Issue 149: july 2011

com mit ment to of fend ing no one.  As a

coun cil, we ap pointed my ten-year-old

son as the am bas sa dor for the fam ily to

ne go ti ate  a  new  re la tion ship  with  Pacco. 

Not un like Can ada’s part ner ship with the

US and Mex ico in the North Amer i can

Free Trade Agree ment, we would ask

noth ing of Pacco and just keep serv ing up

good meals and un qual i fied sup port for all

of his needs.  Slowly but surely Pacco

would de velop a per cep tion of my son as

a peace ful al beit not overly im por tant

neigh bor,  a  re la tion ship  be gin ning  that

could, over time, be trans ferred to me. 

And this is ex actly what we did.  Over a

pe riod of ten days or so, my son would

just sit with Pacco out side, giv ing him food 

and his full at ten tion.  And Pacco, who

clearly did enjoy the warmth of my son’s

body, in creas ingly al lowed him to pet him.  

After a few days, I started join ing my son,

first from a dis tance and then com ing pro -

gres sively closer, until I too was able to

pet Pacco.  And in a de ci sive and ab so lute

breach of trust and good will, it was on

one of those days that I picked up Pacco

and carried him into the house.

It has been two months now that

Pacco has been liv ing with us on a full-time 

basis, and it has been six months since he

first joined our fam ily in that park ing lot

about an hour south from our town. 

Every day brings new sur prises; one never 

quite knows what liv ing with Pacco will in -

volve.  We have had to put in place some

pro tec tive mea sures for Spotty, our gold -

fish.  Ap par ently Pacco has taken a real

lik ing to Spotty and we sim ply can not sup -

port this re la tion ship out of fear that

Pacco’s in ten tions may not be all fun and

games.  We have had to ac cept that Pacco

is a messy eater, re sult ing in us hav ing to

clean up his eat ing area sev eral times a

day.  On the other hand, the kids have a

re spect ful  re la tion ship  with  Pacco,  some -

times pet ting him and sit ting nicely with

him, but ab so lutely never

mov ing in for the kind of tor -

ture cats are often ex posed

to at the hands of kids.  No

one, not even my oth er wise

fear less daugh ter, dares mess

with Pacco.  Cute as he is,

we are still not en tirely sure

whether or not Pacco would

spare us if he ever felt the

need to lash out at the world.

As far as I am con cerned, I 

have learned a great deal

from being with Pacco.  Far

from  tak ing  my  re la tion ship

with him for granted, I have

learned that my need for

things to be a par tic u lar way

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CYC-Online July 2011  /  Issue 149

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46

CYC-

may not be com pat i ble with his needs. 

Re la tion ships take time, evolve in all kinds

of dif fer ent di rec tions, re quire a great deal 

of pa tience, and ul ti mately bring out both

the best and the worst in all of us.  I have

been re minded of one of the things that

per haps few of us ac knowl edge clearly

enough: we spend a lot of time in re la tion -

ships cre at ing claims for entitlements.  

The other owes us grat i tude, re spect,

trust, rec i proc ity, and many other things. 

Our good in ten tions ought to be rec og -

nized and there fore ac cepted by the

other.  How dare he or she re sist our

initiative, decline our offer, reject us?

A cat is not a per son.  As a child and

youth care prac ti tio ner, I would never

want to cre ate the im pres sion that chil -

dren and youth are the same as cats or

other pets.  They are not.  Being with chil -

dren and youth is very se ri ous busi ness,

po ten tially  life  al ter ing,  and  po ten tially  life

end ing for some young peo ple who can -

not face the long and hard bat tle to find

com fort in re la tion ship.  My essay about

cat and youth care seeks not to trivialize

the trauma, depth and joy of human ex pe -

ri ences and mo ments.  But as in di vid u als,

we can dis cover many things about our -

selves and about re la tion ships in many

dif fer ent  con texts.    Pay ing  at ten tion  to

our selves  in  re la tion ship  is  there fore  in -

her ently use ful, whether we are think ing

about the car pen ter fix ing up our home, a

GPS unit af fec tion ately known as Betty, a

young person resisting treatment or a cat

named Pacco.

I did learn one other thing about my self 

I never knew be fore; turns out, I am al ler -

gic to cats.                                      m

A Guide to Developing

Effective Child and Youth

Care Practice with Families

Can$22 dollars + Can$5.00 shipping &

handling + applicable taxes

Orders to: 

Thom Garfat (

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207, L’ile de Belair E., Rosemere, Quebec,

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Grant Charles (

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2080 West Mall

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Canada V6T 1Z2

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47

CYC-Online July 2011  /  Issue 149

I

 am, gen er ally, not a fan of fly-on-the-

wall  tele vi sion  doc u men ta ries,  es pe -

cially when they focus in on so cial

wel fare is sues. There have been two sig -

nif i cant ex am ples of this genre in the UK

in re cent months, how ever, that can’t be

ig nored. One, ‘The Scheme’ fol lowed the

life styles of a se lect few char ac ters and

fam i lies in a run down hous ing scheme in

the West of Scot land. ‘Pov erty porn’ it was 

dubbed, and there is no doubt that it laid

bare the lives and vices of its cho sen char -

ac ters  for  the  si mul ta neous  re pul sion  and

tit il la tion  of  the  view ing  pub lic.  How ever,

hav ing taken my usual ‘I’m not watch ing

that non sense’ stand, one eve ning, I did. 

It took me un awares, just came on as

‘The News’ fin ished and drew me in. And, 

ac tu ally,  for  all  its  ob vi ous  sen sa tion al ism,

it proved pretty un set tling view ing, ex pos -

ing the real in equal ity gap be tween the

char ac ters in ‘The Scheme’ and peo ple

like us, peo ple like me, who can too eas ily 

as sume a vaguely lib eral view of so cial

mat ters with out hav ing to con front so ci -

ety’s ca su al ties in the raw, in our own

liv ing  rooms.

The other doc u men tary, I did n’t see,

and for that rea son I’d usu ally be wary

about com ment ing on it. But I’m going to

none the less.  It  in volved  an  un der cover

film crew pos ing as staff mem bers in a

home for adults with learn ing dif fi cul ties.

Those who have seen the programme re -

port awful be hav iour on the part of care

staff. It has, un der stand ably caused some -

thing of a media and po lit i cal storm. Not

hav ing seen the programme I won’t dwell

on its spe cif ics, but for me this case brings

into sharp re lief, the en tire po lit i cal agenda 

in re spect of care ser vices, not just for

adults with learn ing dif fi cul ties but across

the board, in clud ing chil dren’s homes and

schools.

Care in the UK is per haps more reg u -

lated than in any other coun try in the

world. Under a ban ner of mod ern iza tion

and im prove ment each of the coun tries in

the  UK  in tro duced  leg is la tion  to  reg u late

care. We have care stan dards, we have in -

spec tions, we have a reg is tered work-

force; it is claimed that we have, or ought

to have by now, a con fi dent, com pe tent

workforce; this type of scan dal isn’t meant 

to hap pen. 

Our  in fra struc ture  to  reg u late  care,  and

the rhet o ric that goes along side it, needs to 

be de cons truct ed. It came about at a time

when the po lit i cal thrust was to wards pri -

vat iz ing and marketwising care. Erst while

as pi ra tions  for  a  pro fes sion ally  qual i fied

workforce were dropped, and in their

place was put a min i mal ist and reductionist

sys tem  of  vo ca tional  qual i fi ca tions.    We

have lost sight of any no tion of what care

might be; it has been re duced to a time and 

mo tion ex er cise. Moral pur pose and pro -

fes sional judg ment are sub sumed be neath

ever-ex pand ing check lists. In child care,

too, a need to ac count for work done has

led to an over load of un nec es sary and in -

tru sive  re cord ing,  which  iron i cally,  gets  in

the way of staff doing the real work: hang -

ing out with chil dren. 

Who will

reg u late  the

reg u la tors?

Mark Smith

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