Thursday, June 29, 2006
sign of the times
I have the wonderful privilege of presenting a few workshops at a staff training week at Camp Assiniboia. Two workshops deal with on of my favourite groups of people who attend camp - adults with mental and physical disabilities. The third workshop (the most dreaded workshop) is on camp policy around abuse disclosure, suicide, self harm and eating disorders. My supervisor aptly named the workshop "Tough Stuff."
I have been trying to prepare for the last several days and have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what it is about this topic the people as young as 16 and as old as 25 (I think) need to hear/experience in order to feel equipped to deal with the situation in a camp setting. I have spend the last two years of my life volunteering at a crisis centre and just when I think I have heard it all, someone comes up with a new way to hurt others. This inevitably spills over into a child's world and now they have to deal with it.
I am no expert, I just have experience. So how did I get myself into this? Policy is great because it tells us the right and wrong answer to problems but does it help us understand, react, support and work as a team? How do we deal with a child after they have told us about what goes on at home? In this respect, our policy tells us that since we are not professionals, it is best not to ask questions we are not prepared to hear the answer to. No leading questions, no clarifying questions, no "can you tell me where he hit you?" Simply report to the right person, follow the chain of command and stay focused in your confidentiality cause. I am obviously being ridged in my representation of how abuse is dealt with, but believe me when I say it is not a more than a fine line when you enter into a situation like this: camp counsellors are not trained in abuse disclosure, peoples lives and livelyhoods are on the line. Credibility, liability and risk become buzz words of the week. Freaky.
So now what? This is essentially the focus of my presentation. How do we move on once we follow the policy? How do you interact with a group of kids after a disclosure? How do we follow a policy that has no regard to the complex and wide range of natural feelings and emotions? This is the part of working with kids that really sucks: some have lives that dark and troubled and it is painful to watch with now power to intervene.
What is it that creates this? Is this "evil?" Is "Satan" behind all of this? Where did humans gain the capacity to hurt one another in an uneven match of adult verses child? How do we pick sides when every one seems to be suffering?
I have been trying to prepare for the last several days and have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what it is about this topic the people as young as 16 and as old as 25 (I think) need to hear/experience in order to feel equipped to deal with the situation in a camp setting. I have spend the last two years of my life volunteering at a crisis centre and just when I think I have heard it all, someone comes up with a new way to hurt others. This inevitably spills over into a child's world and now they have to deal with it.
I am no expert, I just have experience. So how did I get myself into this? Policy is great because it tells us the right and wrong answer to problems but does it help us understand, react, support and work as a team? How do we deal with a child after they have told us about what goes on at home? In this respect, our policy tells us that since we are not professionals, it is best not to ask questions we are not prepared to hear the answer to. No leading questions, no clarifying questions, no "can you tell me where he hit you?" Simply report to the right person, follow the chain of command and stay focused in your confidentiality cause. I am obviously being ridged in my representation of how abuse is dealt with, but believe me when I say it is not a more than a fine line when you enter into a situation like this: camp counsellors are not trained in abuse disclosure, peoples lives and livelyhoods are on the line. Credibility, liability and risk become buzz words of the week. Freaky.
So now what? This is essentially the focus of my presentation. How do we move on once we follow the policy? How do you interact with a group of kids after a disclosure? How do we follow a policy that has no regard to the complex and wide range of natural feelings and emotions? This is the part of working with kids that really sucks: some have lives that dark and troubled and it is painful to watch with now power to intervene.
What is it that creates this? Is this "evil?" Is "Satan" behind all of this? Where did humans gain the capacity to hurt one another in an uneven match of adult verses child? How do we pick sides when every one seems to be suffering?
