Con tents

Editorial: Going Home ...... / 3 A Tribute to an Amazing Residential Team ...... / 4 Kiaras Gharabaghi Simple Complexity in CYC Practice ...... / 8 Jack Phelan Ensuring Inclusion of Children from Marginalised Communities in India ...... / 10 Malay Dewanji Hide or Seek: looking for love in all the wrong places ...... / 28 Maxwell Smart and John Digney Catching Up: CYC and the 21st Century ...... / 34 Hans Skott-Myhre Time for Tea: Finding Meaning in the Rhythm of Mealtime Experiences ...... / 38 James Freeman Unplugged: Life without Social Media – A Qualitative Exploration ...... / 41 Cas san dra Nader, Catherine Hedlin, Donna Jamie son and Gerard Bellefeuille Personal Values ...... / 50 Kirsten Gibb Just Say “No” to Lemon Gin ...... / 54 Nils Ling Postcard from Leon Fulcher ...... / 56 Endnotes ...... / 60 Information ...... / 62

2 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 l a i r o t i d

Going EditoHomerial: Going Home e

o, as I write this I am pack ing my bags fer ence a number of times – and al ways it Sand figur ing out the lo gistics of going is the same – joy, hope, op ti mism and a be - to South Af rica for the "Cel e brat ing 40 lief that we, as Child and Youth care Years of Child and Youth Care Work" work ers, can change the world in which Con fer ence. It feels like ‘going home’. we live. CYCs in South Af rica seem to be - I have been going to South Afric a, and lieve that it is their re spon sibil ity to the NACCW Conf erence since1987, par tic ipate in chang ing the word in which when Apartheid was still in place and it they live. Ah, that we should all hold such a was a more dan ger ous world in which to be lief! be suppor tiv e of ‘all’ people . And yet, even Imag ine! Having a be lief that you can then the NACCW was one of the few le- change the world! And belie ving that your gally in te grated as so ci a tions in South work, as a CYC, is doing just that! Af rica. As I sat in that meet ing place, all those I re mem ber those early visits – con - years ago, and let the joy, the belief and the necting with people in diff er ent sector s, spirit roll over me, I felt, as I have said be - hang ing out in re stricted places, raising my fore, that I was ‘at home’. At home in the fist in suppor t of equality as the men with sense that I was with peo ple who shared machine guns watched us, moving quickly the same be liefs, val ues, and what ever, that off the streets of So weto as the tanks I did. It felt, simply , like fam ily. rolled by. Damn! Those were scary mo- So now, as you read this, I am in Cape ments for a for eigner – and ev eryda y life Town. Once again I am at the NACCW for those who lived there. conf er ence – but there is a diff er ence this In the midst of all this madness which I time – many of my Ca na dian col leagues did not under stand, there was the are here with me. I can only hope that NACCW Con fer ence. they might expe ri ence the spirit – and As peo ple walked into the meet ing bring it home. place sing ing and carr ying their re gional For me whether I am embed ded in flags, heads up high, joy evi dent and voices CYC in Canada , or in South Afric a, I feel loud, I felt the spirit of South Af rican Child like I am at home. At home with car ing, and Youth Care. love and people who want to make the A spirit of joy, of be lief, of hope and world a better place for childr en. com mit ment. Thank you all! It felt like home to me. I have been back to the NACCW con - Thom

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 3 A Tribute to an Amazing

ResidentA Tribute to an Amazingial Residential Team Team

Kiaras GharabagKiaras Gharabaghi hi

School of Child & Youth Care, Ryerson University [email protected]

t is with a heavy heart that I write my was sud den and unex pected , and only a Icol umn this month. Sadly, another young few short days after moving on from her person who largely grew up in resi den tia l long-term resi den tial placemen t where she group care has gone to another world; had spent the pre vious four years. She was, hopefull y one that is peaceful, filled with by all accounts, a caring, gen er ous, giv ing love, and de void of pain. Her depar ture and deeply thoughtful young woman, with

4 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 a feisty charac ter , an im pres sively broad time, and I spend a few hours with the vo cab u lary of some what in sult ing words team once per month to re flect on the and phrases, and alwa ys will ing to do bat tle work, the expe rience of the work, and and also to apol ogize for any wrongs she some times just to be to gether and enjoy might have done. Trust was a diff icult con- the mo ment. It is not hard to enjoy the cept for her, but she found ways of moment in the presence of this team; trusting the child and youth work ers she rarely in my car eer have I en counter ed a woke up to, spend her days with, and group of prac ti tio ners who are as re flec - under whose watch she fell asleep night tive, deter mine d, commit ted and caring as after night. I am told she was ex traor di- this team. Over the years, they have bat- narily cre ative, and had thoughts about a tled each other on var ious per spec tives car eer in fashion or in desig n. And she was about the work, the values that drive the a lover of na ture, coming to life in glow ing work, the best ways of being helpful to the and shim mer ing ways when par tic i pat ing in young peo ple, and the many ways of cre at - camp trips, paddling a canoe or just staring ing a team dy namic that is healthy, out on the lake. re ward ing and ul ti mately to the ben e fit of She laughed when she could, but signif i- the young peo ple in the resi dence . Their cant parts of her life were about pain. battles have often been hard and pointed: Dif ficult pain, compli cated pain, hard to Struc ture ver sus flex i bil ity, rules ver sus tackle sort of pain. As she appr oached the con ver sa tion, con se quences ver sus pro - lat ter parts of child hood, she faced her cess. The team has no free load ers; not toughest battle yet; demons appear ed in one indi vid ual who asks others to fight her mind, unset tled her, scared her, and their battles . Ev ery one is in; ev ery one per haps, one might spec u late, ul ti mately wants to en sure that the stan dard of eval- contr olled her in that moment her jour ney u at ing the care, the re la tional con text and here with us ended abruptly. every day life in the resi dence starts with This wonder ful young woman leaves awe some and ends with life alter ing. Ev ery - be hind a mother and sib lings; dif ficult re la- one is prepar ed to be vulner a ble . Our tionships to be sure, but also meaning ful con ver sa tions have cov ered val ues, be liefs, ones, car ing ones, and rela tion ships that fears, anx i eties, and many other re flec tions likely were central in her time here on Self — Self in prac tice, Self in the mo - amongst us. She also leaves behind a group ment, Self in re la tion ship, Self in judg ment, of other young peo ple who had lived with Self in cul ture. her, some for years, oth ers for months, and This team has what I like to think of as some for just weeks. And she leaves be- a magic po tion; an in gre dient that can not hind a team of child and youth care be repli cat ed, that is unique to this group practi tio ners; this is the team I want to of people , to the now embed ded cultur e write about. of the house, and to the rela tion ships that I have known this team for quite some were, are and will be present here. I love

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 5 that they never agree en tirely on anything. are open to the con versa tion, ready to re - This gives me conf idence that young peo - flect, to ques tion and to consid er seri ousl y ple will never be subject to the oppr essio n and with re spect what their col leagues are of adult consen sus . They are learning saying. I also love the leader ship of this about and have moved miles in their prac - team that man ages, some times bril liantly tices re lated to youth voice, power, and sometimes awk wardly, to steer these en gage ment, and iden tity, not to men tion con ver sations and de bates, and to main tain rights. They are com mit ted to being pres - them within an over arch ing com mit ment ent, being engag ed, playing, guid ing, to recog niz ing the wonder s, the beauty coach ing, advis ing, and also shar ing, crying, and the amaze ment of sharing these jour - laughing and ad vocat ing with the young neys to gether, dif fer ent adults, dif fer ent people in the house. They know the young youth, in often dan ger ously in ad e quate sys - people and the young peo ple know them. tems and inter-or ga ni za tional in ter ac tions. They have liber ated themsel ves, and their These are dif fi cult times con front ing res i den tial con text, from ab surd and ar bi - this wonder ful team. There is great sad- trary rules about bound aries, ness, many tears, a sense of pro found loss. con se quences, crowd con trol mea sures, There are regr ets, feelings of guilt, shame dis charge pol i cies, and other forms of ex - and pow erles sness . There are questions clu sion, marginalization or op pres sion. that will never be ans wered. Ine vi ta bl y, They LOVE in practic e, and they are very there will be feelings of anger; a sense that proud of it. a system failed, a pro cess once again Of course they have their moments. proved in ad e quate, and ul ti mately, that no Some times they grow tired; some times, one will be respon si ble . Just another young they wonder what the point of it all is. person gone. Once again the demons have Often they desper ately want to re vert to won, and we have been caught watching. older ways of doing things – back to the None of this, how ever, can undo the structur e, the rules and contr ol. I ad mire mo ments of giv ing that un folded all around the team members who dare to question the young woman. One team mem ber the new val ues and dir ections , who won- spoke to her chal lenges with respec t to der aloud what is lost when we move ex press ing in ti macy, and then re called that towar d re la tional practices, a focus on moment just a few days be fore the young daily events in life, on simpl y being present. woman moved from the resi dence when And I love the other team mem bers who she over came that chal lenge of in ti macy

6 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 and sponta ne ousl y gave the young woman a strong, pow erful hug. Another team mem ber re called her bat tles with the young woman in the early mornings, and the grad ual de vel op ment of mu tual re spect and connec tion as time went on; yet an- Child & Youth Care publishing other team member re called her mo ments with the young woman while camping, and simplified the transformative power of the connec - tion to natur e. And on it went. Storie s about love, car ing, connec tions , and the very best of being with young peo ple. As one team mem ber strug gled to hold back tears, an other pro vided touch, gently and with love. Time has a way of healing wounds. The team will re mem ber our young woman, and hon our that mem ory by fo cus ing on the mo ments that made life worth liv ing. This team will have to mourn the loss of a loved one; but they will do this together , and they will do this with grace. This team is a team of hope, of strength, of com fort in vul ner a bil ity, and of com mit ment and love that is unpar al leled . This month I pay tribute to this team that rep re sents the best of resi den tia l child and youth care prac tice; every mem ber of this team, full time, part time, re lief, su per visor and Di- rec tor, tutor and thera pist. Shed the tears you need to shed, but hold your heads Visit our Book Store at high when the moment comes. And know that your ef forts, your work, your strug - http://cycnetpress.cyc-net.org gles and your vic to ries are the sto ries of heroes. To Emily, may you rest in peace, and may your ex istence , in what ever form, un - fold without pain and without demons from now until eter nity.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 7 rof essio nal CYC practic e often looks adult’s ability to push them around, since Pcounter -intu itiv e. What you see is they have no need to consid er any one often not what is ac tuall y happen ing. Obvi - else. Just becaus e you want them to be ous ex am ples are youth that get loud and consid erate of oth ers will not create this, boastful when they are feeling small and and forcing them to be “so cially ap pro pri - scared, or aggr es sive be cause they fear at - ate in their in terac tions with oth ers” is tack, not be cause worse that use less. they want to in flict Youth and fami - pain. lies get asked about A use ful exam - Simple use ful ap proaches ple is a youth who oc ca sion ally, and the gets mad at the staff Complexity in most frequent qual - becaus e he /she did ity of a good not meet pro gram worker is ‘some one ex pec ta tions (cur - CYC PracticSimple Complexity in CYC Pract ice e who lis tens to me’. few, task This does not mean com ple tion) and the coun sel ing man- when confr onted Jack PhelanJack Phelan tra of un con di tional state that it is your pos i tive re gard, fault for expect ing which only works in too much of them. an an ti sep tic en vi - The youth is more ron ment like an of fice, right than not, and we need to hear this as but rather someone who appr eci ates my less of an ex cuse and more of an ac cu rate point of view and can hear me when I self-as sess ment. Our re sponse will be state unpop u lar opinions . CYC staff who more help ful if it in cludes an apolog y and are not yet prof essiona l often belie ve that some discus sion of how to man age things they have a strength based focus, but they better on both ends. only see strength in beha vior s that com ply We need to be aware of the lack of with pro gram or social ex pec ta tions. Case other awareness and the neediness of notes and log en tries list good moments, youth who have expe ri enced abuse and eval u ated as good by the writer, which ne glect. Adults often over esti mate the so- usuall y means in compli ance with progra m cial awareness of our youth and expect ex pec ta tions. too much empa th y for others , based on Prof essio nal CYC practic e would not our own beliefs and values. Simple things pro mote anger man age ment groups, but like expect ing a sincer e apolog y when a anger expr essio n groups, since anger is the youth has hurt someone else is expe ri - basic energ y driving much of the pain enced by the youth as bull ying and based beha vior of our youth (see Jim co er cion which sim ply dem on strates the Anglin’s work). Matur e prac ti tio ners are

8 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 not un com fort able with dif fi cult be hav ior, but curi ous and open to the messag e being expr essed. Mark Krueger liked to refer to “lunch ideas” which cre ated com plex re sults from simple sit u a tions. He would value the worker who made a point of forgiv ing eas - ily and doing lit tle acts of kind ness when a youth was partic u larly anno ying, in order to create moments of cogni tiv e disso nance about the belief that no one cared for him. How you sat to gether at meals and passed food and made food an ex am ple of caring and connec tion even when ev ery one wor - ried about get ting his fair share was a skill that he val ued. When what looks simple gets posi tive results in life space work, there is often a com plex strat egy be hind it.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 9 e c m n e r e f n o C Ensuring Inclusion of Children e n r e B

E

C from Marginalised I F

CommunitieEnsuring Inclusion of Childr en from Marginalised Communit ies in Isndia in India

Malay DewanjiMalay Dewanji

The Right to Education Act, 2009 and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (Amendment) 2012, in India guarantee free and compulsory education to all children of India between the age group of 6 – 14 years. Yet, 8.1 million children are out of school. Moreover, 40% of children drop out of school before completing 8 years of education. (For details see https://www.savethechildren.in/14-sample-data-articles/236-bvlgari.html 1

oday a good num ber of NGOs in clud ing tional, (In ter na tional Fed er a tion of Tthose, as mem bers of FICE India, have Ed u ca tive Com mu ni ties) under the lead er- been working to ensur e that chil dren from ship of the “Lib eral As so ci a tion for all the marginalized and ex cluded comm u - Move ment of Peo ple (LAMP). As FICE In - nities attai n their Right to Ed uca tion. The terna tiona l was estab lis hed in 1948, under main ob jec tive of these NGOs is to ded i - the aus pices of the UNESCO, for net work cate them selves to tackling the exclu sion de velop ment of the child care and de vel- of all mar gin al ised groups from ed u cation op ment ac tiv i ties, FICE-India also has been in a strate gic man ner, in line with Mil len - es tab lished as a net work of child care in - nium De vel op ment Goal (MDG) 2 to sti tu tions and child care work ers from achieve uni ver sal pri mary ed u ca tion, the dif fer ent parts of India with LAMP pro vid - Ed u ca tion for All (EFA) goals, and in ter na - ing infrastructural support for FICE-India’s tional human rights instr uments such as office at New Delhi. the UN Convention on the Rights of the FICE-India and its mem ber or gani za- Child. tions belie ve that pov erty, marginalisation, FICE-India was estab lis hed in 1990s, as and so cial ex clu sion are in ex tri ca bly linked. the India n countr y unit of FICE-In ter na - There fore, many child care in stitu tions

10 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 have adopted equity and inclu sio n as core are no guar an tees that im prove ments in prin ciples, in trin sic to a rights-based ap- ac cess will be sustained. proach, to es tab lish an egal i tar ian and A rights-based appr oach is a democratic society. transformational de vel op ment pro cess in Inclu sio n is the proces s of ensur ing that which peo ple are the driv ers and subject s all are able to par tic i pate fully in all of their own de velop ment. Moving to a spheres. In clu sion is a de vel op ment issue. rights-based ap proach im plies fo cus ing on The proces s of inclu sio n is not just about the rela tion ship be tween the state and im proving ac cess to ser vices, but also sup - civil so ci ety. A rights-based appr oach is porting peo ple – includ ing those who are about im proving wider sys tems of gov er - dis crim i nated against and mar gin al ised – to nance which de termine progr ess to wards en gage in wider process es to ensur e that our vision of a world where ev ery one has their rights and needs are recognised. access to the same resour ces. It implies a Ulti mat ely the groups who are mar gin - change in the power dynam ics betw een al ised need to be inte gra ted into the those with out access and the state power po lit ical system in order to up hold their contr oller s. It aims to bring about sus tain - rights of ac cess to all the re sources. Eq uity able and long term struc tural change in and in clu sion are there fore in ter re lated. In pol i cies, pro ce dures and laws, as well as the Ann ual Genera l Meet ing-2012 of changes in at ti tudes and be hav iours. There FICE-India, all the mem bers agreed that are also in cre men tal ben e fits in im ple - addr ess ing these issues requires: ment ing a rights-based ap proach and con sid er able po ten tial for multiplier • better rec og ni tion and un der stand ing effects by focusing at a number of different of the dif fer en tial needs of in di vid u als levels. and groups; In India, the enr olment of chil dren for • iden ti fy ing and tack ling the root causes 6-14 years age group is 98% of the total of ex clu sion; chil dren of the same age group, but the en- • pro mot ing and sup port ing marginalized rolment of chil dren for 11 to 14 years age peo ples’ in clu sion in de ci sion-mak ing group is only 58% of the total childr en in pro cesses; and this age group, be cause many en rolled chil - • iden ti fy ing and im ple ment ing ap pro pri - dren leave their schools within five years ate and sus tain able so lu tions. of enr olment. Only 70% of chil dren who had been enr olled at tend school regu lar ly. A needs-based appr oach aims to Scheduled Castes were formerl y consid - change peo ple’s sit u a tion of de pri va tion or ered as untouch able castes within the lack of ac cess to ser vices, view ing peo ple Hindu com mu nity in co lo nial India. Now as passiv e ‘recip i en ts’ or ‘bene f icia ries’. after in de pend ence, the Gov ern ment of This appr oach may satisf y the needs of India has final ized a schedule of those for- that group of peo ple for now but there merly untouch able castes and has been

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 11 pro vid ing some pos i tive eco nomic, ed u ca - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_Child tional and po lit ical benefits for their ren_to_Free_and_Compulsory_Education overall development. _Act 2 Sched uled Tribes, orig i nally in dig e nous The caste system in India is a system of com mu ni ties, are now rec og nized as a social strati f ica tion, which histor i cally sepa - group of tribal comm uni ties by the Gov - rated com mu ni ties into thou sands of ernment of India. endogamous he - The Gov ern- red i tary groups ment has been called Jatis, usu- pro vid ing some ally trans lated af fir ma tive eco - into Eng lish as nomic, “castes”. The ed u ca tional and jatis are thought po lit i cal ben e fits of as being to these sched- grouped into uled tribe four “Varnas” – com mu ni ties as Brahmins, well, for their Kshatriyas, de vel op ment. Vaishyas and These are two Shudras. Cer tain groups of people who have been exclud ed groups, now known as “Dalits”, were ex - and op pressed his tor i cally in so cial, cul - cluded from the Varna sys tem al to gether, tural, eco nomic and po lit i cal af fairs of India. os tra cized as untouchables. Sched uled castes com mu ni ties gen er ally Tra di tional schol ars iden ti fied the caste used to do me nial jobs like sweep ing, scav - sys tem with Hindu ism in the India n sub- eng ing, dis pos ing of dead an i mals, tan ner, conti nent, but the system is found in other shoe-maker, burn ing corpses etc. within re ligions, albeit on a smaller scale includ ing the Hindu reli gio us comm unity , but the in Sikh ism, Ju da ism, Bud dhism, Chris tian ity, Sched uled tribe com mu ni ties were not and Islam in the India n subcon ti nent. part of the Hindu comm unity . Today the (Caste in India: for details go to Sched uled castes pop u la tion and Sched - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/caste3 uled tribe popu la tion in the whole of India In ad dition, there has been another are about 16% and 8% of the popu la tion large group ref erred to as the “other re spec tively. Il lit er acy among the sched uled back ward castes/class (OBCs) in India, castes and scheduled tribe chil dren is who were earlier consid ered as “Shudras”, mostly due to the his tor i cal caste system who were placed just above the untouch - in India. (For de tails about the Rights of able castes but below the high castes Childr en to free and com pulsor y edu ca - (Brah min, Vaidyas, Kayastha/Khatriya, tion Act, see Vaishyas etc.) and some so cial, ed u cational

12 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 and eco nomic ben e fits are also given to untouchability to be ille gal . In 1955, India these castes. These OBCs were gener all y en acted the Untouchability (Of fences) Act physi cal la bor ing castes, and the high (renamed in 1976, as the Protec tion of castes of India were gen er ally own - Civil Rights Act). It ex tended the reach of ers-castes, who normall y did not do any law from in tent to man dator y en force - phys i cal la bour in the India n soci ety , but ment. The Sched uled Castes and en joyed the major share of socio-cul tural Sched uled Tribes (Pre vention of Atroci - and economic benefits. ties) Act was passed in India in 1989. Some In dian so ci ol o gists/educationists India tracks vi o lence against Dalits na- also refer to these OBC com mu ni- tionwide; in 2011, the crime preva lence ties/castes as “other back ward classes”, rate against Dalits was 2.8 per 100,000. becaus e some groups of the Mus lim reli - Since 1950, the countr y has enact ed many gious com mu nity are also in cluded within laws and so cial ini tia tives to pro tect and the OBC group, due to their economi c im prove the socio-eco nomic con di tions of “back ward ness”. its lower caste popu la tion. These caste Betw een 1860 and 1920, the British clas si fi ca tions for col lege ad mis sion quo tas, seg re gated In di ans by caste, grant ing ad- job res er va tions and other af fir ma tive ac- minis tra tiv e jobs and senior appoin tments tion ini tia tives, accor ding to the Su preme only to the upper castes. Socia l unr est Court of India, are based on he redity and dur ing the 1920s led to a change in this are not changeable . These initia tives by pol icy. From then on, the co lo nial ad min is- India, over time, have led to many lower tration began a pol icy of pos itiv e caste members being elected to the high- dis crim i na tion est po lit i cal by re serv ing a of fices in clud ing cer tain per cent - the election of age of gov ern- K.R. Narayanan, ment jobs for a Dalit, as Pres i - the lower castes. dent of the After India na tion from achieved in de - 1997 to 2002. In pend ence, this 2007, India pol icy of caste- elected K. G. based res er va- Balakrishnan, a tion of jobs was Dalit, to the for ma lised with lists of Sched uled Castes office of Chief Justice. (Dalits) and Sched uled Tribes (Adivasis) In 2007, Uttar Pradesh, the most popu - Ar ticle 15 of the Consti tution of India lous state of India, elected Mayawati pro hib its dis crim i na tion based on caste Kumari as the Chief Minis ter , the highest and Ar ti cle 17 de clared the practice of elected off ice of the state. BBC claims,

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 13 “Mayawati Kumari is an icon for millions of of India passed “The Right to Ed uca tion In dia’s Dalits, or untouchables as they used Act in 2009”, and the “Right of Childr en to be known.” In 2009, the India n parlia - to Free and Com pul sory Ed u ca tion Act ment unan i mously elected a Dalit, Meira (Amend ment) in 2012”. As a first step in Kumar, as the first fe male speaker. The Na - the ex er cise of bringing childr en from mar- tional Com mission for Sched uled Castes ginal ised com mu ni ties into the main stream and Scheduled Tribes was es tablis hed to school sys tem, a care ful mapping of the in ves ti gate, mon i tor, ad vise, and eval u ate margin al ised chil dren – who they are and the socio-eco nomic prog ress of the where they live – has been under taken Sched uled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. sys tem at i cally. (Right to Ed u ca tion in India: In ad di tion to tak ing af fir ma tive ac tion For de tails see http://mhrd.gov.in/rte4) for peo ple of scheduled castes and sched- uled tribes, India has expanded its eff ort to Understanding exclusionary practices includ e people from poor, “backwar d” castes in its eco nomic and so cial main - An in-depth under standing of the real i - stream. The Mandal Commis sion, ties of the situ ation faced by mar gin al ised estab lis hed by the Gov ernment of India, chil dren at the com munity and school cov ered more than 3,000 castes under level, in clud ing an iden ti fi ca tion of all the OBC cat e gory, re gard less of their af flu ence points of exclu sio n from the level of the or eco nomic sta tus and stated that OBCs house hold up to ed u ca tion sys tem, re- form around 52% of the India n popu lation. quires fur ther in for ma tion and How ever, the Na tional Sam ple Sur vey puts explanation. the figur e at 32%. There is substa n tial de- Exclusionary prac tices mostly begin bate over the exact number of OBCs in even be fore a child reaches the school India; it is gen er ally esti mated to be siz able, pre mises. A Dalit child espe cially a girl, for but many belie ve that it is lower than the insta nce, trav eling through an upper caste figur es quoted by either the Mandal Com- vil lage on her way to school may face ha - mission or the Na tional Sam ple Sur vey. In rassment on her way that could well 1990, the gov ernment reser ved 27% of job dis cour age her, and dissuad e her par ents po si tions in gov ern ment-owned en ter - from sending her to school. Par ents of prises and agen cies for OBCs on the basis chil dren from Mus lim and tribal fam ilies of the Mandal Com mis sion‘s rec om men da- may also have sim ilar in hi bi tions in sending tions, and this system is ong oing. The 27 their childr en to schools that are lo cated per cent res er va tion is in ad di tion to 22.5 in areas domi nated by the ma jority com - percent set aside for India’s lowest castes munity . The safety of chil dren regu lar ly for the last 50 years. sub jected to de rog a tory name call ing, re - In order to guaran tee free and com pul- buk ing, even phys i cal ha rass ment, is a sory ed u cation to all chil dren of India in sig nif i cant fac tor in de ter min ing the par tic - the 6-14 year age group, the Gov ernment ipa tion of chil dren from such backgr ounds

14 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 in school. Chil dren from Dalit (Sched uled rebuking them for asking questions in Castes), Sched uled Tribes and Muslim class. comm u ni ties have com mon as well as (iv) Excluding Scheduled Castes (Dalits) unique needs and challenges impeding children from public functions in the attempts to their inclusion. school. These include Fol low ing is a brief ac count of needs non-participation in the morning and the natur e of exclu sio n per taining to assembly or other public events such each com mu nity as ex tracted from the Re - as on Republic Day or Independence port of the Commit tee on Imple me nta tion Day. Routinely making them sit at the of RTE (Right to Ed uca tion) and Re sultant back of the classroom. Re vamp of Sarva Siksha Abhijan (SSA) to (v) Making derogatory remarks about achieve ed u cation for all. SSA is the gov - Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children and ernment of India ’s flagship programme for their supposed inability to keep up achieve ment of Uni ver sal iza tion of El e - with academic work. men tary Ed u ca tion. This list ing of ex amples was iden ti fied by the mem ber or ga ni za tions of FICE- India, in a meeting held in December, 2012:

Ex clu sion by Teach ers (i) Segregated seating arrangements in the classroom with Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children made to sit separately and typically at the back of the classroom. (ii) Undue harshness in reprimanding Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children, especially in relation to upper caste (vi) Denying Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children. Examples include: scolding children the use of school facilities, children for coming late to school, in including water sources. Keeping water resolving fights between children, segregated; even preventing Scheduled condoning name-calling by upper caste Castes (Dalits) children from using the children, and so forth. school taps or containers used to (iii) Not giving time and attention to store drinking water has been Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children in reported from many areas. the classroom, such as not checking (vii) Asking Scheduled Castes (Dalits) their homework or class work, not children to do menial tasks in school, answering their queries – even

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 15 including cleaning the school premises (iii) Reinforcing caste characteristics in and even the toilets. syllabi and textbooks. (iv) Lack of sensitisation of teachers in Ex clu sion by peer group teacher education and training. (i) Calling Scheduled Castes (Dalits) (v) Insufficient recruitment of Scheduled children by caste names. Castes (Dalits) teachers. (ii) Not including Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children in games and play Accor ding to the de cision taken in the activities in the classroom or in break FICE-India con vention, held at Kolkata, time when children go out to play; India, in 2012, the inter ventions for chil- Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children dren belong ing to Scheduled Caste often return to their own com muni ties have to be based on the in - neighborhoods to play with ten sive micro-plan ning ad dress ing the non-enrolled Scheduled Castes (Dalits) needs of every child. Ac cording to the children there. Kolkata con ven tion re port, the fol low ing (iii) Not sitting with Scheduled Castes sug gested list of in ter ven tions for in clu sion (Dalits) children in the classroom. of Scheduled Castes (Dalits) chil dren can help in ad dress ing the above-mentione d prac tices of discrimination and exclusion.

(i) Establishing norms of behaviour within the school for teachers and students. (ii) Timely detection of the forms of discrimination practiced in a particular context by either teachers or students. This is not an easy task as many forms of discrimination have become part of accepted behaviour and go unnoticed and unchallenged by the majority. Finding ways of listening to children’s voices would be crucial to this exercise. Setting up a system of Exclu sion by the system reporting on discriminatory practices (i) Incentives schemes meant for at the school level would be a place to Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children not start. Complaint boxes that are being implemented in full. regularly dealt with at the LAMP’s (ii) Lack of acknowledgement of street children’s school meetings are a Scheduled Castes (Dalits) role models suggested intervention. in the curriculum or by teachers.

16 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 (iii) Timely redressing of instances of discrimination at the level of the school or Block/Area development office. Delays in taking action can lead to discouragement on the part of the parents and teachers. (iv) Escorts to school for Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children. (v) Establishing norms for classroom interactions such as seating patterns that ensure that children are not segregated on the basis of caste, community or gender. The ‘Nali-Kali’ teacher’s role in this process has been model of multilevel learning, pioneered largely neglected so far. Interventions in Karnataka in the mid nineties, (based in the following areas would go a long on the Rishi Valley School-in-a-bag way in overturning the current programme, of Bengaluru, Karnataka) situation. is worth revisiting and adopting as it (a) Sensitisation of teachers from the allows children to sit in groups based stage of pre-service training onwards. on levels of learning. This not only Special modules should be developed breaks social barriers but it also allows by recognized experts for use in for a rotation and thus inter-mingling teacher education and training as children move in and out of the programmes. Special in-service training learning circles. within the mandated 20 days should be (vi) Co-curricular activities, such as sports, organised to deal with the specific music and drama which tend to break problems of inclusion at the Block social barriers among children need to level. be encouraged. They have remained a (b) Setting norms for teacher hugely neglected area and would be an behaviour. Some norms related to important strategy for increasing the corporal punishment and abuse have interaction of children as well as been included in the RTE (Right to allowing children from varied Education Act, 2009). Strict monitoring backgrounds to exhibit their talents and adherence to these norms would and get recognition help eliminate some of the (vii) Recognizing the agency of teachers. malpractices mentioned above, such as The teacher is a key figure in the making Scheduled Castes (Dalits) school and can help to either children perform menial tasks. perpetuate or obliterate (viii) Helping the teacher develop discriminatory practices. But the pedagogical tools and classroom

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 17 practices that allow social barriers to the studies conduct ed so far, which need be broken. Technical support in to be ad dressed urgently. developing such tools should be sought from experts as well as civil Ex clu sion of Sched uled Tribe Chil dren society groups. Tribal childr en, be sides facing some of (ix) Providing adequate infrastructure for the exclusionary practic es mentione d elementary schooling in districts with above for Dalit chil dren also face prob lems concentration of Scheduled Castes pe cu liar to their sit u a tion. Tribal pop u la - (Dalits) population. tions tend to be concen tra ted in remote , (x) Opening schools in Scheduled Castes hilly or heavily for ested areas with dis - (Dalits) persed pop u la tions concentrated where even physi cal neighborhood ac cess to schools is wherever dif fi cult. If there are required. schools and teach ers, (xi) Special training as the teachers are un - per need for age likely to share the appropriate stu dents’ so cial and admission cul tural back ground (xii) Interventions for or to speak the stu- specific categories dents’ lan guage, of deprived lead ing to a sense of children belonging to scheduled caste alienation among the children. community living in difficult The bigges t problem faced by tribal circumstances. chil dren is that of their own languag e. (xiii) Monitoring attendance and retention Anal y sis of the ed u ca tional in di ca tors of Scheduled Castes (Dalits) children shows that ma jority of tribal chil dren drop regularly out of the pri mary school due to the dif - (xiv) Providing context-specific fer ence in the school and home languag e. intervention in the form of a special Teach ing ma te ri als and text books tend to facility like residential schools or be in a languag e the students do not un- transport as required. der stand; content of books and syllabi ignor e the students ’ own knowledge and Sarva Siksha Abhijan-SSA (Ed u ca tion for expe ri ence and focus only on the dom i- All) re cog nises that problems of exclu sio n nant lan guage and cul ture. Not often take highly local and con text spe cific un der stand ing the school lan guage and forms, and the above men tioned is a gen - theref ore the course con tent, the childr en eral list of is sues that have emerged from are unable to cope, end up repeating grades and eventually dropping out.

18 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 While instr uction in the mother tongue were final ized in the tribal ed u cation con - is widely re cog nised as ben e ficial to lan - fer ence, or ga nized by FICE-India and LAMP, guage com pe ten cies in the first lan guage, held at Bangriposi, Odisha, in January, 2013. achievement in other subject areas, and Teach ing in the local tribal lan guage by sec ond languag e learning, there is no ex- recruit ing nativ e tribal speakers. plicit ob liga tion on the states to in stitute mother tongue ed uca tion. The “three lan- (i) Development of educational material guage form ula” that has been the in local tribal languages using resources cor nersto ne of the languag e policy in India available within the tribal community. has not been unif ormly im plemented (ii) Establishing resource centres in tribal across the coun try. In some states such as dominated states for providing training, Jharkhand , Orissa and Chhattisgarh, which academic and other technical support are lin guis ti cally di verse, the prob lem is for development of pedagogic tools compoun ded by the mul ti plic ity of lin guis - and education materials catering to tic backgr ounds represented in a single multilingual situations. classroom. (iv) Training of teachers in multilingual The Tribal Wel fare Min istr y of the Gov - education. ern ment of India has tried to addr ess this (v) Sensitisation of teachers to tribal prob lem by es tab lish ing res i den tial or cultures and practices. ‘Ashram’ schools for tribal chil dren; how - (vi) Incorporation of local tribal ever, there is a need not just for many knowledge in the curriculum and more res i den tial schools but also for im- textbooks. proved qual ity in these schools. With the (vii) Creating spaces for cultural mingling no ti fi ca tion of the RTE Act, ‘Ashram’ within schools so as to recognise tribal schools would also come under its pur - cultures and practices and eliminate view and have to follo w the prescr ibed feelings of inferiority and alienation norms and stan dards. Col lab o ra tion with among tribal children. the Ed u ca tion De part ment on res i den tial (viii) Involvement of tribal community schools for tribal domi nated areas would members in school activities to reduce be requir ed to enable a strengthened and social distance between the school and con sol i dated ap proach to this prob lem in- the tribal community. clud ing re cruit ment of teach ers of sim i lar (ix) Textbooks in mother tongue for tribal social and cul tural back grounds and pro vi- children at the beginning of Primary sion of cur ric ula and textbooks that are education where they do not not alienating for tribal children. understand the regional language. The follo w ing sug gested list of in ter - (x) Anganwadis and Balwadis must be ven tions for inclu sion of tribal chil dren established in each school in tribal which can help in ad dress ing the above areas, so that the tribal girls are not prac tices of dis crim i na tion and ex clu sion required to do baby-sitting.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 19 (xi) Special training for non-tribal teachers (i) Denial of admission. to work in tribal areas, including (ii) Unfriendly school and classroom http://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/de - knowledge of the tribal dialect. environment. fault/files/wp-in clu sion-of-mar gin al ised-chil dre (xii) Special plan for nomadic and migrant (iii) Cultural and religious domination. n-in-pri vate-un aided-schools-19031 (regular migration takes place among (iv) Early withdrawal of male children to nomadic tribes in the Central Indian enable them to apprentice with and north-eastern tribal belt for artisans, mechanics etc. to enable getting work throughout the year) self-employment as discrimination in workers. the organised labour market is a huge perceived concern. Ex clu sion of Mus lim Chil dren (v) Even earlier withdrawal of female Ed u ca tion of Mus lim chil dren con tin ues children to enable them to find to be a par tic u larly ne glected area in pol - grooms more educated than icy and pro gramming in India today. As a themselves. re sult, their ed u ca tional at tain ments are (vi) Unfulfilled demand for adequate sec ond only to those of the Scheduled number of Urdu medium schools or at Caste pop u lations in most areas as men - least Urdu as a second language. tioned in the Sachar Commit tee Repor t. (vii) Lack of Urdu language teachers. (For de tails see Re tired Chief Jus tice of (Minorities in India: for details see Delhi High Court Rajinder Sachar Com- http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issu mit tee’s Re port: es/Minorities/UNDPMarginalisedMinor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachar_Comm ities.pdf6) ittee5) Con straints felt by Muslim chil dren, Some interventions for inclusion of from the scat tered bits of evi dence that do Muslim children exist, in ad dition to the gen eral issues of dis crim i na tion and ha rass ment faced by (i) Systematic and robust research on chil dren from other dis advan taged and ex - specific constraints faced by Muslim cluded groups, include: children in different areas. Muslims, like Scheduled Castes children and Scheduled Tribes children are not a

20 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 homogeneous community and exhibit (e) adequate representation of Muslim wide differences in social and cultural parents in the SMC (Schools practices in different states. A more Management Committee). thorough understanding of these issues will help formulate better A large part of exclu sio n result s from interventions for inclusion of Muslim social distance caused by lack of knowl- children into the education process. edge and un der stand ing about mi nor ity (ii) Opening of schools in Muslim com mu ni ties. Find ing spaces to break concentrated neighbor hoods. these in forma tion barri ers would go a long (iii) Providing ‘girls only’ schools in Muslim way in re duc ing the hos til i ties and in se cu- concentrated neighbor hoods. rities that exist. (iv) Providing Urdu in middle schools in Muslim concentrated neighbor hoods. (v) Providing escort to Muslim girls, preferably through women from the community for safe school going (vi) Option of learning Urdu as a second language (vii) Recruitment of more Urdu teachers, especially in Muslim concentrated areas; (viii) Context specific and tailor made programmes for special training. (ix) Sensitisation of all teachers to issues of cultural and religious diversity especially in relation to Muslims. Children belonging to most under- (x) Incorporation of practices, such as (a) due representation of Muslim privileged groups culture in curricular and pedagogical Sarva Siksha Abhijan (SSA) re cog nises processes; the hier ar chies among the poor. There are (b) encouraging discussion of Muslim groups that are not only the most de- cultural and religious practices in the prived and exploi ted, but also quite school or classroom with the help of ne glected. These groups deser ve a special community members; prior ity and focuse d ac tion. SSA func tion- (c) celebration of Muslim festivals in ar ies will have to care fully assess their the schools; needs and then plan context specif ic, inno - (d) sensitive handling of Muslim va tive in te grated in ter ven tions to make children during Ramzan when they may tan gi ble prog ress in elim i nat ing ex clu sion be fasting and

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 21 of childr en belong ing to these groups. (In- lack of their voice due to their alien ation clu sion of Mar gin al ised chil dren in privat e from com mu nity and lit tle rep re sen ta tion un aided schools : For de tails see in agen cies and forums like the SMC http://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/default/file (Schools Man age ment Com mit tee), PTA s/wp-inclusion-of-marginalised-children-in- (Par ents-Teach ers As so ci a tion ) or VEC private-unaided-schools-190317) (Vil lage Ed u ca tion Com mit tee). SSA (Sarva The follo wing groups have been identi - Siksha Abhijan) would make ef forts to ad - fied by FICE-India, at its An nual General dress this issue by adv o cacy for a Meet ing-2013, as among the most disad - chil dren’s right to par tic i pa tion, by sup- van taged: porting the forma tion of suppor t groups chil dren’s col lec tives, and, by en cour ag ing i) Urban deprived children ef forts to accom mo date their voices in ii) Child labour, particularly bonded child plan ning, im ple men ta tion and mon i tor ing labour and domestic workers of in ter ven tions and strat e gies. (Na tional iii) Children in ecologically deprived area Repor t on inclu siv e class room – UNICEF where they are required to fetch fuel, Repor t on India: For detai ls see water, fodder and do other household http://www.unicef.org/india/13_National_R chores. eport_on_Inclusive_Classroom.pdf8) iv) Children in very poor slum communities and uprooted urban Education of children affected by habitations. migration v) Children of families of scavengers and other such stigmatised professions. To addr ess the issue of sea sonal mi gra - vi) Children of itinerant or seasonal tion for vary ing pe ri ods for work in brick labour who have mobile and transient kilns, ag ri cul ture, sug ar cane har vest ing, lifestyle like construction workers, con struc tion, stone quar ry ing, salt pans road workers and workers on large etc. and its ad verse ef fect on ed u cation of construction site chil dren who mi grate with or with out vii) Children of landless agriculture labour. other mem bers of the fam ily, SSA en cour - viii) Nomadic communities and ages iden ti fi ca tion of dis tricts, blocks and pastoralists. villages/cit ies or towns from where or to ix) Forests dwellers and tribals in remote which there is a high inci dence of mi gra - areas and children residing in remote tion. The RTE Act man dates bring ing such desert hamlets. chil dren to regu lar schools both in dis- x) Children in areas affected by civil tricts where they stay or in dis tricts to strife. where they season ally mi grate. This would re quire in no va tive and ef fec tive strat e gies A major issue con cern ing chil dren in for spe cial train ing to de velop age ap pro - ex tremely dif fi cult cir cum stances is sheer priate compe ten cies to facil i tate childr en’s

22 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 en rol ment and re ten tion in age-ap pro pri - education before, during and after the ate classes, and to coor dinate between the migration. education providing agencies at both the locations mentioned above. The receiv ing distric t/State where mi- grant fam i lies are lo cated for some pe riod Special Training strategies for these shall have re spon si bil ity for en sur ing that children would require very meticulous edu ca tion to the childr en in age appr opri - planning ate classes contin ues during the perio d of migra tion. It is ex pected that the AWP&Bs Some strat e gies can be de vel oped (An nual Work Plan and Bud gets) of these based on the follo wing ideas: districts would include activ i ties for edu ca - tion of such chil dren, under a Specia l (a) seasonal hostels or residential camps Train ing com po nent. The in volve ment of to retain children in the sending NGOs in the proces ses of mapping of mi- villages/urban habitat during the period gra tion and plan ning and im ple men ta tion of migration, of in ter ven tions (b) transportation should be ac tively facility to and sup ported. Funds from the available under in - school in the no va tion can be vicinity of the used to suppor t worksite, and if ac tiv i ties in an in te - it is not grated strategy practical then which are not work-site supported under schools should any other Norm of be provided at SSA. the location Since mi gra tion where migrant families are engaged in takes place across districts and states, it work, would be neces sar y for sending and re- (c) peripatetic educational volunteer/s ceiv ing dis tricts and States to col lab o rate who can move with the migrating with each other to ensur e conti n uity of families to take care of children’s edu ca tion of such chil dren and by other education during the period they are means such as pro vid ing ap pro pri ate text on move from school at one location books, teachers who can teach in the lan- to school at the other and, guage in which chil dren have been (d) strategies for tracking of children re ceiv ing ed u ca tion. For this pur pose “task through migration cards or/other forces” could be set up to eff ect regu lar records to enable continuity in their co or di na tion between States/districts.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 23 in ter ven tions planned and ex e cuted in an in te grated, col lab o ra tive and co he sive manner to tackle the unique chal lenges in urban areas. This would requir e planning dis tinc tively for the urban areas either as sep a rate plans or as part of Dis trict Plans in the case of smaller towns. In ei ther case, this would requir e partner ship with NGOs, Munic i pal bodies and other rele - Urban Deprived Children vant or gani zations. (Is the right to ed u ca tion a re al ity for In dia’s street chil - SSA has been focus ing on the growing dren? For de tails see prob lem of school ing of dis ad van taged http://www.business-standard.com/article/ chil dren in urban areas. Succes sive JRMs economy-policy/is-the-right-to-education-a (Joint Revie w Mis sions) have also dwelt on -reality-for-india-s-children-113091300395 this com ponent. Urban areas have specia l _1.html9) chal lenges such as the ed u cation of street chil dren, the ed u ca tion of chil dren who are rag pick ers, home less chil dren, chil dren whose par ents are engag ed in prof essio ns that makes chil dren’s ed u ca tion dif fi cult, edu ca tion of chil dren liv ing in urban work- ing class slums, chil dren who are work ing in indus try, chil dren working in household s, chil dren at tea shops, garages etc. Other city spe cific fea tures are: very high cost of land, het er o ge neous community and high Children in areas affected by civil strife opportunity cost, and so forth. How ever, de spite these ini tia tives, there This is a new area of grow ing con cern is a grow ing need for systemic and co or di- that is leading to the marginalisation of nated ef forts to pro vide solu tions on an large number of chil dren from ed u cational insti tutiona l basis to urban issues . Thus to processes. The All India Asso ci a tion of im ple ment RTE in urban areas, SSA would Volun t ary Agencie s(AIAVA) and FICE-India adopt a more ho listic and systems ap - along with their mem ber or gani sa tions re - proach. This appr oach would neces sitate cog nise the situ a tion of these chil dren as co or di na tion and con ver gence of in ter ven - an alarm ing and sig nif i cant prob lem, and tions across Depar t ments, local bod ies, adv o cates for concr ete steps to ame lio rate civil soci ety organi sa tions and the pri vate the sit u a tion as early as pos si ble. Some sector . SSA would en courage a div ersity of mea sures to in su late chil dren and their ed -

24 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 uca tion from the impact of such situ a tions chil dren af fected by nat u ral di sas ters, to must be under taken with activ e in volve- name a few, are some that have not been ment of Civil Society Groups, which could ex plic itly men tioned above or dealt with include the following: else where. Spe cial strat e gies to en able their par tic ipa tion will have to be dev el - (i) prohibiting the use of school and other oped. Sup port in de vel op ing these educational facilities for housing police, strat e gies, ad vo cat ing for them and mon i - military or para-military forces. tor ing the con tin ued par tic i pa tion of these (ii) making schools safe zones by providing chil dren will be im por tant elements of adequate security and emotional SSA’s focus in the context of support to enable children to come to implementation of the RTE Act. school and continue with their There are many activ e civil so ci ety education undisturbed. groups like LAMP and other member or - (iii) If security cannot be provided, then ga ni za tions of the “All India As so ci a tion of alternative arrangements need to be Vol un tary Agen cies - (AIAVA)” and made for all affected children to enable FICE-India, that have gained substa ntia l ex- them to continue their education pe rience and knowledge of working with without a break. These arrangements these childr en. Activ e in volvement of these could include providing residential groups must be sought to enable their in- schooling facilities or transportation to clu sion in the ed u ca tion pro cess. A safer schools to children from the pro cess of empanelling such groups for re- affected Areas. source suppor t would be a good starting (iv) Organising special negotiations with point. How ever, more activ e en gagement leaders in these areas to ensure that of the ed uca tion depar tment as well as schools are allowed to function NCPCR- Na tional Com mission for Pro - uninterrupted. tection of Child Rights (India). /SCPCR-

Excluded among the excluded

SSA ac knowledges that by no means have the above cate g ories ex hausted the whole list of chil dren ex cluded from the ed u ca tion pro cess. While chil dren with special needs are being dealt with in a sep- arate sec tion, chil dren from mi grant fam i lies with no madic back ground, chil dren work ing as domes tic help, chil dren in con - flict with law, chil dren in pro tec tive in sti tu tions, chil dren af fected by HIV/AIDS,

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 25 State Com missions for Pro tec tion of Child http://www.unicef.org/india/13.__National Rights or Right to Ed uca tion Protec tion _Report_on_Inclusive_Classroom.pdf Au thor ity (REPA) will be nec es sary to en - 9. Is the right to education a reality for sure that these chil dren from marginalized India’s street children : http://www.business-standard.com/article/ com mu ni ties do not re main ex cluded. (10th economy-policy/is-the-right-to-education- Joint Revie w Mis sion of Sarva Siksha a-reality-for-india-s-children-11309130039 th st Abhiyan , Gov ernment of India, 20 to 31 5_1.html July,2009: For detai ls see 10. 10th Joint Review Mission of Sarva Siksha http://www.educationforallinindia.com/10t Abhiyan , Government of India, 20th to hJRM-SSA-July-2009.pdf10 31st July 2009: http://www.educationforallinindia.com/10t hJRM-SSA-July-2009.pdf References

1. Right to Education in India : https://www.savethechildren.in/14-sample- MALAY DEWANJI is President, FICE-India and data-articles/236-bvlgari.html Honorary General Secretary, LAMP. 2. Rights of Children to free and compulsory Presented at the FICE Congress 2013, 8th to 12th education in India: October, 2013, Berne, Switzerland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_Chil dren_to_Free_and_Compulsory_Educati on_Act Email: [email protected] 3. Caste in India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/caste 4. Right to Education in India: http://mhrd.gov.in/rte 5. Rajinder Sachar Committee Report : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachar_Comm ittee 6. Minorities in India : http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/ Minorities/UNDPMarginalisedMinorities.p df 7. Inclusion of Marginalised children in private unaided schools : http://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/default/fil es/wp-inclusion-of-marginalised-children-i n-private-unaided-schools-19031 8. National Report on inclusive classroom – UNICEF Report on India :

26 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 http://cycnetpress.cyc-net.org

27 email: [email protected] n o i t c

Hide or Seek: looking for love in all the wrong places e n Hide or Seek n o C c i t l e C Maxwell SmartMaxwell Smarandt and John Digney John Digney

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you. Brendan Behan, Irish poet, short story writer, novelist and playwright.

The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer.

‘Let’s Hide’ ety-pro duc ing … (their) whole make-up is based on the expec ta tion that the worst will A num ber of years ago Brian Gannon hap pen — and they def end them selves from intr oduced us both to the work of psy - fur ther hurt’. chol ogist George Kelly, who had If we ex trap olate we can as sert that in de vel oped a style of psy chol ogy which gen eral peo ple seek out ex pe ri ences that placed em phasis on the impor tance of a can val i date what they alr eady be lieve or per sons own expe r ience of himself and where at least have come to ex pect (a par tic u lar one views be hav iour in terms of in divid ual ‘respons e’ or conse quence to actions or ex pec ta tions: ‘Man [he states] pre dicts what occur rences). So, when we demon str ate will happen and if it happens his predic tion love or caring to those who Brian has is vali dat ed … the grounds he used for called ‘love re sistant youth’, their view on predic ting are strengthened, and he can the options available to them can seem ventur e fur ther next time’. some what lim ited, in ef fect have 2 choices: Brian transposed this reason ing onto (i) ‘I didn’ t ex pect this, that being said it the ex pe ri ences and logic of trou bled feels OK so perha ps I should change my youth, ‘… for young peo ple whose world neg ativ e view of life’, OR the more com - is not easy to under stand, when it is incon - mon re sponse, (ii) ‘I don’t trust this, I must sis tent and unpr edic table , and when the re ject this’. We shall re turn to this issue as expe ri ences it of fers are hurtful and scary, we prog ress this ar ti cle. their ex pec ta tions are neg a tive and anx i-

28 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 Love Actually – ‘Let’s seek’ par adigm that the world is not a place for trust and love for it is not what they have It seems that noth ing mo ti vates the ex pe ri enced in life. creativ e arts more than the desir e to ar - In nearly sixty years of con tinued di rect tic u late some as pect of love. This could be prac tice with troubled youngster s (be - any form of art, such as a novel about un - tween us, we are not that old, honest) the re quited love; a paint ing of two lov ers in a writ ers have seen youth who re sist over - simple loving em brace; a statue de pict ing a tures of warmth and af fection but who Roman or Greek God dess of love; a poem gradu ally come to adult con nec tion. To - in which the poet clev erly descr ibes an gain the neces sar y trust, the adult has usu - epic and joy ous journe y to finding love, or ally fought hard and earned the right to be a heart break ing coun try-and-west ern ditty trusted by youth through a long proces s of love betra yed. Indeed , the 1996 Holl y- guided by patienc e and persis tence. How - wood movie with Angelina Jolie ever we have also encoun ter ed young proclai med, ‘Love Is All There Is. people whom despite all the best eff orts Human be ings ap pear to have a fixa tion of carers stand firm, hold ing onto their be - with the entir e concept of love – a thing lief that no adult is worth trust … it that cannot even be seen by the human eye, seems that ‘whilst we offer care and love, as in tan gi ble a con struct if ever there was they contin ue to turn their backs on it’. So one. And it is no wonder that we have such herein lies a chal lenge! The chal lenge is a fas ci na tion – after all, it is part and par cel com pounded by the fact that whilst we all of ev erything we are, it is in del i bly pen cilled have a ‘need’ to feel loved; to be cared for into our psyche , as the 1960’s pop group and about; we all need to be able to give “The Trogs” and, ‘Love is all around’, and love if we are to grow in a healthy way. So clearly love can exist in many forms. But how do we as the carers for trou bled just as love can be sought, it can also be youth create environments of love and shunned, it can be off ered and it can be ac - connection? cepted; Love can be rebuff ed and rejected . So, to return to our ear lier pream ble where Why the Wrong Places we noted George Kelly’s obser vation that people tend to seek out expe riences that We be lieve that we need to start by val i date what they alr eady be lieve and our talking a little about basic human needs - re iter a tion of the view that re sponses avail- the fun da men tal and uni ver sal human able to ‘love re sistant youth’ are often needs which show up in many ‘needs the- re stricted to, ‘I don’t ex pect this, it feels o ries’. Love is amongst many, if not all, OK, perha ps I should change my nega tiv e credi ble theo ries and we only need look view of life’, OR ‘I don’t trust this, I re ject as far as the the o ries pos ited by folks such this’. In this lat ter re sponse, ‘love re sistant as Glas ser, Maslow, McClelland and Stern - youth’ would seem to be accept ing of this berg to re cog nise that love under pins

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 29 human sur vival. So, how can we rec on cile makes or dinar y teen age-hood very con fus - these the ories with that of Kelly? ing. It is doubt ful that either of the writers We wish that the solu tion would be would ever wish to return to ad oles cence clear and simple but we all know that it is and indeed most sane adults ‘wave these not (though some may think that it is). years bye-bye’ with gratitude that they Why despite being off ered love and aff ec- have survived. tion do some youth chose to push us away Yet, throughout the strug gles, most and seek love in danger ous places and in teens ex pe ri ence the an chor ing con nec tion turning to the medium of music to help of fam ily and com mu nity, hold ing the dif fi - make sense of ‘why’, we are given some cul ties and as so ci ated de struc tive forces in hints in song lyrics , such as those from check. How ever what if fam ily and com mu - Johnny Lees’ ‘Looking for Love’: nity don’t ‘hold you’ and your life dis in te grates re quir ing you to live away I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places, from home in a place with full of strang ers? Lookin’ for love in too many faces, Kids living in ‘out of home care’ (or even Searchin’ their eyes, lookin’ for traces, those liv ing in fam ily situ ations which are Of what I’m dreamin’ of. filled with abuse and ne glect) can strug gle to feel connected in a posi tiv e way and Those who are love resis tant or love these kids will often seek out love and con - averse can ac tu ally (and need to) seek out nection in the most danger ous of ways. love, but they will search for love from Desper ate for love, often these kids are those who will not love back; they will also desper ately afraid of it. These are dif - hunt for love where it cannot exist; they fer ent to the ‘love resis tant’ kids, this will seek to val idate their ‘nega tiv e be liefs’ co hort are re ally look ing for love and ac - by attempts to look for love - but in all the cep tance and will take it anywhe re they wrong places. Often we see this in ado les - can get it. So, when we refer to the ‘wrong cence, and it is there that we as practi- places’ we are also ref er ring to how in the tioners and writers have encoun ter ed des perate search for love, our kids can be - youth in this dilemma. come par a dox i cally even more vul ner a ble, We all know that the teenage years are par tic u larly if all they re ceive is con tinued a strug gle, with oc casional feelings of being rejec tion and insecurity in our care. re jected, lone li ness and of being mis un der- Aus tin & Halpin stood. Ad dition ally there are the surges of (1987), noted that, hormones and the conse quent mood ‘Chil dren who come swings that ac com pany this; the con tradic - into care come from tory need to be the same and being out of care’, con cur rently be dif fer ent; the strug gle to an ob ser va tion that be in de pend ent whilst si mul ta neously chil dren’s needs being desper ate for connec tion … this all have not been met

30 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 bef ore they even encoun ter our ser vices – Of Baby Care & Lost Kids where the unmet needs are gener all y not mate rial needs (al though pov erty is also a In our con sid er ation of com mon fac tor in ad mis sion). These why troubled youth seek unmet needs are mostly de vel op men tal out love in the wrong and emo tional; kids are de liv ered to our places we must also be open to thinking care in the first insta nce becaus e of their about why the right places have not been trau matic ex pe riences – they are kids who avail able to these kids. It can be true that have been ne glected, rejected , raped and some ‘not so well in ten tioned adults’ can abused. They have been hurt and suff ered eas ily see the des per a tion in vul ner a ble acute loss; strug gling to be long at home or kids and use that des pera tion for their in com mu nity. own ends. Whether it is to do their bid - Our systems claim to seek to restor e ding to ped dle drugs or to engag e in other balance to the lives of our charges, though gang ac tiv i ties, or for sex ual ex ploi ta tion at times we are not seeing the true pic- — some youngster s have ex pe riences that ture. We can, with blind op ti mism, ‘pump serve to cre ate within them a ‘faulty logic’ in the love’, with out realis ing how it is – a logic where they either strive for or being re ceived and in fact we to tally miss reject love. the point that the only type of love that is Where needs have gone unmet, there ac cept able to youth is ‘faulty love’. If a have al ways been de viants , will ing to prey young per son is look ing in all the on kids like Fagan from the book Ol i ver wrong places, they may be seeking ways Twist, to the more dis turbing sexual preda - to val i date a pri vate logic which dic tates to tors we all too often read about. This is them that ‘love does not exist in a form borne out in the sta tis tical evi dence that that is pleasant and pos itiv e’. The net ef- re veals how those look ing for love (or fect being that they will either not be able proof that love is a ‘bo gus’ constr uct) have to belie ve our overt over tures (our telling had early sexual expe ri ences and also end them that we re ally care for them) or they up having their own babies at very young will to tally reject these over tures out of ages. Young peo ple, often seeking what hand. Con versely, we also have the ‘love they see as the uncon di tiona l love of a hungr y’ youth, who will ‘snap off your child, are dem on strating the level of their hand’ at any sign of ac cep tance, caring or unmet needs. af fec tion – mis con stru ing this as love. To vul ner a ble youth, des per ate to be- When this is shown to them by any one, long, of fers of safety and protec tion from even the most unde sir able of characters, gangs may seem like love and ac cep tance, they will lap it up. but such arti fi cial 'belong in g' is sometimes more desir able to troubled teens than no love at all. How many youth have their needs for status met in this way? How

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 31 many are given val i dation for compe tence drugs and he donism, she sim ply re plied, in being able to steal or for their cour age ‘my key-worker came back and back again in being able to fight others , and to see … she came back when ev erybody else this as a form of love and care, be cause had given up, she per sisted when others they cannot be val i dated by our own sys - gave me up as a lost cause. She gave me tems. How many needs that have gone love, despit e my rejec tion and abuse. She unmet be come ar ti fi cially met in these under stood me when I didn’ t under stand ways? A search for love in all the wrong my self’. places; of baby care not given, lead ing This account told us a lot about what eventually to so many, ‘lost kids’. we need to do, if also allo wed us see just a lit tle bit more clearly why kids can look To Make the Right Places for love in the wrong places. For love to be given in the right manner and amount The need for our ser vices to pro vide we need to hang in and hang on, for the connec tion, human warmth and aff ection going is going to be tough. as anti dotes for the ‘discon nect’ that so But maybe an other great lyri cist can many youth feel is im plicit in re la tional finish what we started, Billy Ocean sang, care. Yet, we can in adv er tently cre ate cul - ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get tures which can either rein f orce past hurts going’ . Perha ps this should help us (when their be hav iours lead us to mak ing re-shape the notion of what ‘tough love’ a de cision to re ject and expel) rather than should be – hard won connec tion with remediate them or where small acts of youth through love and persis tence. kind ness are trans lated as dem on stra tions of love. Human bonding, connec tion and re lation ship are es sen tial to all human sur - Maxie & Digs, vival and when we are depriv ed of these in ‘nor mal’ cir cum stances it is rea son able to assume these will be sought elsewhere. References If the roads to all the ‘right places’ are Austin, D. & Halpin, W. (1987) Seeing ‘I to I’: A bar ricaded, is it any won der that kids will phenomenological analysis of the caring ‘look for love in all the wrong places’? We relationship. Journal of Child & Youth Care, would asser t that we are the ones that 3(3), 37-42 need offer the possi bil ity of a right place Gannon, B. (2000) Protecting themselves from to be given love and care. Re la tional prac- love. Retrieved on 15th June 2015 from: tices offer healing connec tion with youth http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0 in great dif ficulty . When a for mer care ex - 400-protecting.html peri enced youngster said to us at the re cent SIRCC conf er ence, about what helped her come away from a cul ture of

32 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 What have I been missing? Twelve years of Relational Child & Youth Care Practice have passed since the change from the Journal of Child and Youth Care in Volume 16. 12 VOLUMES. 48 ISSUES! Enquire at [email protected] for back issues or subscriptions. Full details at www.rcycp.com Catching Up: CYC and st

the 21 Catching Up:Century CYC and the 21st Centur y

Hans Skott-MyHans Skott-Myhr e hre Brock University [email protected]

keep having this feeling that the 21st how we might think about the way capi tal - Icentur y is pulling ahead of the field of ism has massiv ely disrupted and re-shaped CYC at an as ton ish ing rate. Part of this our so cial re ality and what might be done may re flect my own pro cess of aging as I about it. What impr essed me about the begin to under stand that the world of letters is the way in which he repu di ates young peo ple is in creas ingly in ac ces si ble to any sense of nostal gia for what was and in - me as lived ex pe rience . Cer tainly this is sists on a clear-eyed eval u ation of what the true in the area of technol og y, where I world has be come. Of course, it has been have come to a mod er ately comfor t able 30 years since he wrote these letters , but ac knowl edge ment that I will never be able in many ways the prob lems and the call for to be func tion ally immersed, as a digi tal na - a re al is tic anal y sis is still rel e vant. He tive, in the global tech no logi cal ecol ogy as writes, it is emerging. Un like a number of my peers, I neither decry nor cele brate this So, the postmodern is the market. On our emerg ing new social form. It is what it is part we take the modern for what it is-a be coming and that has an infinfinitude of destiny of dejection-and [we regard] the pos si ble fu tures be yond my ex plan a tory or postmodern as its abstract and strong an a lytic ca pac i ties. limit - the only world possible today. I can I have been read ing a small book by An- never thank you enough for having to nio Negri re cently called Art and the reminded me of this- the solid reality of Mul ti tude. It is a collec tion of let ters that this empty world, this endless succession he wrote in the late 80s to former com - of forms which are no less real for being rades from the era of late 20th cen tury phantasmatic. A world of phantasms, but re volt in Italy. In these letters he ad dresses true. The difference between

34 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 reactionaries and revolutionaries consists is saying two things 1) capi tal ism was built in this: the former deny the massive out of the science , technol og y and philos - ontological vacuity of the world, while the o phies of mo dernity 2) it no lon ger latter affirm it. The former reduce the oper ates this way al though the new ways stage of the world to an aesthetic trinket, in which it op er ates are a log i cal ex ten sion the latter apprehend it practically. of the modern ist project . Consequently only revolutionaries can For us in CYC there are a some con- practice a critique of the world, because nections and inf er ences here that are they have a true relationship with being. impor tant for us to under stand if we are Because they recognize that it is we who to confr ont the challenge of youth-adult have made this world, inhuman as it is. rela tions in the 21st centur y. The first is to Because its lack of meaning is our lack of rec og nize that just as sci ence did not save meaning and its vacuity is our vacuity. us in the 20th cen tury, it will not save us in Only that. The limit is never just a the 21st. limit—it is also an obstacle. The limit That is not to say that science does not determines a terrible anguish, a ferocious have a role in our under standing of our fear-but it is there in the radical nature of work, but when it becom es pre-emi nent as the anguish, that the limit is experienced the logic behind our work, it has a ten- as a possibility of going beyond. dency to over shadow the actual liv ing (p. 22-23) rela tions that compose what we do. In this sense, it is possi bl y use ful to note that sci- There is a great deal we could say ence does not come to us on its own, about this short pas sage, but there are a pre-formed and simply re vealed, like scrip- couple of things I want to point out in re- ture. We create it. It is a product of human lation to CYC and the 21st centur y. In the en deavor and like all creativ e en deav ors it first place, Negri does not shy away from comes to us in com plete and alwa ys par tial. an analy sis of the emerg ing world of We in CYC need to be cautious about postmodern cap i tal ism as a world of bru tal any whole sale adop tion of sci en tific ap - ab stract ne ga tion of ac tual liv ing things. proaches and theo rie s about young We should be clear though, that in using people . Regr etta bl y, the his tory of the last the term postmodern, he is not ref er ring cen tury is litter ed with failed and dan ger - to the work of think ers such as Foucault, ous sci en tific the o ries and ap pli ca tions. Baudrillard, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari and One need only think of the appli ca tions of so on. These think ers have a very simi lar scien tific Marx ism in the old Soviet Union, anal y sis of postmodern cap i tal ism to or the science of eugen ics in Nazi Ger - Negri’s. many, the re frig er a tor mother ex pla na tions Negri is re fer ring to a shift in the way of autis m or the super preda tor theo rie s cap i tal ism op er ates as post-mo der nity; about young Af ri can Amer i cans. that is to say “after” moder nity . In this, he To be sure, while any number of us still

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 35 found our work in the scien tif ic theo rie s For us in CYC this may the hardest actu al - and logics of mod ern ist cap i tal ism, Negri is ity of the 21st centur y. This is the world tell ing us cap i tal ism no lon ger func tions that childr en and young peo ple are being this way. That does not mean that it no born into. It is not an alien world for them. lon ger uses the faux logic of hi er ar chi cal It is the way the world is. and taxo nom i cal thought that brought us I some times feel as though our field is the pro foundly prob lem atic cat e go ries of in des per ate scramble to find a foot hold in race, gen der, sex u al ity and so on. It cer - this world that will suppl y a stable and tainly still does this, but now it also constant set of beliefs , ideas and iden tity deplo ys them in a diff er ent kind of way. against the on slaught of ka lei doscopic so - Post-mod ern cap i tal ism op er ates as a sys- cial and techn olog i cal recon fig u ra tion. tem that pro lif er ates it self as a se ries of Hence our on go ing in ter est in cod i fi ca tion, ab strac tions, sim u la tions and stan dards, pro fes sion al ism, sci en tific ex pla - “phantasmatic forms” to quote Negri. As nations and the identity of our field. I Marx put rather famous ly put it in the would argue that these impe tuses to wards Com mu nist Man i festo, strat i fi ca tion are not only prob lem atic in their own right, but ir rele vant vestig es of Constant revolutionising of production, the last cen tury. uninterrupted disturbance of all social As an al ter na tive, both Negri and Marx conditions, everlasting uncertainty and pro pose a sober and clear-eyed ac cep - agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch tance of the world of post-modern from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen cap i tal ism. Not a fa tal is tic ac cep tance, but relations, with their train of ancient and the view of the strat e gist when as sess ing venerable prejudices and opinions, are the strengths and weakness es of an oppo - swept away, all new-formed ones become nents po sition. In this, Marx sees an antiquated before they can ossify. All that oppor tunity . He notes how the way in is solid melts into air, all that is holy is which post-mod ern cap i tal ism sweeps profaned, and man is at last compelled to away pre vious re lations also clears pre vi- face with sober senses his real conditions ous preju dic es and opinions . Now, we of life, and his relations with his kind. might argue that this is absur d given the re sur gence of fun da men tal ist re li gious In this presci ent descr iption, Marx de- creeds, racist and re action ary hate groups, scribes our con tem po rary world, in which and xe no pho bic re ac tion ar ies across the ev erything appear s to be in a consta nt up- globe. I would sugges t that these are in- heaval, in which old forms are deed spe cif i cally re ac tion ary. That is to say, recon sti tuted as new forms only to be they come to such fru ition as they rec og - swept aside by an in com ing tide of even nize the threat to their contin uance . newer forms that recon sti tute and pack- The question is, can we pro vide the al - age the old forms in new config u rations. ter na tive? The al ter na tive can not be

36 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 premis ed in the old ways of knowing and We have just such encoun ters and events doing. Any alter na tive rooted in nos tal gia in our work on a daily basis if we know or re sent ment of the com ing world will how to pay atten tion to the rev olu tion ary suf fer the same prob lems and fail ure of pos si bil i ties of the mun dane en coun ter. other re ac tion ary for ma tions. Any func- In a recent ar ticle about young peo ple tional al terna tiv e must be built out of what in Greece, Paul Mason tells us that young Negri re fers to as “having a true re la tion people no longer want power in the con - with being.” This is the founda tion of any ven tional sense of gov ern men tal and working critique . Such a rela tion is ju ridi cal force. In stead, they want to re - founded in the recog ni tion that we have make the world. He sug gests that, “iden tity built this world. It is our cre ation not a and in teg rity have re placed ide ol ogy.” world given to us. We created it this way These young peo ple recog nize that the and we can cre ate in a dif fer ent form if world has changed and the forms of actual this one does n’t work for us. Marx ech oes power have changed with it. These are this when he sug gests that we have to face young peo ple whose world includ es unsta - “with sober senses [the] real condi tions of ble and con tin gent em ploy ment, the life, and [our] re lations with [our] kind.” I im por tance of hav ing the tech no log i cal would ask, are we in CYC even begin ning know how to ne goti ate a world of con- to do this? stantly shift ing start-ups, and looser forms In his let ters, Negri goes on to sug gest of in ti macy and sex u al ity. Their re sponse the way in which such a proces s might be to the world we have been descr ibing is ini ti ated. He states, not one of despai r and resig na tion, but the To accept the abstr actness of the world, to in stiga tion of a pro cess to de velop “a cred - endur e its coldness , the desert of passions; i ble iden tity – a life lived ac cording to a and there on this empty hor iz on on which we belie ved truth.” Mason proposes that this move, render ed blind by our mis ery, to seek-to “has be come a more sig nifi cant badge in seek the real, alw ays until it falls into our poli tic s than a co her ent set of ideas.” hands: an encoun ter , an event. Is it possi ble to I won der if we as a global field of CYC deter mine the event? No, we can only search have begun to appr ehend this shift in our for it des per ately. De ter min ing it is only a mat - work. If the new modes of life that young ter of dis cov ery. If luck and grace aid us, and people are being born into are regis ter ing only in that case, we will be able to think, within our own concep tions of who we vaguely, of a reopen ing of hope. (p. 10) are and what we do in our rela tions with The first step then, is an accep tanc e of young peo ple. If we do not catch up soon, the world as it is with all its bru tal ity. histor y will pass us by and that would be a How ever, it is to also to seek-to seek, in shame. Becaus e what young peo ple appear this, the ac tu al ity of liv ing re la tions through to be seeking today is precis ely what we as an encoun ter or an event. Here we are on a field have been forget ting about our- the ground of funda men tal CYC practic e. selves since the end of the 20th century.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 37 Time for Tea: Finding Meaning in the

Rhythm of MealtimeTime for Tea: Finding Meaning in t he Rhythm of Mealtime Experiences Experiences

James FJames Freemanreeman

Abstract Mealtim es pro vide an oppor tunity to promote a natu r al rhythm in the daily expe r ience of childr en and youth. They are also ev ery day op por tuni ties to create the expe r ience of being cared for and a sense of be long ing. This ar ti cle briefly ex plores el e ments of meal time rou tines and op por tu ni ties to pro mote rhythm and mean ing in the meal time ex pe ri ence.

heir voices made the jour ney down the in the pan and the sweet smell of a warm Thall way from the kitchen to the bed- fire com ing from the pot belly stove in the room. They were fa miliar sounds. I could gath er ing room. I could hear the clang ing dis tinguis h the voice of my par ents and of dishes as the morn ing meal was being grandpar ents, yet they were just below the prepar ed. I was around ten years old and volume to under stand what was being dis- wak ing to the be gin ning of a day visit ing cussed. It was a pleasant morn ing my grandpar ents. In the mo ment I felt con versa tion and I could tell the home cared for, that I be longed, and that there was full of fam ily mem bers en joying the were no other pressur es in the world morn ing. Ac com pa ny ing the voices was the other than waking up and embrac ing any smell of applewood smoked bacon frying adv entur es the day had in store.

38 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 Creating Mealtime Experiences contr ol what goes into his body.” The resi - den tial school be lieves these ex pe ri ences Young peo ple in care often miss these are crit ical moments in daily life for each mem o ra ble yet dif fi cult-to-de scribe mo - young per son (Harmeny School, 2015). We ments. Since that day as a child I have talked about and obser ved some of the worked along side too many young peo ple the sounds, smells, and expe ri ences of who wor ried where their next meal might meal time as a vital el e ment of childhood come from, if they would have a place to expe ri ence and one that is criti cal to our sleep for the night, and if any one - famil y de vel op ment and feel ing cared for in life. or other wise - even cared about them. Meal time ex pe ri ences can pro vide a Meaning in the Present and Learning natu ral rhythm in the daily expe ri ence of for the Future young peo ple. Around the globe we gather two to three times a day to pause, sit, and There is a deep “signif i cance of food in dine together . These moments are so cen - human de velop ment and how trust and at- ter ing in life that “it is impos sible to cre ate tachment are often rooted in feeding [and a good living envi r on ment if childr en and meal times are] a vital part of building trust young peo ple do not enjoy their food” and connec tions with youth who might (Kahan 1994, p.83). There is, perha ps, no have ex pe ri enced lit tle of ei ther” (Krueger, greater el e ment in cre at ing rou tine and 2006). Consid er how the act of sitting rhythm in daily life than meal time rou tines. down together is equaliz ing in a way. Dur ing a re cent visit to Harmeny Power can be set aside and the moment School on the bor der of Peatland hills in be comes in ti mate and in ter per sonal. Bids Balerno, Scot land, I ob served a meal time at for connec tion are made and respond ed the resi den tial school. One of the cottage to as food is shared and passed. Equality groups had gather ed for lunch. After pre- and car ing is com mu ni cated in “the move - paring the food together , the group of ment of the arm and smile saying ‘I am young boys sat around the table with the here with youth having this lunch, making adults. They enjo yed their meal, discuss ing sure you are fed’” (Krueger, 2006). the events of their day and laughing to- When we pause and reflect on the gether. David Gib son, head of care at the meal time ex pe ri ence we re al ize there are school, had shown me the teaching kitchen many el e ments pro mot ing con nec tion and at the school where the counters and en gage ment. Meals are an “im por tant place cooking areas were built at the height a for childr en to learn about be hav iour, to young boy could eas ily reach and where acquir e skills, and to feel connected to one they learned how to source, prepar e, and another and their carers” (Smith, Fulcher serve meals to one another . & Doran, 2013, p. 47). There is the proces s “If a young per son can’t con trol any - of gath er ing and tran sition from other ac- thing else in life”, David said, “he can tiv ities . The weekly and daily planning of

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 39 menus. Shopping and prepa ra tion of ingr e- The source of the food, for exam ple , might dients. Lis tening to one another and be mentione d. Inquir y into tastes that the learn ing the likes and dislik es we each have youth like or dislik e might be discussed. related to food. Un derstand ing the mem o- Plans for futur e meals and ac tiv ities might ries - whether joyful, fearful, or missing - of be made as well. past meal time ex pe ri ences. Plan ning, gath - Meal time appr oaches vary, perha ps ex- er ing, and ex pe ri enc ing meals to gether tremely, across the field of child and youth then is “a golden oppor tunity to fur ther care. Let’s begin to think criti cally about con nec tions, skills and re la tion ships for the what as pects of these daily ritu als and present and futur e.” (Krueger, 2006) rhythms might most im pact the de vel op - ment and life expe ri ences of young peo ple Intentionality of Action in our care.

Being inten tiona l in our appr oach to References meal times can cre ate ex pe ri ences which en cour age re la tional en gage ment and cre - Harmeny School. (2015). Cottage life. Retrieved ate a mean ing ful ex pe ri ences for one from another . They are full of oppor tuni ties for http://www.harmeny.org.uk/index.php?id= 9&pid=88 con nec tion and mu tu al ity of con ver sa tion. Kahan, B. (1994). Growing up in Groups. London, England: National Institute For Social Work Staff. Krueger, M. (2006). Lunch 101. Child & Youth Care Online, 90. Retrieved from http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0 607-krueger.html Smith, M., Fulcher, L. & Doran, P. (2013). Residential child care in practice: Making a difference. Bristol, United Kingdom: Policy Press.

JAMES FREEMAN, MA, CYC-P is the training director at Casa Pacific Centers for Children and Families. He recently presented at the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care. In early July he will be joining in the celebration the 40th anniversary of the NACCW conference in Cape Town, South Africa. He may be reached at [email protected].

40 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 Unplugged: Life without Social Media A Qualitative Exploration

Cassandra Nader, Catherine Hedlin, Donna Jamieson and Gerard Bellefeuille

Abstract Social media has become a taken for granted part of life for many people. The current generation of young people, in particular, has been “plugged in” for most of their lives. This article reports the findings from a qualitative exploratory study that asked a group comprised primarily of child and youth care (CYC) students to give up all forms of social media for a one-week period and to share their reactions to this experience.

Keywords: child and youth carCassandraUnplugged: Nader,e Li Catfe herinewit,hout Hedlin Socialsocial, Donna Media Jami– A Qualiteson andative Gerard Explorati Belleonfeuille media, qualitative, unplugged

Introduction than almos t any one else on Earth (Dewing, 2012, p.1). Over 19 mil lion Ca na dians are For most Ca na di ans in for ma tion tech - on Facebook and more than 14 mil lion of nol ogy, in clud ing so cial media, is simply these visit the site on a daily basis. On a part of their ev eryda y lives. For some, life per-ca pita basis, this makes Can ada one of with out so cial media sites is al most in con - the prin ci pal Facebook users in the world ceiv able. Walk through any pub lic space (Wadsworth, 2013, para 1). In fact, accor d- and you will be hard-pressed to find peo - ing to Dewing, the av er age Ca na dian has ple without cell phones. Most are busy 225 “friends” on the socia l netw ork while texting, Tweeting, or updat ing their the media n number of friends for older Facebook sta tuses. The lat est Facebook ad o les cent Facebook users is 300 (Mad den statis tics suggest that Cana dian youth and et al, 2013, p. 6). adults are spend ing more time on on line

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 41 The vir tual world has becom e an inte - mean ing ful re la tion ships. Sherry Tu r k l e gral compo nent of the lifespace of young (2012), a resea rcher in the area of inter - peo ple (Gharabaghi & Stuar t, 2013, p.16). per sonal com mu ni ca tion, main tains that Most teens (92%) go online daily with a while tech nol ogy has made com mu ni cat ing quar ter of them stating they spend al most eas ier, it has di min ished hu mans’ abil i ties all of their time online .With 77% of 14-17 to com mu ni cate and in ter act on a more year old teens repor ting using Facebook signif i ca nt, inti mate level. In the arti cle The (Lenhart, 2015, p. 26), socia l media has be- Flight from Con ver sa tion, Tu r k l e woe fully as- come a way of life for the North Amer ican serts that, “We’ve be come ac cus tomed to adolescent. a way of being ‘alone to gether’” (para. 4). Ac cording to Dr. Paul Booth (as cited in This is obvi ous to any one who has Keller, 2013, p.10), social media has fun da- watched two peo ple sitting at a candlelit men tally al tered the way we en gage and restau rant table, ignor ing each other while com mu ni cate with one an- they stare fas ci nated at other across all age groups their phones. Without our and cir cum stances. On line devices, we feel me di ated com mu ni ca tion disconnected and out of rather than face-to-face in - touch, almost panicked ter ac tion ap pears to be about what we may be rap idly be com ing a pre - missing (Tu r k l e , 2011). ferred com mu ni ca tion As re search ers, we mo dal ity. How ever, Booth wonder ed about the im pli- be lieves that in ter ac tions cations of in creased on so cial media have ac tu - de pend ence on so cial ally weak ened our ties media for child and youth be cause we no longer feel care (CYC) prac tice, which as per son ally con nected. We are likely to has tra di tion ally re lied on re la tional “in the see other people as remo ved from us and mo ment” lifespace in ter ven tion to fa cil i - our persona l concer ns. Ironi cal ly, we are tate change. Is it pos sible that cur rent child brought closer to people who normal ly and youth care stu dents and grad u ates are would not be a part of our daily lives while more tied to tech nol ogy than to other being distanc ed from those that in the past people? Or is technol og y a way of enhanc - we would have attempted to regu larly ing links to oth ers in their vir tual lifespace? meet face-to-face. This change in how we If so cial media has af fected the way in com muni cat e has led to a shift in human which CYC students view themsel ves and re la tion ships. We are com mu ni cat ing how they re late to oth ers, what is the im - more, but the incr ease in quantity may be pact of con nec tiv ity dependence on lead ing to a de crease in qual ity. We have rela tional- cen tred CYC practice? many more su per ficial “friends,” but fewer

42 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 This study was explor atory, and very emplo yment. Thus are we ever able to ‘un- time-lim ited, and there fore un able to visit plug’? Our specif ic resea rch ques tion was: the above questions dir ectly. How ever, it What are the emo tional and psychosocial pro vided a start ing point by in ves ti gat ing ef fects of giving-up social media for a the ex pe rience of a small sample of CYC period of one week? students who agreed to be par tially“un- plugged” from social net work ing sites for a Sample Method period of one week. A non-prob a bil ity con ve nience sam ple Research Design was used to recrui t 15 indi vid uals to par - tic i pate. This is con sid ered an ap pro pri ate This study emplo yed a quali ta tiv e, sam pling strat egy for ex plor atory stud ies cross-sec tional de sign to ex plore par tic i - which aim to assur e inclu sio n of the peo - pants’ per cep tions of their ex pe ri ences of ple best able to pro vide the neces sar y data being “unplugg ed” from socia l netw orking in order to gather as much unique data on sites for a pe riod of one week. The re - a resea rch ques tion as pos sible (Polit & search was sit uated in the inter pr etiv e Beck, 2004). All except 4 par tic ipants were par a digm (Tay lor, 2008). Re search par a - students in the Bache lor of Child and digms are the o ret i cal frame works that Youth Care (BCYC) pro gram. One of the influ ence the way knowledge is under - par tic ipants chose to leave the study prior stood, stud ied and in ter preted (Guba & to comple tion. Result s are based on the Lin coln, 2005). Un der stand ing human ex- remaining 14 subjects. pe ri ences within an in ter pre tive par a digm re quires flex i ble re search struc tures that Data Collection Methodology are re cep tive to cap tur ing mean ing (Mac - kenzie & Knipe, 2006).The goal of Data was col lected in two distinc tive in ter pre tive re search is to un der stand and phases, using a va riety of col lec tion meth - inter pr et meaning within a specif ic ods, which are descr ibed below. The circumstance rather than to generalize or tech nique of em ploy ing mul ti ple data predict causal relationships. sources to pro vide dif fer ent viewpoints , Origi nall y, the purpose of this study known as meth od olog i cal tri an gu la tion, was to ex plore the posi tiv e eff ects for was used to strengthen the credi bil ity of CYC stu dents liv ing with out so cial net - the study (Koch 1998). The core strength work ing for a brief pe riod of time. of meth od olog i cal tri an gu la tion is the po - How ever, dur ing the proces s both posi tiv e ten tial for dis cov er ing mean ing ful and neg a tive emo tions arose. Par tic i pants in for ma tion or sub tle dif fer ences that may were allo wed to send and receiv e e-mails re main hidden with the use of a single and text mes sages during this pe riod, as approach to data collection (Denzin, for many this was a re quire ment of their 1989).

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 43 Phase 1: Creative Journaling As this study was explor atory in na - The initial phase of the data col lec tion ture, looking at the rel ativ ely new pro cess in volved re search par tic i pants phe nom ena of so cial media, focus groups main tain ing a daily cre ative jour nal in pro vided a “lively col lec tive in ter ac tion which to recor d their thoughts and feel- [which] may bring forth more sponta ne - ings in rela tion to being unplugg ed from ous expr essiv e and emotiona l views than social media sites. Each par tic i pant was in in di vid ual, often more cog ni tive, in ter - pro vided with an empty journal and en- views” (Kvale & Brink man, 2009, p. 150). couraged to draw, write, or log their The focus groups also served as one as - entri es in the manner that best worked pect of the aforemen tioned analysis for them rather than sim ply using ver bal triangulation. descr iptions . Though we often think of ver bal di a logue or ob ser va tion as the op ti - Data Analysis mal means by which to col lect data, the use of arts-based data col lec tion meth ods Once all of the expr essiv e journals is shifting our under standing of what were collected the initial phase of the- counts as evi dence and of fers “pow er ful matic analy sis was used to guide learning expe ri ences by opening up a new in ter pre ta tions of the re search. Since the mean ing-mak ing space, that can gen er ate par tic ipants had been in vited to jour nal in in sights and un der stand ings that tra di tional any way that fit for them, many of them lin guis tic-based re search drew very cre ative pic tures and sym bols methods cannot” (Bellefeuille, rep re sent ing their ideas and Ekdahl, Kent and Kluczny, ex pe ri ences. The pro cess in - 2014, p.3). volved re view ing the ex pres sive jour nals thor - Phase 2: Focus Group oughly to es tab lish fa mil iar- The sec ond phase of the ization, al low ing for re cur ring data col lec tion pro cess in - themes and expe riences to be volved an opened-ended drawn out from both the text se ries of 3 focus groups, and im ages in order to de - which in cluded all four teen velop key themes. This re search par tic i pants. These proces s was repeated until no groups discuss ed the themes that emerged new themes emerged (Braun & Clarke, from the re searcher’s analy sis of the cre - 2006). The themes were carefull y re viewed ative jour nals. A pos i tive featur e of this to ensur e that they related the resear ch data col lec tion strat egy is that it pro vides ques tion. a social forum, allo wing partic i pants to Re search par tic ipants were se lected hear and consid er other opinions and in vited to form focus groups to re view (Krueger, 2009). and discuss this initial set of themes. This

44 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 aligned well with the in terpr etiv e resear ch site at least once dur ing the study. This par adigm be cause it al lowed for theme sug gests that so cial media has be come iden ti fi ca tion through mul ti ple lenses. Both such an inte gra l part of peo ple’s lives that re search ers and par tic i pants agreed on they are not able to sur vive for even brief and expanded on common themes. pe riods of time without it. Many use it to make so cial en gage ments, com mu ni cate on Results school pro jects, fill in any blank spaces in their schedules, and over all, as a mech a - All par tic i pants re ported being chal - nism to addr ess bore dom. lenged in meet ing the lim ited social media In a pro fession that has alwa ys stressed for one-week guidelines. As men tioned face-to-face, in the mo ment re la tional ear lier, one par tic ipant dropped out of the prac tice, de pend ence on tech nol ogy for study imme diately . Six out of the re main ing re la tion ship de vel op ment could po ten tially 14 re ported having ac cessed social media pose some se ri ous prob lems. Is it pos si ble at least once dur ing the study perio d. for the fo cused, gen u ine re la tion ships be- Eleven out of 14 repor ted that they in- lieved to be cen tral to CYC prac tice to be tended to use social media less in the created and suppo rted electr oni cally? Tra- future. ditiona l think ing would sugges t not. Booth The matic analy sis of the journals re - (as cited in Keller, 2013, p.10) states that vealed three major themes: while in di vid u als do have more re la tion - ships thanks to on line com mu ni ca tion, 1. Participants reported having more free these tend to be more super f icial and less time. mean ing ful—the an tith e sis of what ideal 2. Par tici pants felt that they were more CYC relationships are thought to be. aware of what was happen ing around Yet if so cial media is as embed ded in them. the lives of CYC students as it was for 3. As the study progr essed, par tic ipant these students , how much time do the urges to go on to so cial media youth and fam i lies they serve spend decr eased. Yet on the final day of being on-line? If, as Gharabahghi and Stuar t social media free all par tic ipants (2013) sug gest, vir tual space is em bedded ex pressed ea gerness to “catch up” the in the life space of youth, how do we make next day. use of this new me dium? Can CYC prac ti - tio ners cre ate a vir tual pres ence that Discussion suppor ts or even replac es the work in the Perha ps the most tell ing finding of the phys i cal lifespace? One resear ch par tici - study was that one par tic ipant dropped pant felt they lost an impor tant suppor t out al most imme diately and six of the oth - netw ork when they were unable to use ers “cheated” and accessed a social media Facebook to share and receiv e feedback from “friends” about difficult events.

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 45 An other con sid er ation is whether in di - talking to people , for exam ple . Others vid uals who spend much of their time in sounded lonely and bored, “I stared at my on line re la tion ships at a dis tance are ac tu - phone [and] refr eshed my email a few ally dev elop ing, or capa ble of dev elop ing, times.” Some re placed so cial media with the kind of in terper sonal skills needed to sim i lar ac tiv i ties, “I texted my friends.” It is ef fec tively coun sel those in emo tional dis - dif ficult to say whether the par tic ipants ap - tress. Can gen u ine em pa thy be pre ci ated or felt that they achieved more ex pe ri enced or dem on strated in a with the extra time. Some were clearly Facebook or text message? Prob lems at a anxious to return to so cial media, distance often lack the im me diacy or sense “Admittedly, I feel relieved [now that the of ur gency that one gets from face-to face process is over].” encoun ters . It is com monly belie ved that Sec ondly, par tic i pants felt that they much of the real meaning of spo ken mes - were more aware of the world around sages is transmit ted by facial ex pres sion, them. This is not espe cia lly sur pris ing since tone of voice, inflec tions in speech pat - when they were not looking at electr onic terns and so on—this piece is typi cal ly de vices their focus would more likely be miss ing in on line com mu ni ca tion. With out expanded to includ e more of the en vir on- these el e ments it seems likely that mis in - ment around themselv es. Some repor ted ter pre ta tions and mis un der stand ings are notic ing all of the other peo ple engag ed more of a risk. Emoticons can only go so with their cell phones, and commented on far. Dur ing the study, one par tic ipant how “rude” this be havior now seemed to wrote, “I found myself en gaging in more them. Gen er ally, they no ticed what was conversations than normal… I am more happen ing be yond their own handheld de - aware when listening (active listening)” vice. Whether this meant that they also There were three major themes that en gaged more with the world, we can not came out of the par tic ipants ’ self repor ts be sure, but at least they had the oppor tu- and journals . nity to no tice and make a choice about Firstly, the par tic ipants found that they how to respond. Participants wrote: had more free time when they were not con tin u ously check ing and re spond ing to “It’s [social media] a huge barrier and mes sages in so cial media. In ter est ingly makes me so distracted and unfocused most par tic i pants linked the lack of so cial on what’s around me.” media to in creased in ci dents and lon ger du ra tion of bore dom. Some par tic i pants “It takes over, it becomes a main priority re ported sub sti tut ing a va ri ety of ac tiv i ties in life when really people should be when they felt the urge to go on socia l focusing in real life.” media sites: watch ing televi sion, sleep ing, doing homew ork, listen ing to music, bak - ing, paint ing nails, read ing, clean ing, and

46 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 “I saw many cute children and I am wondering if I will be able who were looking for attention to complete the week” as their parents just shared at their phones.” “Have started checking the Weather Network and TSN as an “…I was able to enjoy excuse to look at something on my conversations more and listen phone.” better.” On the other hand, a number Thirdly, as the week progr essed many of par tici pants re ported that they were repor ted being less anxious to check so- able to give up social media fairly easil y. It cial media sites. The ma jority in dicated should be noted that al though socia l media that they be came aware that so cial media sites were off lim its, par tic ipants were al - was a “waste of time” and that they lowed to send and re ceive e-mail and text planned to reduce their usage in the fu- mes sages. It would be in ter est ing to see ture. If we view so cial media whether emails and text as an ad diction for some indi - messaging in creased for sub - vidu als, it may be that they jects during the week were ac tu ally “de-toxing” with out so cial media, in during this exper i ment and which case par tic i pants may starting to find other in ter - still have spent consid erable ests to meet their needs for time engaged with electr onic con nec tion. In fact, one par tic i pant joked de vices. Par tic i pants could not ac cess about being thankful that she had suppor t- YouTube but often replaced this with ive “sponsor s” to help her through the NetFlix. week. Some stu dents’ jour nal com ments definitely have an addictive quality: “I feel happy that I’m less dependent on social media. It isn’t as much fun as I “Almost checked Facebook…can’t stop remember it being.” thinking about it.” “My life consisted of it, but now will use it “I agreed to participate in this research less.” study because I have been told that I am addicted to “I feel like I won’t be going on it Facebook/ Instagram and as much or relying on it as wanted to challenge much…” myself to abstain from using it…I am addicted Overall, the response s to being depriv ed of socia l

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 47 media for a one week pe riod were quite References varied, with some par tic i pants clearly anx - Bellefeuille, G., Cassy, E., Kent, L. Kluczny, M. ious to be done with the study so they (2014). A course-based creative inquiry could return to their pre vious online activ - approach to teaching introductory ities, but the ma jority re porting that they research methods in child and youth care planned to reduce their use of socia l undergraduate education. International media signif i cantly in the fu ture. Al most all Journal of Teaching and Education, 2(2). 1-9. of the par tic ipants repor ted an incr eased Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic awareness of how much time they spent analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research on so cial media sites, and many felt that in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. this time could be better spent other wise . Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive interactionism. It seemed that most par tic i pants had sim - Newbury Park: Sage ply accepte d social media as a part of their Dewing, M. (Revised November 2012). Social lives and had never actu all y ques tioned its media: Who uses them?. Publication No. 2010-05 –E. Social Affairs Division. worth or its effect on their daily lives. Parliamentary Information and Research It would be inter esting to contin ue this Services. resea rch, perha ps looking at how many Duong,K. & Adamo, S. (2013). 2013 Canada CYC prac ti tio ners use so cial media as part digital future in focus. (Annual Whitepaper of their CYC role, and whether stopping Report). Retrieved from comScore this might im pact their re la tional prac- website: tice—for better or for worse. Fur ther http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presen resear ch is clearly requir ed to deter mine tations-and-Whitepapers/2013/2013-Cana the ef fects of so cial media on the qual ity da-Digital-Future-in-Focus of ther a peu tic re la tion ships and on CYC Gharabaghii, K. & Stuart, C. (2013). Right here, right now: Exploring life-space interventions prac tice in gen eral. Clearly, social media is for children and youth. Toronto, ON: here to stay, and there needs to be a con- Pearson Canada Inc. sid ered look at how it can be ethi call y Guba E.G. & Lincoln, Y.S. (2005). Paradigmatic in cor po rated into CYC prac tice with out controversies, contradictions, and com pro mis ing the re la tion ships be tween emerging confluences. In Denzin, N.K., pro fes sion als, or between professionals Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), Handbook of qualitative and the people they serve. research (pp.1-28).London, England: Sage We would like to give the follo w ing 4th Keller, M. (2013). Social media and year BCYC stud ents recog ni tio n for their interpersonal communication. Social Work hard work and help in contri b uting to this Today,12(3). Retrieved from re search. Jan elle Pozerniuk, Kayla Maqsood, http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/ 051313p10.shtml & Ra chel Cristo. Kimchi, J., Polivka, B., & Stevensen, J. S. (1991). Triangulation: Operational definitions. Nursing Research 40,364-366.

48 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 Kitzinger J. (1995). Introducing focus groups. Taylor, P.C. (2008). Multi-paradigmatic British Medical Journal 31(1),299-302. research design spaces for cultural studies Koch, T. (1998). Reconceptualizing rigour: The researchers embodying postcolonial case for reflexivity. Journal of Advanced theorising. Culture Studies of Science Nursing, 28(4), 882-890. Education. 4, 1-8 Krueger, R. A. (2009). Focus groups: A practical Turkle, S. (2011). Alone to gether: Why we ex pect guide for applied research (4th ed.). more from tech nol ogy and less from each Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. other. New York, NY: Basic Books. Kvale, S. & Brinkman, S. (2009). Interviews: Turkle, S. (2012). The flight from con versa tion. Learning the craft of qualitative research The New York Times. p., 21 Apr. 2012. interviewing (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Web. 15 Dec. 2013. Retriev ed from Sage Publications, Inc. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opini Lenhart, A. (2015).Teens, social media and on/sunday/the-flight-from technology overview 2015. (Research Wadsworth, J. (2013). Cana di ans are the most Report). Retrieved from Pew Research ac tive Facebook users in the world. So cial Centre website: Times, Aug. 23, 2013. Retriev ed from: http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2015/04/ http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/canad PI_TeensandTech_Update2015_0409151. ians-still-the-most-active-Facebook-users-i pdf n-the-world/295589 Mackenzie N., ve Knipe, S (2006). Research dilemmas: Paradigms, method & methodology. Issues In Educational Research,16(2), 1-13. CASSANDRA NADER, 4th-Year Graduating Student, Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Duggan, M., Smith, A. & Beaton, M. Bachelor of Child and Youth Care, MacEwan University (2013). Teens, social media, and privacy. (Research Report). Retrieved from Pew CATHERINE HEDLIN, As sis tant Pro fes sor, Bach e lor of Child Research Centre website: and Youth Care MacEwan Univer sity, Alber ta, Canada http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2013/05/ PIP_TeensSocialMediaandPrivacy_PDF.pdf Polit, D.F., & Beck, B.P. (2004). Nursing research DONNA JAMIESON , Assis tant Profes sor, Bache lor of Child principles and methods (7th ed). and Youth Care MacEwan Uni ver sity, Al berta, Canada Philadelphia, PA: J.D. Lippincot Company. Steeves, V. (2014). Young Canadians in a wired GERARD BELLEFEUILLE, Profes sor, Bache lor of Child and world: Phase III. Ottawa, ON: Media Smarts. Retrieved from: Youth Care MacEwan Uni ver sity, Al berta, Can ada http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2013/05/ PIP_TeensSocialMediaandPrivacy_PDF.pdf

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 49 PersonalPersonal Values Values

KirstenKirst en Gibb Gibb

Abstract Values give our lives meaning and allow us to believe in ourselves. Living by one’s values results in a fulfilling, satisfying life. These are ideals that I hold, and in my day-to-day life and work with children and youth, the values and ideals which have the most significance are the ones that I try to follow each and every day. Exploring my values, and how they translate to action, undertook new meaning for me during a time of crisis, and here I share some strategies that helped me to focus my actions. I always try to live in the moment, love from within, and be impeccable with my word. I truly believe that as long as I stick to these core values I will have no regrets.

Exploring My Values day at a time. Liv ing in the mo ment also in - cludes being present for others . This Liv ing in the mo ment is sim ply fo cus ing means focus ing all of your at ten tion on all of your atten tion on what is happen ing them, lis tening to what they have to say, around you. Tolle (1999) wrote an entir e and simpl y being there for them. book based on this value, and in it he ex- Med i ta tion in struc tor Sharon Salzberg plains that, “Nothing ever happened in the says, “The simple act of being com pletely past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will present to another person is truly an act ever happen in the futur e; it will happen in of love—no drama is requir ed” (2007). the Now” (p. 41). To live in the mo ment is The key to this value is to be gen uine . To to be pres ent. It is so easy to get caught say you love some one does not make it up in the past or the futur e, and often the true. True love is in your thoughts, feelings , result is that we miss what is happen ing in and actions . In order to gen uinel y love the present. It is a waste of time to dwell others, to reall y know what love is, you on the past since we cannot change it, or must gen uinel y love yoursel f. The more to worry about the futur e since we cannot love that you have within yoursel f, the predic t it. If the cur rent mo ment can be more you have to give; not only to people , used to ei ther fix what has happened, or but to your sur roundings , the en vir onment, to prepar e for what is to come, then you and hu man ity in gen eral. This value is so are mak ing the most of the pres ent. If this impor tant in ev erything we do, becaus e it isn’t pos sible , then move on. Appr eci ate also em braces the ide als of com pas sion, what is happen ing and live your life one em pa thy, for give ness, ac cep tance, fam ily,

50 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 friend ship, ap pre ci a tion, and count less oth- has given new mean ing to all of my words ers that are cru cial to a mean ing ful life. and ac tions, al low ing me to take pride in For life to be per sonall y meaning ful, my self. This un der stand ing de vel oped dur - there needs to be a purpose in ev erything ing a very signif i cant pe riod of my life. that you do or say. To say something that you don’t mean is an in sult to those lis ten - Discovering My True Values ing, as well as to your self. This brings me to my third value, which is phrased best by Most values are learned and de veloped Ruiz as being im pecca ble with your word throughout a person’ s life based on a vari - (1997). ety of dif fer ent ex pe ri ences. For me Being im pec cable with your word in - how ever, it was the single expe rience of cludes the valuable quali ties of honesty , get ting di vorced which forced me to take in teg rity, com mit ment, pride, and re spect. stock, and make changes. Dur ing this time I The insid e cover of Ruiz’s book The Four found myself feeling isolated , depr essed, Agree ments of fers the fol low ing ex pla na - and gen er ally dissat is f ied with my life. I was tion of this value: “Speak with integ rit y. Say consume d with anger, bitter ness , pity, judg - only what you mean. Avoid using the word ment, and sadness. It did n’t take long for to speak against your self or to gos sip these feelings to com pletely dom inate about others . Use the power of your word every as pect of my life, to the point where in the dir ection of truth and love” (1997). it didn’ t feel like it was my life anymor e. Ruiz’s def i ni tion is par tic u larly ac cu rate be - To take back con trol of my life, and my- cause the power of one’s word is often self, I embark ed on what some would un der es ti mated. Whether a thought is con sider a “spir i tual jour ney”. In stead of pos i tive or neg a tive, true or false, to speak think ing about things I‘d like to do to im - it out loud gives it power. This value prove my life, I just did them. I went for should hold the most sig nif icanc e for us morn ing hikes, prac ticed yoga and med ita - becaus e one’s word has the poten tia l to tion, and read inspi ra tiona l books. I used all do just as much harm as it does good. Be - my spare time to cook amaz ing, healthy cause it is so easy for words to be cuisine , and to volun teer at an ani mal shel - mis in ter preted, mis un der stood or mis con - ter. strued, it is that much more impor tant to All of these changes helped me real ize be ab solutely cer tain of what you are say - the im por tance of liv ing in the mo ment. I ing. If you cannot stand behind your word was no longer dwelling on the past, on and take pride in it, then it is not worth what went wrong. or what could have say ing. been done dif fer ently. And I was no longer Liv ing in the mo ment, loving from wor rying about what I was going to do within, and being im pecca ble with my next. I was sim ply living. By doing this, by word are the val ues that I follo w every day. al ways holding on to the present mo ment, Un derstand ing the im pact of these val ues I was able to let go of ev erything else. I let

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 51 go of the dis appoint ment, the regr et, the lot of ef fort into col lect ing pos itiv e ideas, worry, and the stress. quotes, af fir ma tions, and ex pe ri ences. And Once I was able to do this, I began to if I was having a bad day, if I did n’t have under stand the value of loving from within. something posi tiv e to write, I read through It started with being able to love myself. the pre vious entri es. By the time I was fin- When I took con trol of my life and started ished, my bad day would n’t mat ter; I was liv ing for myself, and doing what made me remind ed of all that I had to be thankful happy, I real ized just how impor tant I was. I for. real ized the eff ect I could have on others This was how I learned the power of when I was happy with mysel f. When I ac - words. Whether you are speaking them cepted myself and my faults, I was able to out loud or writ ing them down, your accept the faults in others . Dr. Mar tin Lu- thoughts are pow erful, and commit ting ther King (n.d.) once said: them to words makes them even stron ger. We must de velop and maintai n the ca - It does n’t mat ter if some thing is true or pac ity to forgiv e. He who is de void of the not; once it is writ ten or spok en, it be- power to forgiv e is de void of the power to comes the truth. love. There is some good in the worst of One day I had this in cred i bly small, sim- us and some evil in the best of us. When ple expe ri ence which changed the way I we dis cover this, we are less prone to hate think about words and languag e. I rode the our en e mies. bus every morning to work. I would bun - With this re aliza tion, I was able to re - dle up against the cold and walk sev eral ally let go of all the neg ativ e feelings that I freezing blocks. I would show my pass to had been hold ing on to. I was able to for- the driver, who barely glanced up bef ore give myself and my ex-hus band, and forgiv e wordlessl y waiv ing me onto the si lent bus. ev erything that had happened in the past. I would get off at my stop and pro ceed to Once I let go of those feelings, I felt a work. Every day was the same joyless rou - whole new level of love within myself. tine. Then one morning I caught an ear lier Dur ing this time, I found that writing bus. When I stepped on, to my sur prise, things down helped me to expr ess mysel f the driver of this bus let out a booming, clearly and gain in sight to my own sin cere “Good Morn ing!” And I smiled as I thoughts, feelings , and values. One of the returned his greeting. For the rest of the things that I began writ ing was a new jour - trip, every time a new passen ger got on nal. I had alwa ys had jour nals for writing that bus, he greeted them the exact same down my thoughts and feelings , and now way, with the exact same enthu si asm . And look ing back, I couldn’ t help but notic e every time, I couldn’ t help but smile. When that they had alwa ys been neg ativ e. I used I ar rived at work that day, I had a huge them to vent, criti cize, and com plain. So I smile on my face, and I passed that good started a com pletely new jour nal, one spe - morning on to ev ery one else I saw. I went cif icall y for posi tiv e thoughts. I di rected a out of my way to ride that same bus as

52 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 often as I could, and to pass on to oth ers vate many bene fi cial rela tion sh ips, the im pact those two simple lit tle words espe cially those needed to be come suc- can have on the rest of your day. cessful in Child and Youth Care.

Values to Action References

As de scribed by Thumbadoo, val ues King, M. L. (n.d.). Forgiveness quotes. “col our our human re al ity with new ways Retrieved from of under standing, creat ing in us the passio n http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_forgiv eness.html to carry out our plans” (1997). Under - Ruiz, D. M. (1997). The four agreements. San stand ing our val ues is ab so lutely crit i cal to Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen. de velop ing the pas sion we need in order Salzberg, S. (2007). Unplug meditation kit. to be eff ectiv e in the field of Child and Boulder, CO: Sounds True. Youth Care. Liv ing by my val ues has given Thumbadoo, Z. (1997). Child care workers’ day. me an in cred i ble sense of sat is fac tion and NACCW. happi ness . Most of the skills and attri butes Tolle, E. (1999). The power of now. Vancouver, es sen tial to es tab lish ing healthy, ben e fi cial BC: Namaste Publishing. re lation ships with cli ents, as well as col- leagues, can be classi fied as living in the mo ment, loving from within, or being im - From: Re la tional Child and Youth Care pecca ble with your word. Prac tice, Vol 23.3 pp 40-42. Val ues give mean ing to the ac tions we carry out within our lives. By being true to our values, we are able to expe rience greater sat is fac tion with ourselv es and a more ful filling life. By un derstand ing what it is that we value most in life, we gain ex - tremely use ful insig ht into the thoughts Tell me what you and feelings that drive our beha vior . We pay attention to are able to focus our atten tion on things in life which truly matter : the posi tiv e ef - and I will tell you fect that we can have on oth ers, the power of love, and life itself. who you are. Re main ing com mit ted to your val ues will ensur e that they are reflected in ev - erything that you say and do. This José Ortega y Gasset congru ence betw een your values and be- havior estab lis hes that you are a trust wor thy per son; a fact which will cul ti -

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 53 Just Say “No”Just Say “N o” to Lemon toGin Lemon Gin

Nils Nils Ling

cou ple of weeks ago I was at a party. mickey of Lemon Gin. AAt one point in the evening I wander ed See, I don’t know about you, but where over to the bar table. And there, on the I come from, Lemon Gin was the cocktail table alongside the var i ous bot tles of of choice for novice drink ers. I have no scotch, rye, and wine was ... a pint of idea why this is. With all due re spect to Lemon Gin. My stom ach did a slow roll. the people who make Lemon Gin, it is one I have not been able to look at a bottle of the most vile substa nces on the face of of Lemon Gin since I was a teenager . That God’s green earth. In fact, that may be the would be, what - ten years? Okay, twenty. theor y behind starting with Lemon Gin - if Okay ... more. But here I was, all those you can sur vive it, you can sur vive any - years later, staring at that flat green bot tle thing. with the yel low label, and my stomach Or maybe we were just stupid. The started to feel just the way it did the last more I think of it, the more I’m will ing to time I’d had a close encoun ter with a go with that expla na tion. It cov ers a lot of

54 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 things I did when I was a teenager that I’m asked for volun teers to go out into the em bar rassed about today. bitter wind and cold and walk the block to Whate ver the reason, we went to a lot the store. Nobody raised his hand. Finall y, of trouble to get our hands on some Gord reached into the fridge and pulled Lemon Gin. And I say “we” becaus e none out a pitcher of grape juice. We all stared of the gang I ran with was rich enough to at it si lently. buy his own bottle . I mean, come on - it I don’t know who eventu all y poured was three dollars and ten cents. What the first drink, but we all passed it around were we, the Rockefellers? So we’d go two and con vinced one an other that it “re ally or three on a mickey (or pint, as my was n’t all that bad”. So we each had one, Amer i can friends called it. Or, as my Brit then another , and another and pretty soon friends would say, “a throgmorton”) (I’m it re ally was n’t all that bad. kidding. I have no idea what they called a Except it was. Reall y bad. You might be small bottle . But “throgmorton” sounds able to lie to your taste buds, but your about right.) stomach knows when it’s get ting some - Once we’d popped for the bottle , we’d thing that isn’t right. And your stomach has have to scrounge whate ver we could find a way of com mu ni cat ing that to the rest of for mix. I’ve had Lemon Gin and 7-up, you, not to men tion to the world at large. Lemon Gin and Coke, Lemon Gin and But Gord was petri f ied his par ents would water. Fine nat u ral emet ics, all. But the find out, so rather than let us use the worst drink I have ever will ingly ingested - washr oom, he or dered us out into the and I say this without a moment’ s hes ita - back yard, hop ing, in vain, that the cold air tion – is Lemon Gin and Grape Juice. would cure us, would settle our stomachs . Oh, that was a night. My buddy It did n’t. And if Gord re ally didn’ t want Gord’s par ents were out of town, so he his par ents to find out, he shouldn’ t have had us all over, as long as we prom ised not sent a bunch of teenaged boys loaded up to wreck anything. Well, of course we all with Lemon Gin and grape juice into a promised . We were teenaged boys with il- back yard cov ered with freshly fallen snow, licit al co hol and no pa ren tal su per vi sion. if you get my drift. The case against him What could possi bl y go wrong? the next morning was clear ... and colour- It was the kind of Janu ary night you can ful. He was grounded for two months. only get on the Ca nadia n prai ries, where Later that night I prom ised God, face to the snow scrunches under foot and your face (well, okay, over the big white phone spit freezes bef ore it hits the ground and at home) that I would never, ever drink you have to chip the dog off the fire hy- Lemon Gin again. And frankly, that’s been drant. When we got to Gord’s place, the easi est promise I’ve ever had to keep. somebody broke out a cou ple of mickeys of Lemon Gin. We looked around for some thing to mix it with. Noth ing. We

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 55 the com pe tition is down to the last four teams playing – ready for the Semi-Fi nals. And what sur prises! Re gard less of set ting, any one en gaged in youth work knows to ‘expect the unex - pected’ no matter what meaning ful mo ments are un folding in front of us. Go Post card from back to your world map or globe and see if you can lo cate 4 places. Try this as a Leon Fulcher youth group ex er cise. Find Mali, Serbia and Sen e gal. Then lo cate Brazil. What do you, or your youth group know about the JULY 2015 youth of Mali? What sort of child and

Postcard f rom Leon Fulcher youth care ser vices might be avail able to Mali youths? How might you and your reet ings to one and all! While some in youth group find out? Maybe some will be Gthe World hold their breath for a re- asking why bother? sult in the NBA Cham pion ship – whether Golden State War riors or Cleve land Caveliers – a lot of us have stayed abso - lutely focuse d on the World’s Youth play ing The Beau ti ful Game, or Foot ball (ok you North Amer icans, Soc cer) on a World Stage, at the FIFA U-20 World Cup that started here at the end of May. As I write,

Senegal celebrate their 2-0 quarterfinal victory over Uzbekistan!

How else do youth work ers en gage young peo ple in ways that nur ture a wider World-view than that to which they are daily ac cus tomed. Is World Ge og ra phy left to in - ter me diate and sec ond ary schools to teach? Sunset over Wellington Stadium for the Well I hate to tell you but World Geog ra phy quarterfinal match between Uzbekistan and is no longer part of the Core Cur ric ulum for Senegal North Amer ican high schools!

56 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 Think about what it may have felt like as a member of the Mali na tional team, fin - ish ing 30 min utes extra-time, and still a drawn result . And then, imagine the ela- tion’ – Tre Bon’! – and also the devas ta tion of that 4th Penalt y Kick going in after 2 of German y’s kicks failed to score. Imag ine what it might be like grow ing up in Civil War-torn Mali, learn ing to kick a football bare-footed, knock ing out a World Power Germany Wait Anxiously during the Penalty House team! Kick Shoot-Out against Mali

While you’re still look ing at the World map, and having lo cated Sen e gal, what do you and your youth group notic e about where Sen e gal is located, and about how close it is to Mali? Does any one no tice how close these two countries are to the cen tre of the Ebola virus out break in West Afric a? What about the French co lonial tradi tions that left Sen e gal as part of the Portugal v Brazil players fighting for the ball old French Af rica. Parles vous Francais? in quarterfinal action before Portugal went out

Brazil is the only team left playing at the Semi-Fi nals stage of this World Cup compe tition that was seeded amongst the 24 stronges t teams that began the compe - ti tion. In many re spects, Por tu gal out-played the Bra zilian team but could not turn that advan tag e into a winning goal. In the end, these youths of Western Eur ope were knocked out of the World Cup dur ing another Penalty Shoot-Out! Mali Team Celebrates Victory Over USA was the other Quarterfinalist Germany after Extra Time and a 4-3 Penalty Team to be knocked out of the compe ti- tion, this time by Ser bia – again through

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 57 being ‘stalked’ by Eur opean Football Agents seek ing to sign them to lu crativ e club con tracts as futur e first team play ers across the German, Ital ian, Spanish, French, Dutch and Eng lish Football Leagues. Some are al ready playing for top ranked teams.

Brazil team members celebrate their quarterfinal victory against Portugal

Pen alty Shoot-Out. Amer i can play ers will have been devas tate d for not simpl y having kicks saved by the Goalk eeper, but also missing the goal mouth with their kicks! USA team distraught after losing on penalty Serbia didn’ t even have to use their final kicks to Serbia kick, having won the shoot-out with only 4 shots on goal. What prep a ra tion might some one in your care requir e in order to pos itiv ely ‘sur - vive’ such an oppor tunity ? It’s worth con sid er ing that ACL or Ham string in ju ries pres ent se ri ous risks to a ca reer that can be cut short in an insta nt? If you are in volved with Youth Football or Soccer , please check out the FIFA 11+ Warm-Up Programme at http://f-marc.com/11plus/home/. It will re duce ACL and Ham string in ju ries by 30-50 per - cent!

Serbia celebrates quarterfinal victory over the USA after extra time and penalty shoot-out

Think again about the 50 or so young men who were still playing in the FIFA U-20 World Cup at the time of writing this Post card. Each of these play ers is

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CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 59 “What she did have, after raising two childr en, was the equiva lent of a PhD in moth er ing and my un dy ing re spect.” — Barbara Delinsky, Es cape

“Be who you are and say what you feel, be cause those who mind don't mat ter, and those who mat ter don't mind.” — Ber nard M. Baruch

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watch ing, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listen ing, And live like it's heaven on earth.” — Wil liam W. Purkey

“No one can make you feel inf e rior with- out your consent. ” — El ea nor Roo se velt Endnotes

“Live as if you were to die to mor row. EndNotes Learn as if you were to live for ever.” — Ma hatma Gan dhi

“A child’s imag inar y playmate just might “Here's to the crazy ones. The mis fits. actu all y be there.” The rebels. The trouble mak ers. The — Doug Dillon round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things dif fer ently. They're not “Not only am I not my dad’s fa vor ite fond of rules. And they have no re spect child—I’m his only child.” for the sta tus quo. You can quote them, — Jarod Kintz, Se ri ously de lir i ous, but dis agree with them, glo rify or vil ify them. not at all ser ious About the only thing you can't do is ig - nore them. Be cause they change things. “We must be care ful not to dis courage They push the human race for ward. And our twelve-year-olds by making them while some may see them as the crazy waste the best years of their lives pre - ones, we see ge nius. Be cause the peo ple par ing for ex am i na tions.” who are crazy enough to think they can — Free man Dyson, In finite in All Di - change the world, are the ones who do.” rec tions — Apple Inc.

60 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shad ows shall spring; Re newed shall be blade that was bro ken, The crownless again shall be king.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

“When ever you find your self on the side of the ma jor ity, it is time to pause and reflect. ” — Mark Twain

Give the world the best you have and “Love is that condi tion in which the you'll get kicked in the teeth. hap pi ness of an other per son is es sen tial to Give the world the best you have any- your own.” way.” — Rob ert A. Heinlein — Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the “When one door of happi ness closes, Student Council another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the “I may not have gone where I intended one which has been opened for us.” to go, but I think I have ended up where I — Helen Keller needed to be.” — Douglas Adams “I've learned that peo ple will forget what you said, peo ple will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197 61 information Infor mation

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62 CYC-On line July 2015 Issue 197