so we then asked their peers to make suggestions. Following this, in the final session, we made up blessings for the future of each child based upon these strengths.
For example, one boy whose strength was football was moving to a different high school from his classmates and so his blessing was, May you always be surrounded by good team mates and may you achieve all your goals. One particularly vulnerable girl said she would be a builder. Her blessing was, May you have the wisdom to build your house upon rock and not sand and if any big bad wolves come your way, may you outwit them just like the third little pig. The tradition of sending young people on the journey of life with a blessing is central to traditional stories. Examples of this exist in The Story Of Mully Whuppie (in Garner, 1984) and The Story of the King of Lochlin's Daughter; (in Montgomerie, 1956). In our sessions, these blessings were read out during a ritual where a candle was lit for each child and the blessing was written on a card, which each child could keep. This easy intervention could give residential workers a tool for managing transitions either within or between units.
Not all of the children were present at the final session but the group was insistent that every child's blessing should be read, a strong indication of the strength of connection which was fostered by story. In his essay The Core of Care, Maier (1979) wrote of the importance of ritual. He said that rituals have special cultural and emotional significance, especially at times of transition. This was apparent in this group.
For many children and young people in residential care, transitions are not managed well. For example Dixon and Stein (2005) in their research on young people leaving care in Scotland found that half of them had no planned throughcare programme. Techniques such as storytelling, while not providing all the answers, can help residential workers to engage with young people about these issues and perhaps leave them with a positive experience as part of this process.
CLAIRE MCNICOL AND RUTH KIRKPATRICK
McNicol, C. and Kirkpatrick, R. (2005). The good
goodbye: Helping children through transitions using storytelling.
Scottish Journal of Residential Care, 4, 2. pp. 33-34.
REFERENCES
Dixon, J. and Stein, M. (2005). Leaving care: throughcare and aftercare in Scotland. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Garner, A. (1984). Book of British fairy tales. London: Collins.
Maier. H (1979). The Core of Care. Retrieved December 2005, from http://wwv.humanbeing.demon.nl/humanbeingsweb/library/core of care.htm
Montgomerie, N. (1956). The well at the world's end. Edinburgh: Canongate Press.
