Listen to thisHe was excited by the challenge of helping a youngster in serious trouble – but he needed both training and proper back-up for his task
Eldred Mann was an excellent choice as a child care assistant. He was an 'upwardly mobile' young man who was progressing in his career as a trainee accountant. His job nearby, with only two or three evening classes at the university, left him the late afternoons and several evenings a week free to earn his board and lodging at the children's institution by running some activity groups, supervising some study periods and helping out with routine chores. A keen sportsman, he was skilled at running training sessions on the sports field, whether the season demanded athletics, football or hockey. His groups fitted well into the recreation and achievement programmes for many of the older boys. He understood the role these played, and was well able to integrate his physical training sessions into individual boys' treatment plans and to report back helpfully at case meetings. Eldred was not trained or hired as a counsellor, but in his daily interactions “at meals, in free times and during routine study and chores times – he naturally became a trusted adult and confidant to many. The management team were satisfied that he was a mature and well-motivated person, and as such was a good role-model and mentor to have around.
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One morning at about 2 a.m. there was an urgent knock at the door of the director's home. It was Eldred, clearly in an anxious state. He reported that one of the boys, David Young, aged 16, had run off in tears after having lost his temper and smashed ornaments in Eldred's rooms. Startled not only at the events reported, but also at the lateness of the hour, the director asked for a full explanation. It seems that David Young had in recent months become involved in drugs through some school friends, and as he got deeper and deeper into the drug 'scene', so he had become confused and ashamed. Understandably hesitant to raise the matter face to face with a senior member of the staff, David had written a note to Eldred, explaining briefly what-the problem was, and asking if he could see him. Eldred, respecting the obvious privacy of the approach, had agreed that David should come and see him in his quarters after the last study period that evening, at about 9 p.m. And this is where things went wrong. Young David was undoubtedly in some despair and Eldred was most willing to be of help. After his initial embarrassment, David poured out his story but more particularly his own feelings of fear and failure, of inadequacy at not being able to handle himself, of disappointment in his own weakness and the fact that he had 'spoiled things for himself', lost ground in the progress he was making and in his improving self-image. He was feeling desolate, and very guilty. This outpouring of feeling went on for a long time. Eldred listened attentively and sympathetically. In a way he was quite flattered that the youngster had trusted him with this crisis in his life. He said that he understood, comforted the boy when he wept – but that was all he could do; it was all he knew, and it was not enough for David. A short while later, to Eldred's astonishment, David had become abusive, had lost his temper, had smashed a vase and a bookstand on a table, and fled in tears from the room.
Armed with these facts, the director was able to track David down, he spent a half an hour with him and was able to send him off to bed feeling somewhat better – with an arrangement for a further meeting the following day.
Evaluation
1. Eldred Mann, valuable on the staff team and well-intentioned as he was, was not a trained counsellor. If he was, he would have been able to take David through the necessary stages of expressing and dealing with his feelings, and then to lift him back up out his despair into a state of understanding and responsibility “and, hopefully, with some positive plan for the future. David was 16, and it was necessary to move this personal crisis up again from his heart and into his head. Just sitting there listening was rather like letting David bleed without making an effort to staunch the bleeding.
2. If the children's institution had an established set of procedures, Eldred Mann might have known how to share David's initial approach with an appropriate staff member or supervisor for advice. The advice might have been for Eldred to express approval for David's good sense and courage in coming forward to a concerned adult, but recommending that David (or perhaps even the two of them together) should go to an experienced Child and Youth Care worker who could help with this sort of crisis.
3. One can understand David's outburst and loss of control. He came to Eldred for skilled help and not just for sympathy. Having trusted Eldred not only with his wrong-doing but also with his personal sense of failure, he was at his most exposed and vulnerable “but he was not helped to feel better. He felt let down and panicky.
4. Eldred also needs to be rescued from the situation he finds himself in. He clearly has a lot to offer, and will have learned from his bad experience. If he can somehow be involved in working on the plan of action now to be devised for David, this will restore David's confidence in him “and his own self-confidence.
