A
personal account of over 40 years’ experience in the residential
child service in the United Kingdom, based on involvement in the
services as a practitioner and manager.
Names and places have been changed for obvious reasons.
Christmas
Hope
Working
in residential child care over the Christmas period is a mixed blessing.
You can get to see the child emerge from being the ‘tough
nut’ and also see the hurt that can become exposed in the
neglected or unloved young person. You can get to share the fun
of a time when routines are relaxed and you can also see the worst
excesses of over indulgence and reliance on material things. You
can share in the hope of a belief in higher powers than those of
humans and the despair of thinking no one in heaven or earth cares.
The
message that most young people receive is that Christmas is about
spending money, giving and getting presents and feasting. But surely
there’s more to it than that. Isn’t it basically meant
to be about love and hope and a time to celebrate these?
I
can recall the wonder on the faces of two teenage girls at the special
residential school of which I was the Head, when, as Christmas approached,
they came across me striding down the corridor in a Father Christmas
suit with a sack of goodies over my back.
“Look!”
Sharon said, wide-eyed and Ruth said, after a pause, “Don’t
be daft, its Mr. Greene, ….isn’t it?”
They
both laughed joyfully as I handed out a box of chocolates to them.
And that was what I was trying to do over the festive season, -
add to the joy and wonder of Christmas for the young people, which
many of them had only glimpsed from afar in the past.
I
always used to put up a crib showing the Bethlehem scene in a prominent
place, just to remind us all what all the celebrations were for.
The school I managed in the late seventies was ostensibly a Christian
one but most of the staff, and many of the young people, were practicing
doubters. Yet most wanted to believe the Christmas message and to
share in the Christian hope of its truth.
We
had a Christmas concert and invited family and friends. We, - girls
and staff - put up decorations and had a Christmas tree. We sang
carols for some elderly people living in a home near by, for it
was important not to forget that as well as receiving we all had
much to give.
Now
Christmas can be seen as a time when the young people get more money,
but Christmas gift allowances, calculated to the last penny, hardly
reflect the joy of giving and receiving.
I
always encouraged the young people and staff, believers or not,
to see Christmas time, with its end 
of
one year and the start of a new one, as a time to revive the spirit
as well as the body. There is goodness and love and care for others
around. Life is not all about self-seeking. Let us celebrate that.
Nor do we, as human beings, have the sum of all knowledge. There
must surely be more to life than we are able to know at the moment.
The
presents will soon be forgotten and the food soon polished off,
but the care, the love and the hope of Christmas should live on,
shouldn’t it? I certainly hope it does for the hundreds of
young people and staff it has been my privilege to live and work
with over the last 40 years. Merry Christmas to one and all!
