Listen to thisEditorial Comments are provided by the writer in their personal capacity and without prior sight of journal content.
Sometimes young people need us to be with them in a manner that they have not experienced before. In this new year (in my part of the world), I wonder if we might consider how to be with them in a way that involves meeting them where there are at, rather than where we want them to be.
***
It was spring when she walked into the program, followed by her Social Worker, Mrs. Jacques.
I was waiting for them, because Mrs. Jacques had called telling me to expect them at this time. The young girl, Marlie, 15, was to be placed with us ‘until a suitable placement could be found.”
We weren’t a ‘suitable placement’. We were a short-term shelter for young people who had no other place available for them, or when the ‘system’ did not know what the heck to do with them. Sometimes young people came for a week and stayed for a year – such is the system.
I invited them into the kitchen. We had an office, but this always seemed more relaxed to me. I offered them coffee, tea, soda, or water, each accepting what they wanted, and then we sat around the old oak table, covered with initials, sayings and other memories.
“So,” I said to Marlie, “seems like you are going to be staying with us for awhile.”
“I ain’t staying,” she said. “First chance I get I am outta here.”
“Good. Great,” I said. ‘Meet them where there are at’, one of my colleagues used to say. And that is where she was at.
“What do you mean good”, she asked.
“Well,” I said, “At least you have a plan. Most young people who come here have no plan.”
“My plan is to feck off at the first chance,” she said.
“Well,” I responded. “There is nothing I can do about that. Although, I must say, I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Why not,” she replied. “There’s nothing here for me.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But maybe there is.” I was thinking maybe we could try, together, to make your life a little better. Better than it is right now, at least.”
Sometimes you just have to step up and step into the in-between. Reaching out and engaging with a young person in a manner that people haven’t done before. Being with them differently. Help a young person see that we are all not the same as everyone who came before. Offer them a different experience.
“Wadda you mean, make my life a little better?”
“I don’t know you, but I suspect you got a lotta pain and hurt going on. Maybe we could work together to make that different. Together,” I emphasized. Together was an important piece of our philosophy of healing.
We often waffle when maybe we should just get to the point. In my experience young people often respond differently when we do. So often in response to her attitude and statements we would revert to the rules, the regulations and what must be; what is expected of her here. And young people have heard it all before. If we are going to connect with them they often need to experience us, and their interactions with us, as different than what they have experienced before. Only then might they also experience themselves differently.
She was silent after my comment. That suggested that maybe she had heard me; had experienced something different. I could only hope, so I waited with her in silence.
It was a long silence – and then I remembered Mrs. Jacques was with us. I had been so engaged with Marlie that I had forgotten about Mrs. Jacques. Turning to her, I asked “Mrs. Jacques. Would you give Marlie and I a few minutes alone together.”
I was hoping that the presence of Mrs. Jacques was silencing Marlie a little. I was right. After Mrs. Jacques left, Marlie said “you’re weird!”
“Sometimes I think so myself. But what do you mean?”
“Everyone else wants to control me and what I do and ... whatever. But you aren’t trying to do that.”
“I get that,” I said. “But I don’t think I can control you so why would I spend the time and energy to do so? You are in control of whatever you do, not me, so why deny that.”
“Look” I said. “I would like for you to stay here for a while so we can see if we can work together to make things a little better in your life. I suspect others have told you the same so I would understand if you told me to f-off. But I really would like for us to give it a shot together.”
She was silent again for a few minutes.
“If I stay, will you stop me if I decide to leave?”
“No,” I replied. “First of all, we don’t do restraints here unless you are hurting yourself or someone else and, second, you will have lots of time to take off when we are not with you. So, if we think you are going to take off, for sure we will try to discourage you. But we know we can’t stop you.”
Another pause. “Okay, maybe I will stay for a while.”
“A while would be good,” I responded, hoping for more.
Marlie did stay with us for a while, and then she took off. It was to be expected. A few weeks later she came back. “Can I stay here for a while”, she asked as if we were a local bed and breakfast.
“I hope so”, I said. “Let’s have something to eat and try to work it out with Mrs. Jacques.”
And we did. Marlie stayed with us for another year.
***
Young people come to us in pain. They need to be met with a difference experience than they have had before.
Can we do this? Meet them differently. Be who they need us to be?
Could this be the year that we finally commit to meeting them where they are at?
