The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
We hear a lot about the “rescue mentality” of child and youth workers who feel that their task is to “save” young people from the circumstances in which they are living and to “bring them home” . Of course we would want to offer safety where there is danger and nourishment where there is hunger ... but there is a more universal game plan under way that involves those who would rescue kids from the dangerous territory of youth itself.
Adults often find themselves out of their comfort zones when kids move away from the influences of home and parents to explore youthdom and their peer group. In all young people's lives there is that tug-of-war period when they vacillate between at-home and out-there, between parents and the rest of the world – and simultaneously parents waver and fret about whether their child is ready or not ...
We in Child and Youth Care are no different. The kids we work often have not been through the normal and healthy tug-of-war period, or they have been thrust ill-prepared into the “out-there” and gotten into difficulties and in some sense been “rescued” . But the rescue does not mean that they are now back home, safe and protected from the real world; it means only that we have some time to prepare for relaunch.
We know the feeling: A young girl at the beach gets into difficulty with some big waves. We may give her a hand and pull her to safety, but she doesn't cling to us in eternal gratitude; she turns back to the waves, because this is what she is busy doing. Similarly, the kid in your program has not arrived home; he is still in the process of leaving. We do not all relax because the struggle is over; the struggle is just beginning, and he will turn back to the waves, because this is what he is busy doing. In his mind he is already out there, and it is for him to succeed out there that we have this extra chance to help.
In our practice today we remember that we are not running a hotel or a retirement home. We are running a way station, an information centre, a first-aid post, a supply depot, an overnight stay ... for a traveller who is on an important journey – the journey of a lifetime. We are focussed on what the traveller may need before setting off in the morning.
