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
45
CYC-Online July 2011 / Issue 149
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 (
garfat@videotron.ca
)
207, L’ile de Belair E., Rosemere, Quebec,
J7A 1A8
Grant Charles (
gcharles@interchange.ubc.ca
)
2080 West Mall
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6T 1Z2
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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