The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
In a program for troubled youth we will always have a "better than ordinary" array of resources. For starters, there will be more people around to meet the needs of the youth – both the normal developmental needs and the special individual needs related to why a particular youth came to our program in the first place. There will be back-up staff to call upon when one staff member must undertake prescribed tasks with single or small groups of kids. There will be spaces and materials and equipment available for whatever projects and activities which we may consider necessary. There will be a compendium of information, theory and knowledge easily accessible, through staff colleagues and supervisors, library, internet access, etc. And there will be money – maybe not an awful lot, but always enough for food, clothes, staffing, transport, etc.
As we work with children, youth and families, we constantly ask ourselves where our clients will find for themselves the kinds of resources which we are calling on and using in our work. Conversely, we constantly aim to bring our clients to the point where they can manage with the kinds of resources which can generally be found in the communities where they live. Again, when we are drawing on inner resources of our own, we constantly work at building within our clients similar resources within themselves which they can take away with them.
It is ultimately disempowering for the families we work with to feel that we might be succeeding with their children purely because we (as an agency) have more money or more time or more people than they have. "If I could afford the food or clothing," they might say, "or if I had the same amount of time to spend on this, or if I weren’t alone and had all this help ... I would also be able to succeed."
Today in our practice we are specially conscious of the circumstances of our kids and their families "back home". Where would they be able to find this opportunity or this activity or this information? How can we teach them to do by themselves what we are doing in our work with them? How can be help them to be resourceful?
