I love young people! There, I said it! For me they nurture my life spirit and the
more they tell me where to go (in no uncertain terms), the more I feel drawn in
by them. These days there are so many
mixed feelings running through my person.
Remembering my child welfare days where youth taught me so much about
what it feels like to be in care. I
remember the heart-warming moments when a cherished colleague said, “Youth
must have their own voice and we need to ensure their voice is heard.”
You know some of us have
been around the block a few times. A few
of us even think that youth nowadays are beyond us. The basic truth is that young people
essentially are who they are yesterday, today and tomorrow. We adults, on the other hand, are the product
of the values, beliefs and assumptions we learned long ago about children and
youth. (‘Seen….not heard.’ ‘Yours is not
to reason why, yours is but to do….and die!’)
Some of those assumptions we were taught are rooted in power and
control. Adults had the power to keep
things under control and the young benefited from that by being cared for and
kept safe. Children and youth were
essentially powerless. That’s just the
way it was.
Youth in care, given our
special consideration of their needs while under our watch, have been telling
us new things for years now. Have we
been listening? Have we acknowledged
their courage and insight into what just might be needed by them? Do we ever take the time to explore with them
their hopes, dreams and wishes? Do we
help them to discover their gifts, interests, strengths and plans for their
future? I can remember the powerful
impact one young person had on me when he said, “The only time my worker came
to visit me was to talk about some problem or to move me to a new home.” That statement was made over 30 years ago and
its impact has never left me.
So maybe this is a good time
for renewal! You know Spring and
all. Maybe this is a good time to ask
ourselves some soul searching questions.
Perhaps it is time to renew our study and research about youth
engagement and how best to help guide their journey into the future. Find some moments for yourself to reflect on
whether you are a strength-based engager of young people: Do you explore
dreams, feelings and hopes with youth?
Do you go for walks with them? Do
you accompany them for no good reason at all…except to just be with them? Have you worked on your active-listening
skills with youth?
Interested in some
incredible reminders? Search out the
Provincial Advocate’s Office in Ontario or in your own province or state. What are they doing to empower youth voices
in their own care? In Ontario our greatly valued colleague, Irwin Elman, is the Provincial Advocate who has surrounded himself
with youth in and from care. Together,
these young people held public hearings on improving in-care and leaving care
concerns…They have advocated for themselves for change to legislation and
policy. They submitted their own report
from these hearings to the Ontario Legislature and are committed to seeing
their recommendations kept alive through advocacy. Their tag line: Our
Voice, Our Turn!
Theirs is a great read
entitled, “MY (Real) Life Book”. Read their own words in this publication and
most importantly LISTEN to what they have to say. They are truly profound! To view this follow the link below:
Some still say that ‘Youth is wasted on the young’. If there is any truth to this adage, perhaps
it is due to our adult inability or unwillingness to listen to their profound insights,
dreams and wisdom about what they and their world really need.
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