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.
On
Being a Resilient Manager
Charlie
was known by the other kids as ‘Smell’. It wasn’t
meant to be a subtle or witty nick name. It was simply a hard hearted
description of one of Charlie’s main attributes.
Charlie
was 10 years old and wore a nappy because of his incontinence. He
was the youngest of three brothers, in the local authority unit,
supposedly for adolescents, that I had just taken over in the early
1970s.
The
staff who had been caring for Charlie told me that he had always
worn a nappy and that they had concluded that incontinence was to
be Charlie’s lot. “Not necessarily”, was my response.
Given that Charlie had been in and out of care for most of his life
and had some learning difficulties, I began by wondering about the
degree of toilet training he had had.
I
suggested to the staff meeting that we ask Charlie if he would like
to stop wearing the nappy and begin a programme of toilet training.
The idea was received with considerable scepticism. “What
about all the washing?” and” Why put him through it?”
In the end they reluctantly agreed to the plan.
Charlie
was delighted with the idea. It took a little effort getting him
to stay with the new routine but within three weeks he was almost
completely continent during the day and, after a further few weeks,
at night as well.
There
were also some real adolescents in the home, but some had rather
infantile tantrums. One tall deep-voiced lad of 15, Robbie, would
fly into a rage at the slightest frustration of his wishes. I was
called in one day after he had thrown bedding and breakable items
from upstairs into the front hall.
The
staff had locked themselves into the kitchen. Robbie wouldn’t
listen to reason and was carrying on his destructive rampage. I
considered that I had no choice but to restrain him and hold him
until he had calmed down. This I proceeded to do, all the time telling
him to cool it. I even cracked a joke. That did it. Despite himself
he smiled and soon calmed down.
I
told Robbie that he had to learn to control his anger. I likened
it to a thermometer and said when he was angry the mercury was shooting
up. After that when he began to get heated by any small upset I
would look at him and slowly raise my hand to show that the mercury
was beginning to shoot up. He would usually look back and smile
and say, “OK, OK”, and calm down.
Mike’s
manner of demonstrating his upset was to go up into the attic and
climb out of the fan light on to the roof and sit there sulking
and shouting. It could take an hour to talk him down and sometimes
the best strategy was to ignore him and hope for rain.
Chestnuts was located in a rather posh area and managing the neighbours
could be a problem. One day an irate man turned up at the front
door with a batch of small plants in his hands.
“Look
at these”, he shouted, almost pushing the plants up my nose.
“What’s
the problem?” I asked.
“The
problem, mate, is your bloody kids”.
He
had a shallow trough built into the wall bordering his garden and
in this he had put a row of small plants. “And one of your
bloody hooligans has pulled them all out and left them on the path!”
he added.
“Hang
on”, I said defensively. ”How do you know it was one
of our kids? Did you see him?”
“Well
no…..”.
Just
then in walked Charlie. He saw the man holding the plants and said,
“I know who did it, Gus”.
“Get
out Charlie”, I shouted desperately.
“No.
Hang on a minute”, said the wounded gardener.
“It
was Eddie,” blurted out Charlie, “ I saw him do it”.
“Thank
you, Charlie. I will of course compensate you for the cost of the
plants.” I added for the benefit of the neighbour.
Our
immediate neighbour had an orchard in her garden and this was a
constant temptation to the kids, (as we called them then).
One
day I had a phone call.
“Oh,
hello, Mr. Greene, your children have been in my garden again and
stolen apples. I don’t mind about the apples so much. It’s
the trees my brother brought me back from Windsor. A few were damaged.”
I
decided in the interest of good neighbourliness and discipline I
should get the children to make amends. I got them all together
and told them about the phone call. Most agreed they had been over
the wall into the garden. I said that all would have a small amount
deducted from their pocket money and that they would write notes
of apology and a group of them would go round with me to the lady’s
houses and deliver these things.
“Shall
we take the apples back as well, Gus?”, they asked.
I
had assumed that the apples had long ago been eaten, but I did not
betray this.
“Well,
yes, of course”, I replied.
Two
boys left the room and returned after a short while with a large
basket full of apples.
We
duly went up the drive to the next door house and the lady of the
house was clearly impressed with the money, the notes and the apples
and expressed her thanks.
“There”,
I remarked as we left the house, “ do you see what a kind
woman you have been stealing from?”
“Yes
we do and we won’t go there again”, said one of the
youngest. “We will go to the house over the road next time”.
I
had learnt as a manager never to be surprised at what the young
people, - or the staff come to that, - might do next. I tried to
lead by example and respond positively to daily events. I enjoyed
the spirit of the young people, even when I found it challenging.
They had had tough lives and they needed all that spirit, properly
channelled, to have the reliance to stand up to and come back from
life’s upsets and disappointments. This was also true, in
a different way, for all the staff - certainly for the manager,
- and I am sure it still is.
To
be continued……
