'Why can't
I use the living room tonight? I'm not stopping you two from watching
television. You had some friends round last week and I couldn't do my
recording then. So I don't see what's wrong with me doing it now.'
James was
now in his seventh month as a lodger in my house. This was one of our
regular discussions on how we managed to co-habit in the same building.
He wanted to record himself singing some of his favourite songs in the
main living area whilst the rest of us were watching television. Other
discussions had taken place around friends visiting, a party and him
wanting to store a fridge freezer in the living room. Over the last
10 years I have rented out my spare rooms to several lodgers and we
had always managed to just learn to live together. It only required
co-operation and communication and there were generally very few problems.
Those that did arise were invariably sorted out with a brief conversation.
On the whole our little community was a pleasant place to live where
each member was supported and contributed to the overall life of the
house.
James,
however, was different. He kept himself to himself, he was often sullen
and sulky and tended to operate in a way which took no account of how
he affected anybody else in the house. Over the final month or so of
James living in the house I began to initiate conversations to try to
understand the difference between James and the other six previous lodgers.
James began
to unravel a story which was pretty similar to those of a number of
young people that I had worked with over many years in youthwork. The
usual absent father, conflicts with a new stepfather, lack of close
friends, low academic achievement and finally a sense that the world
was against him. The more I talked with James, the more I realised that
he suffered from low self-esteem. He was so wrapped up in himself and
how the world affected him that he had no understanding or interest
in how he affected other people. Each conversation consisted of an incident
that had affected somebody else but James was only concerned with how
it had affected him.
We also
discussed a number of people who had shown some interest in his life
and who he now considered had let him down. However, even the evidence
from his own conversations tended to suggest that he was the person
that had wronged them. James was so wrapped up in his own life that
he seemed unable to understand the lives of others or more importantly
join in communal life. By its nature low self- esteem is self-focussed
and egocentric. It seems to impact on an individual's ability to contribute
to group or community life.
If this
is so, then it seems to me to have an impact on youthwork practice.
So much of the youthwork we conduct is based in some way around group
work. It may consist of small discussion groups, sports and other teams,
committees, work parties or just a generic youth group or club. In consequence,
much of our youthwork necessitates the integrating of individuals into
some corporate body or community.
A dance
group that operated at a club that I ran seemed to work perfectly. It
was implemented by a group of girls who attended the club and consisted
of input from an instructor and the girls working on their own routines.
The sessions required a small group of girls to work closely together
not only to perform the routines but also to work out the routines together.
The girls themselves developed the mechanisms of decision-making in
a way that allowed each member to contribute ideas and a joint decision
to be made.
Each week
one particular girl would cause an issue or occasionally a physical
fight over her role in the routine or whether her ideas were given sufficient
prominence. Sammy had attended the club for several years and throughout
that time she was continually in conflict with other members. She could
not work out how to operate in the corporate life of the club. Decisions
on where to go on club trips turned into arguments. A number of competitions
were ruined by arguments about whom she competed against or her claims
that she was cheated. Even basic decision-making systems regarding use
of equipment was the cause many a dispute from Sammy. She had been a
member of the club for 4 years and had made no friends despite the attempts
of a number of workers and members to integrate her into the club. Sammy
was brash and mouthy and this was generally taken as confidence.
So when
the dance group fell apart this was taken as an indication that Sammy
was unhappy about not being the leader in the group and therefore set
about destroying it. A group was set up for girls and the worker responsible
for this group realised that Sammy had low self-esteem. She worked with
Sammy on an individual basis to build up her self-esteem through achievement
and trust. Sammy was soon able to work in this new group, although on
a limited basis.
I was working
with a mixed group of older teens in an Oxfordshire market town. The
group were very close, motivated, and talented in many areas and had
high academic expectations. They were also used to making their own
decisions as a group and organising events and trips with minimum supervision.
A smaller
group of lads joined the club. They were generally not highly motivated
and tended not to do well at school. They tended to keep themselves
to themselves despite the existing group going out of their way to try
and involve the new lads in the corporate life and decision making of
the group. They never seemed to feel confident about making their views
known so they just never bothered.
A few months
later the group were organising an event that involved live music and
a lot of technical support. The three new boys latched onto the person
who did the lighting and sound. They seemed to shine in it. They spent
more and more time with the 'Techie' team and we found more and more
reasons to use technical support in the club activities. It was not
long before the boys grew in confidence and were contributing in all
sorts of other ways to the communal life of the club.
So much
youthwork seems to be built around group work but seems to take little
account of the young people who don't thrive in the group. This can
be for many reasons - lack of staff, lack of time or space, lack of
awareness or dogmatic adherence. I tended to have two extremes to deal
with young people who did not thrive in any of the group work that I
was responsible for. I would either exclude them or work hard at the
system that was failing the young person.
I liked
to think that I was treating each young person as an individual. Yet
in the case of the person who did not fit in because they could not
fit in due to low self-esteem (as with the person who was bored because
the group life failed to engage them), I was not willing to put in the
time with the individual in order to raise their self-esteem. Therefore
they tended not to fit into the group but also to cause chaos and conflict
within the group. However, once I began to work on the individual's
self-esteem as a precursor to any expectation of them being able to
contribute to the community life of the project, I began to see some
better results.
