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24 FEBRUARY 2010
NO 1546
Termination
Supporting a young person through termination can be a harrowing and provocative process. Not only is it painful to share the turmoil, it elicits our own feelings about separation and loss (Malekoff; 1997). Any youth worker who participates in discharges from placement needs to become aware of their own issues with saying goodbye. An important component is that we "acknowledge and express our (their) own feelings of loss in order to be accepting of similar feelings of the children in our (their) care" (Swanson and Schaeffer, 1988: 29). An inability of a worker to face separation can block the capacity of their clients to express feelings. We have a critical role to play in modelling self-expression and ownerships (Meeks, 1971), even to the point of acknowledging our own emotions in relation to a young person's upcoming departure.
Aside from our own history of losses and our readiness to acknowledge their lasting effects, the experience of a termination with a client has a very real and present impact on a Child and Youth Care worker. We, too, are letting go of a valued relationship (Meeks, 1971), sometimes one that met many of our own needs. We may have been dependent on a young person for our sense of accomplishment and professional self-esteem (Geldard and Geldard, 1977). We are often more important to a young person than they will ever let us know (Meeks, 1971) so as we say goodbye, we are often unsure of what our influence has been. A worker may experience relief at the same time, because a challenging young person is no longer demanding their attention. We may have concerns about a client's capacity to function outside of placement and even wonder if the gains we perceived were real (Malekoff, 1997), leaving us with nagging questions about whether we have done enough (Stein, 1995). At times, workers are not in agreement with a specific discharge plan (Layado and Home, 1999). At other times, they may experience the termination process as so rocky that they doubt the wisdom of letting a young person go. Because most discharges from placement do not occur under optimal conditions, staff "need to be ready for considerable frustration over unsatisfactory terminations" (Martin, 2003, p.70). Like the young people who are leaving placement, workers need to acknowledge unresolved feelings so that they do not contaminate our functioning in the future. On the other hand, facing and expressing these feelings can free up our energies for the challenges ahead. As concluded by Meeks (1971: 194), in his description of the complexities of the termination process with youth:
... who will replace his departing young friend? As noted earlier, the new client (patient) will probably be an angry, devious, defended, difficult youngster who will carry little of the load of treatment for some time to come. In short, in many respects and for everyone concerned, termination is always a new beginning.
VARDA MANN-FEDER
Mann-Veder, V. (2003).
Termination issues in residential placement. Irish Journal of
Applied Social Studies, 4, 2. pp. 39-40.
REFERENCES
Geldard, K. and Geldard, D. (1997).
Counselling-Children: A Practical Introduction. London: Sage.
Lanyado, M. and Horne,A. (1999). 'The therapeutic relationship and
process'. In Lanyado, M. and Home. A. (Eds.) Handbook of Child and
Adolescent Psychotherapv. London: Routledge.
Malekoff, A. (1997). Group Work with Adolescents: Principles and Practice. New York: Guilford.
Martin, D.G. (2003). Clinical Practice with Adolescents. Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/ Cole.
Meeks, J. (1971). The Fragile Alliance: An Orientation to the Outpatient Psychotherapy of the Adolescent. Baltimore: Williams.
Stein, J.A. (1995). Residential Treatment of Children and Adolescents: Issues, Principles, and Techniques. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Swanson, A.J. and Schaefer, C.E. (1988). 'Helping children deal with separation and loss in residential placement'. In Schaefer, C. E. & Swanson, A.J. (Eds.) Children in Residential Care: Critical Issues in Treatment. New York: Van Norstrand Reinhold.
