Listen to thisI was in my study recently leafing through a number of books in what I term my “dedicated" corner and reflecting on what books make it in and what don't. Perhaps one of my favourite titles is Bruno Bettleheim's The informed Heart. What a wonderful title for a book as it conjures up many images for me. In Child and Youth Care, of course, it evokes that debate around what a 'good enough' or 'effective' worker might bring to the table; what she might offer a child or youth in her care. What truly is an informed heart? The subtitle of Bettelheim's book runs “A study of the psychological consequences of living under extreme fear and terror". Bettelheim wins the title debate for me as I also love titles such as The Children of the Dream and A Home for the Heart.
Whist some of my friends from Child and Youth Care NET, such as Grant Charles from UBC, will fly home to his family in Calgary, many children and youth in care will face into the Christmas period with disheartened hearts if I can use that term. It saddens me deeply that not all children and youth will “make it home" this Christmas for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps their mothers or fathers simply don't want them. Perhaps they are addicted to drugs or alcohol and cannot make informed choices around caring for their children. Perhaps there is no money and too many other children already usurping parental affection “that is whatever affection is left after the struggle of making it thru the day. Child and youth care workers will continue to leave their families of origins and work with and be with children and youth in their care on Christmas morning to share in the delight of a present or two, and that most precious Christmas dinner, when sitting together becomes more than just sitting together.
And so another Christmas beckons. This year everything in my own home has changed. Santa is coming to our baby Conor and, truth to be told, Susan and I are more excited than Conor as he is just too young to understand the fuss. I've noticed when I pore over my family's photo albums from the 1960s and 1970s that I don't feature as much as perhaps I think I might (that's the ego-led academic in me I guess) so I am making up for lost time with Conor as I'm now on my fourth album and am shooting all his 'first' moments such as the first time he eats solids, rolls over, crawls, gets a front tooth “Parents reading this column know exactly what I'm writing about here.
I mentioned before in one of these columns that I now see the world in terms of pre-Conor and post-Conor and, boring and pretentious as that may seem, that's just the way it is. I cannot bear to think of Conor experiencing a time without love, a time when his heart won't beat with the expectation of expectancy. I have worked in this field now for just over a decade (making me a baby compared to the regular columnists such as the Henrys, Thoms, Marks and Leons of this world!) and I am secure in the knowledge that there are thousands of Child and Youth Care workers in dozens of countries informing the hearts of children and youth in their care on a daily basis. Let us celebrate this.
So, this Christmas I would like to thank all the readers and contributors of CYC-NET for sharing your experiences with the virtual Child and Youth Care community over this past year. Thank you all for asking such engaging questions and thank you for attempting to answer these for us. Thank you Thom in Canada and Brian in South Africa for facilitating this process for us. Oceans separate many of us, but the click of a mouse through shared consciousness brings us all closer this festive season. Permit me to end with a quotation from the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh who, himself, struggled all his life with relationship construction:
"Count then your blessings, hold in mind
All that has loved you or been kind ..."
My hope for 2003 is that, in some small way, we inform a heart or two.
