What with the Easter sunshine and my childcare obligations I've hardly worked on Children Unite stuff over the past two weeks. I did manage to attend a launch event, though, that was particularly important to me. I've been trying to work with a group of young women for the past year and although I've met them a number of times the plans keep on getting postponed to actually work with them. Many of the young women are former child domestic workers - all of them were trafficked to the UK - and they have produced their own film about this experience called 'The Story of Affia' with the campaigning group ECPAT UK.
The reason I'm mentioning this event is because it was one of those times when my professional life became mixed up with my personal life (this is increasingly so I find). The young women had shown their film, the audience had discussed it and we were asking questions of the girls about the messages in the film. As a number of the girls had said they wanted 'professionals' (police, social workers, solicitors etc.) to understand them better, one member of the audience asked how professionals could do this. One young woman replied that although counselling helped it wasn't quite enough, that she needed something more than just listening but she didn't know what. Another member of the audience suggested that victims of trauma don't know what they need but then proceeded to tell everyone that they need specialist trauma counselling. But what I wanted to do was to stand up and shout out that the young woman needed love!
Of course I didn't do that - I would have been seen as a crackpot. You don't mention the 'L' word in a meeting where the Home Office are in attendance! But I'd been reading the book 'A Road Less Travelled' by M. Scott Peck which has as its by-line 'a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth'. I had just got to the part in the book that concerns itself with defiing love and Peck had stated that truly and properly listening to someone was the equivalent of loving them: 'love in action'. And it made me realise that this is probably what all the young women in the room needed most - what we all need. To be loved. But this is not something you can mention in a 'professional' context. Can you imagine someone at the launch event saying 'Now, you're all professionals with an interest in this issue, we've done a needs assessment on this young women and...hands up who in this room will love this young woman?!' But that's what I came away from the event thinking...how can I, and how can my organisation love this group of young women? How can you incorporate the 'L' word into your policies and procedures, your aims and objectives? As I haven't finished the book yet I guess the very least I can do is to properly and truly listen to the young women when I next meet them.
The reason I'm mentioning this event is because it was one of those times when my professional life became mixed up with my personal life (this is increasingly so I find). The young women had shown their film, the audience had discussed it and we were asking questions of the girls about the messages in the film. As a number of the girls had said they wanted 'professionals' (police, social workers, solicitors etc.) to understand them better, one member of the audience asked how professionals could do this. One young woman replied that although counselling helped it wasn't quite enough, that she needed something more than just listening but she didn't know what. Another member of the audience suggested that victims of trauma don't know what they need but then proceeded to tell everyone that they need specialist trauma counselling. But what I wanted to do was to stand up and shout out that the young woman needed love!
Of course I didn't do that - I would have been seen as a crackpot. You don't mention the 'L' word in a meeting where the Home Office are in attendance! But I'd been reading the book 'A Road Less Travelled' by M. Scott Peck which has as its by-line 'a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth'. I had just got to the part in the book that concerns itself with defiing love and Peck had stated that truly and properly listening to someone was the equivalent of loving them: 'love in action'. And it made me realise that this is probably what all the young women in the room needed most - what we all need. To be loved. But this is not something you can mention in a 'professional' context. Can you imagine someone at the launch event saying 'Now, you're all professionals with an interest in this issue, we've done a needs assessment on this young women and...hands up who in this room will love this young woman?!' But that's what I came away from the event thinking...how can I, and how can my organisation love this group of young women? How can you incorporate the 'L' word into your policies and procedures, your aims and objectives? As I haven't finished the book yet I guess the very least I can do is to properly and truly listen to the young women when I next meet them.
God, I wish you had stood up in the meeting - because I increasingly think that the 'crackpot' idea of bringing love, or something like the 'love in action' you mention, is the key to more effective work by people with people in all areas: education, social work, development, advocacy, justice, prison service, etc. And it's the key precisely because it's the way that caring humans relate to each other. It's an area I'm exploring for my current research into work with young children who are experiencing social, emotional and behavioural distress. So thanks for the reference - I will most certainly be reading 'A Road Less Travelled'. And I have another for you - 'Ethics in Light of Childhood', by John Wall. Formulates a theory of human ethics that grows out of the way that children, from birth, are able to relate to others and to the world, and extends that out to include all people. The place of love and of 'decentering' yourself to accommodate others is core. Marvellous stuff.
ReplyDeleteHope all's well. xx