INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

22 MARCH 2000
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A FEW LINES FROM ONE OF OUR PIONEERS

Optimism

Morris Fritz Mayer (1955: 668), when resident Director of the famous treatment centre Bellefaire in Cleveland nearly half-a-century ago, reminded us that all child care work is predicated upon the belief that people can change:

"Perhaps the most common ingredient of all residential treatment centres is the optimism necessary in order to help the child. No matter who treats the child, no matter what the educational background of the people living with the child — all of them must deal with children with whom many people have 'given up'.

They must have the hope that the child ultimately can be treated, or at least that his problems can be measurably reduced. Indeed, this optimism, and the fervent belief that disturbed children can be helped if the right facilities can be provided, are the essence of residential treatment itself. 

This optimism has to be instilled in everyone on the staff, and finally communicated to the child himself. The child has to know that here is a place in which people believe that he can be helped".

 

Mayer, Morris F. (1955) The role of residential treatment for children: Introduction to symposium. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 25

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