Listen to thisForeword: Travis Sampson
Everywhere you go, there you are.
It is a simple adage, an old one, and one that is often attributed to Confucious. I won’t write here and pretend to be an expert on Confucious and Chinese philosophy. I am not that. But I do like this nugget of thought about the Self, and I often use it in conversations about practice when discussing how I, and others, are showing up in the work that we do.
It is one of the more direct and obvious statements that has survived through the ages. I mean, physically, yes, wherever we place ourselves, we are, indeed, there. But I like to think about it in the context of our perspective, our beliefs about the things we are seeing, hearing, and experiencing with the rest of our five senses. Everywhere we go, we carry our values and attitudes. And these values, attitudes, and beliefs have all been informed by our past experiences. The memories of events, of relationships, and especially the memories of how we felt cannot be left on the shelf before work. These are the Self we carry around with us.
Everywhere we go, there we are.
I would argue (in fact I am about to), that this millennia-old adage is echoed in one of the characteristics that defines Child and Youth Care practice, It’s All About Us (Garfat, Freeman, Gharabaghi, Fulcher, 2018). Mann-Feder (2009) highlights for us that many, if not all, other professions that therapeutically engage with people, pride themselves on detachment. She points out that professional distance is the stated goal, critical to their therapeutic process. This is not true for Child and Youth Care Practitioners. Our focus is on fostering healthy attachment between us and those we support, the very opposite of detachment (Mann-Feder, 2009). We do not have the luxury, as my most influential mentor has said to and in front of me many times, of leaving ourselves at the door. We don’t rely on tools, techniques and the implementation of external controls and influences to support those we work with. We use our Selves (Mann-Feder, 2009). And, if we are using our Selves in practice, then our engagement with others, the way we perceive their behaviors and choices, the interventions we choose to embark on, and the hills we choose to die on when setting limits are all deeply informed by who we are (Garfat, Freeman, Gharabaghi, Fulcher 2018).
So then, considering this, it seems rather important to know who we are and when our Self is informing our initial beliefs or perceptions related to any given situation with a young person. For most anyone who has taken an introductory Child and Youth Care Practice course, this is something they have heard before. The idea that we need to consider how our values, beliefs, and past experiences are impacting the way we engage in relationship with people is not novel in our field. The reality is though, it’s not always easy to do.
There is another quote I enjoy when thinking about practice, and to be honest, I don’t know who to attribute it to because, based on my research, no one else does either. It has many phrasings that offer a similar meaning, so I’ll give you the one I like the best (it is all about me after all). Forgive me my academic trespasses for failing to reference it. Anyway, it is: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. For me this quote highlights one of the most dangerous things we can do in practice: when we mistake our perspective (what we think we know for sure, that just ain’t so) with the reality of any given interaction.
When we enter school-based practice while carrying around the memory of how it felt to be ridiculed consistently by an elementary school bully (the fear, the loneliness, and the shame) our awareness of that part of our Self becomes vital. We will need to be with young people having this experience. If we aren’t tuned in to this part of Self, we might not see the line between us and a young person experiencing the same type of ridicule and social marginalization. We might protect that part of Self we carry around with us through our relational engagement with this young person. We could lose sight of the difference between empathy and sympathy and get lost in ‘feeling bad’ for the young person, which, I would argue, is never helpful, or therapeutic. We become protectors. Guardians. We don’t look to support young people to navigate the bullying, engage in restorative conflict resolution with the bully, or to work on building protective relationships with others, we simply aim to shield them, perhaps how we wish we might have been shielded.
And what about the bully?
Blinded by the impact of Self in this situation, we may be unable to see the bully as anything other than the villain. They aren’t just targeting a young person we are working with, they are attacking us, the Self we take everywhere with us. Without an awareness of Self, our practice is nothing more than us playing out what we imagined we should have had or done when we were bullied all those years ago. This is especially dangerous given that it is not only a perceived victim of bullying that needs support, but the bully themselves. Our past experiences inform our interpretations of how things are (Ricks, 2001). If we aren’t aware of this process as it is occurring, it can have a profound impact on the relationships we share with young people. How can we, for example, offer therapeutic relational engagement to someone we have ascribed the title of ‘villain’ to solely based (unknowingly) on our own past experiences?
The following reflection is an illustration of how it really is all about us. It is a pre-service Practitioner’s consideration of an intense experience of Self as she navigated her first practicum experience. Of course, she heard the faculty facilitating her course work talk about this concept of Self, and the importance of having an awareness of how it shows up in practice with young people and families. But as Julius Caesar is credited with coining (this guy with the quotes): Experience is the best teacher. And while engaged with a young person during her practicum, she experienced Self unexpectedly and reflected on how it impacted her engagement in the moment. She began to understand:
Everywhere I go, there I am.
What Being Me Means to Me
“I will always make the best possible choice for the child.”
At least that’s what I would have told you before experiencing the true complexities of the field. I went into my first practicum with all the knowledge from classes and an open mind. I spent the first semesters eager to learn and absorbing all I could. We learned about Self and how it shows up in practice, but I never imagined how much it could impact my work. Most interactions I had left me feeling confident, but this interaction was different. It challenged me in a way that no class could have prepared me for. In my second week, I was faced with an ethical dilemma that brought up a lot of emotions for me, but I did not know why. I could feel the tension between my actions and the effects they could have in a youth’s life. Since I naturally gravitate to self-reflection, I took the time to check in with myself. As I sifted through all the emotions, I was faced with values I never knew I held so strongly. And the more I sat with this interaction, the more I realized that my attempt to help the youth may have been meeting my needs in the moment rather than theirs. After reviewing the questions posed in Mann-Feder and Steckley’s Reflexive Relational Model, I began to realize just how deeply conflicted I felt even after supervision (Mann-Feder & Steckley, 2021). I went through every question and mapped out exactly what happened and what I could have done differently. This critical reflection changed my perspective on my responsibility as a future Child and Youth Care Practitioner (CYC-P) and what it means to work with youth.
My practicum took place in a school-based environment, so when a student sat next to me during the after-school tutoring sessions, I was very willing to help. I had interacted with this student before and knew that they were not fluent in English, but when I saw that their assignment was for English class, I was relieved. I was nervous about tutoring before practicum, but English is the subject I’m most confident in, so I was eager to jump in. We moved to a quieter study space, and I pulled up a translator to communicate. However, when I translated a simple question into their first language, I was surprised when they had the translator read it out loud. I also noticed that they would only take voice calls or send voice notes on their phone to communicate. As I interacted with them more, it became clear that they likely could not read or write in both English and their native language. In the program I was shadowing, the role of the CYC-Ps was to identify and assist youth academically. There was a CYC-P nearby, but I did not ask for their help. Instead, I continued to help the student with their assignment the best that I could on my own. I think in this moment, my stubbornness and personal values began to peek through. I believed that I was the best person to handle it. However, it was obvious that they did not understand the assignment at all and nothing I could do would change that. I tried several methods and combinations to communicate including the translator, spelling out words, speaking slowly, and referring to the webpages. Nothing seemed to help. After more than an hour, the assignment was finished, and the youth seemed genuinely proud of themselves. However, I felt I did much of the work for them. I walked away with my confidence shaken, questioning my approach, my abilities, and my competence as a CYC-P. How much help was too much help? And why was I so adamant about helping them on my own?
After this interaction, I went to speak with my mentor to debrief the situation. She said that while what I did seemed to be empathetic, she could make sense of how I felt conflicted. Another member of staff then said that the role of the organization was to help with academic hurdles, not remove them, which got me thinking. In the days following, I began considering the impact of my decision to not seek help and handle it on my own. Clearly, I was not equipped to handle the situation, but I pushed forward. In doing so, maybe I created even more problems for the student. I feared that I would make the youth feel like they were incapable or stupid, but how I was helping didn’t get them closer to understanding their assignment. My actions could have a ripple effect, spanning much further than I considered in the moment. For example, if their teacher were to question them about the assignment, they would not be able to answer. They could be accused of cheating, or they could get a call home which might affect their family dynamics. Even if the teacher did not suspect their work, I affected the student’s academic future since they did not complete the outcomes but finished the assignment. I also potentially set the expectation for other tutors and the CYC-Ps will just do the work for them which is a dangerous precedent to set. What was once a choice made with the best intentions started to feel selfish. I was carrying the weight of all the possible outcomes, so I turned to reflection to sort through my feelings. I knew there was a better course of action as soon as the interaction ended. In the moment, I felt like I was doing the best I could for the youth, but that was because I was not recognizing my role due to my own values and experiences.
And so, I took a step back to look at the bigger picture. Why did this interaction affect me so much? What about this situation triggered me? When I experienced a flood of emotions, I knew they played a major role in how I approached the youth, even though I did not realize until afterwards. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this fear of being interpreted as incompetent, likely due to being considered smart as a young child. So, when I began to struggle with my schoolwork past elementary school, I created this idea that I would never be good enough. I went as far as refusing to try French immersion in junior high because I was scared to fail. This perception followed me all through secondary and post-secondary education. I set expectations for myself high, and despite working hard, I struggled to complete schoolwork due to undiagnosed ADHD. For so long, I attributed my setbacks solely to my intelligence and competence, so changing my perspective has been difficult. Through these experiences, I developed one of my core beliefs: to always do my best whatever that may look like. In my eyes, the youth was doing the best they could. I could see how hard they were working, and I wanted to acknowledge that. This youth’s resiliency brought up memories of trying to read before I was diagnosed as an adult. I could empathize with the feeling of inadequacy, so I clung to that to justify my actions. In reality, I was drawing from my own experiences rather than assessing the needs of the youth.
However, I think why I was compelled to help better explains my emotional response. Yes, my personal experiences in the school system clearly informed my actions, but observations in my upbringing were the driving force. My mother immigrated to Canada from Italy at 15 years old, unable to speak the language, and with very few supports. The community she lived in all spoke Italian, and without an education, it was difficult to get opportunities. It wasn’t until she was in her 20s that she learned English. Even over 50 years later, my mother is made to feel like she is incompetent by others because English is not her first language. My friends would say they could not understand her accent, and when I was out with her, people would ask me to ‘translate’, even though she was speaking English. My mother is not a strong speaker, or reader, or writer, but I would never say my mom is not intelligent. So often people assume her intelligence based on her accent without acknowledging the barriers she’s had to overcome. Even now she laments how people make her feel stupid, and I believe this heavily influenced my approach. Growing up with a first-generation mother, I saw firsthand how people will write off those with an accent or who struggled to speak English. I could see the parallels between my mother and this student, and it struck a nerve for me personally. Seeing the same systemic problems persisting for newcomers over 50 years later frustrated me. I didn’t want this student to think I was writing them off too. I think that is why I felt the need to take it upon myself to help, but instead, I projected my own emotions onto the youth. Part of me was trying to heal my mother’s pain, and the youth became the outlet for my feelings.
The blind hatred of what people don’t understand will always exist. My feelings around my mother’s migration story were influential in a subversive way. While my school trauma was easy to identify for me, I never knew I carried around the weight of my mother’s experiences. This was an aspect of myself I had never explored. I have always been extremely proud of my Italian heritage, especially being Sicilian. My siblings and I were teased frequently about being members of the mafia, and I would always vehemently defend my culture. I dealt with a fraction of the trauma with the teasing, but 50 years ago, being Sicilian meant your skin was darker, you supported Mussolini, you were more savage and violent. This mindset made me think about my morning bus ride of all things. At a bus stop in the community in which the youth resides, the words “your kind breeds hate” was spray painted on the bus shelter. Though it wasn’t explicit, the meaning felt clear. Their religion or when they were born was being branded as evil which perpetuates this stigma around newcomers. Just their mere existence to some is a threat to society. I may have heard and seen this kind of hatred before, but spending time in their community opened my own generational wounds. While I thought I was just helping this person with their homework, my brain was in defense mode, ready to shield them the way no one had done for my mother. The parallels I created between my mother and the youth did not help them, it worked to fulfill my desire to protect them. But this youth didn’t need protection, and certainly not from me.
I knew I would be working in a community with a large newcomer population, but this situation caught me off guard. I was fully prepared to communicate through translators, but the gaps that exist in the educational system for newcomer youth frustrated me. The more research I did, the more I realized how few opportunities newcomer youth have for English as an Additional Language (EAL). And yet, they’re expected to enter high school, sit through an eight-hour school day, and be able to succeed. This stirred up emotions when it came to the youth’s basic rights. I thought about how the youth must feel in school all day unable to understand and wondered how that might correlate with the youth’s right to education. According to the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of a Child, I feel the youth’s rights may be violated as cited in article 28, the access to education. It states that, “States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular: Make educational and vocational information and guidance available and accessible to all children” (United Nations, 1990, Section 1.d). The youth can sit in a classroom, but that does not make education accessible. By not providing enough resources to newcomer youth to learn the language, or at the very least a translator, I believe their right to education is compromised. I could feel my anger about a system and how they are set up to fail. I think that my own fear of failure triggered here. It felt unfair to me, and I think that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to step away. It wasn’t their fault the system was failing them, so why should they have to fail? How are youth expected to learn and graduate if they do not understand? However, my actions didn’t get them any closer to learning English. I was left feeling like I was contributing to the problem by making sure they passed.
Overall, I could have considered the Child and Youth Care Certification Board (2017) Code of Ethics and my ethical responsibilities in much more depth. When looking into my responsibility to self, I could have been more aware of my own values and feelings. I was very apprehensive about the tutoring aspect of this position, so I was clearly ill-equipped to handle this situation on my own and should have had more awareness of my role. I would consider this my first interaction during practicum that truly challenged my personal values (though it was not the last), and I struggled to identify that in the moment. I am still developing the necessary skills to benefit youth, but this experience helped me to be more intentional in future interactions. Since practicum is part of my education, I consider this experience to be an extension of my ongoing development as a CYC-P. I was hard on myself right after my interaction, so I made sure to attend to my own self-care by seeking guidance and attend to my feelings on the situation. My emotional wellbeing was impacted by this interaction, so I also used my process of self-reflection to help me attend to my self-care. (Child and Youth Care Certification Board, 2017).
While I recognized that I had an ethical lapse during the interaction, I also was a learner in that moment. None of the staff reprimanded me for my decision, but rather they wanted me to reflect and use it as an opportunity to grow. Their support helped me to be gentler on myself and recognize that my choices stemmed from deep seeded values that I had never identified before. A better choice in that moment would have been to step away, call a student-parent support worker (SPSW) for help with their homework, and be an observer. Considering my role and experience in the field, I think this would have been the most ethical way forward. The outcomes from my choices have been extremely informative. When I got home that night, I sent a case note for the interaction to who I thought was their SPSW and followed up with them. I learned that this student was very new to the program and did not have an SPSW assigned to them yet, which became high priority due to their language barrier. Without my interaction, it may have taken much longer for this student to receive the help they needed. The gravity of this interaction truly shows how ethics is not confined to crisis moments or life changing situations. Ethics can show up in the seemingly mundane interactions in our practice, but it is how we choose to show up to those moments that makes the difference.
I am glad that I advocated for this student and made them feel safe in the space, despite the possible consequences of my approach. It gave me a new appreciation for what newcomers go through, especially teens, when integrating into an entirely new culture. Through research and relationship building, I developed a new passion for the rights of newcomer youth. At this time, it is beyond what I can achieve as a student, but it has given me a goal to work towards in terms of incorporating advocacy into my practice. Most importantly, this experience taught me a lot about myself. A wise faculty member told me on my first day of practicum, “you can’t save the world your first day of practicum. You can’t burn it down either!”, so I waited until at least my fifth day to try! One thing I’ve always known about myself is that I have a lot of passion and I strive for improvement. And the first step in my improvement has been getting to know myself. There’s a lot more to learn, and I can’t wait to meet the practitioner I will become.
References
Child and Youth Care Certification Board. (2017). Standards of practice for North American child and youth care professionals. Responsibility to Self, Section B & C. Child & Youth Care Certification Board - Ethics (cyccb.org)
Garfat, T., Freeman, J., Gharabaghi, K. & Fulcher, L. (2018, October). Characteristics of a relational child and youth care approach revisited. CYC-Online, 7-49. CYC-Online October 2018 (cyc-net.org)
Mann-Feder, V. (2009, May). The self as a subject in child and youth care supervision. CYC-Online. 123. The self as subject in child and youth care supervision (cyc-net.org)
Mann-Feder V.R., and Steckley, L. (2021) A reflexive relational model for ethical decision-making in child and youth care. In V.R. Mann-Feder (Ed.), Doing ethics in child and youth care: A North American reader (pp. 111-131). Canadian Scholars.
Ricks, F. (2001, April). Without the self there is no other. CYC-Online, 27. Without the self there is no other (cyc-net.org)
United Nations. (1990, September). Convention on the Rights of the Child text. UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-text
