Can you handle me...?

So yesterday I went back to school, and by lunchtime had cried twice and looked at jobs pages. Not because I'm desperately unhappy, but the prospect of another new year and another 200 students to get to know filled me with dread. I genuinely don't know if I can do it again, the fourth year in a row of building new relationships and then letting go after a year. It's tough. It's tough on some of the young people and it's tough on me, because sometimes it's not just a job. 

I've always felt that youthwork has been my vocation, it's not just a way to earn money (because if it is, I am in the wrong career), it's a way of life for me. I live and breathe youthwork. My very values and beliefs are founded upon the great practitioners: A.S Neill, Young, Bowlby. My holiday reading was "The Perception of Self in Everyday Life" - not your usual relaxing book. 

I've been lucky enough to have a very colourful and humbling career so far, and worked with thousands of young people - some of which are transitory relationships, but some of which are true bonds and I have the privilege of being an attachment figure to. Some of these young people come and go with fleeting interventions, but there are a precious few who remain in your life and in your heart throughout your career. 

The reason for this, quite simply, is that they changed my life more than I changed theirs. 

Young people can be fickle, and one minute you're their favourite person in the world, and the next week they have forgotten your name. But even these short interventions have meaning. If you live and breathe what you believe, you can have an impact on a young person with just one meeting. 

If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to build a meaningful relationship with a young person, then you are on to a winner. When I started youthwork, a colleague gave me two pieces of advice:

1. If you put the time in, you will get it back

2. Keep every piece of feedback that a young person gives you

Well, I have kept every scrap piece of paper and note that a young person has written to me, every card, post it, and drawing are lovingly placed into a scrapbook I keep - in fact I have two full books now. Not only are these the most precious things I own, but they give me real comfort in that I do my job well, and that I'm changing lives which is what I set out to do. 

As for putting the time in, it's amazing what results can be achieved with regular face to face contact and consistency. My values are based on honesty, integrity, and commitment. I always try to see the good in every young person, and sometimes it takes a while for that young person to show you that side, but if you give them the time to get to know you, they will. 

It is a real honour to be able to care for other people's children, and to be trusted with that responsibility. People are quite judgemental of my decision to not have children, and when I tell them my dream is to be a foster carer, they don't all get it. But to me, it would be a real privilege to work with the young people who need my time the most. It's all I've ever wanted, and I am on a mission to get to the point where I can offer my own safe space for a young person to flourish and grow. 

I was chatting late on Saturday night to a friend about my very specific plan, and at the end of my explanation, he stopped and paused, before turning to me and telling me I was amazing. That's the first time I have heard that and listened to it. That same day, a friend whom I respect enormously, told me "I happen to know that a whole lot of kids feel that you are their superhero". 

I've never thought of myself as amazing or a superhero. I've always just stuck to my values and worked to the very best of my ability. I've given young people my time and remained consistent. I've nurtured them and tried to meet their needs, from their starting point. 

One of these same friends shared a poem with me a long time ago, which is pinned to my wall. It is about the relationship between a father and son, but to me it encompasses my work and why I do it:

I feel that the confusion inside of me

My doubts and fears,

Would shock you

If I brought them out.

 

I know you know

All of that exists,

And you know it exists in me,

But you would rather,

Let it all remain anonymous.

 

And so I am alone

With my uncertainty about God,

My preoccupations with sex in a sex-orientated world,

My worries about my education and future,

The ambiguous relationship to you,

And the difficulties with my friends.

 

I know you are afraid to become vulnerable:

You would be embarrassed

To see another side of me

And to show another side of yourself;

And you don’t want our relationship to change

Even though it is phony in parts;

And above all

You want everything to remain predicatable

Because you love your peace too dearly.

 

And so I have very little choice

But to keep everything inside of me

To try to work it out

Alone

 

But if you let me talk,

If you invited me to talk

And could listen

Without being shocked

Without remaining aloof for your protection

Without immediately having all the answers

(even though I think you have answers

And good ones too)

Without playing therole of the knwoing parent,

If you could enter into the process of my life

And be beside me,

Then

That would mark the passage

From father/son to father/friend

And we could see each other in a new way:

 

We would be brothers.

You can be someone's superhero. You can change their lives. Let them change yours, I don't promise it will be easy, but I promise it will be worth it.