Cyw

Dbones

WHY I WANT TO BE A CHILD YOUTH WORKER (and a children's social
worker)

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I want to be a child and youth worker for a variety of reasons, Some
of which include: my life experiences, my personality, and the need
I have to help others. Before I tell you my motivation for this
career I think that it is appropriate that I tell you a little of my
history.

From the ages of 8 to about 16 I was under C.A.S care, The majority
of that time a crown ward. Because of problems at home I.E. abuse
poverty etc. I was placed into custody. I was shuttled to 2 group
homes over a period of 8 years. The first one was a catholic run
group home that felt like a prison. Its out of business now.(wonder
why?) It was a very terrifying place for a young child to be. Most
of the rooms were equipped with 2 way mirrors to monitor everything
taking place.

As well we had only limited opportunities to interact with the
community, and we were always kept on a short leash. School was in a
catholic high school, and you had to fight with the home to even be
intergrated into one real classroom. It was a very strict place to
be. You had to dress and act a certain way and if you did not you
would be punished. Sounds easy right? Remember this is a group home
full of 8 to 13 year olds who had been sexually, physically, and
emotionally beaten. As well most of these kids had severe
psychological and behavioral problems. The punishment was usually
isolation in a room with nothing in it. You would be allowed to eat
your meal in there and you would have to stay in there until it was
bedtime. You couldn't fall asleep there because their was a staff
member watching you at all times.

Sounds prehistoric and cruel doesn't it? This is only ten years ago.
It is one of the reasons I want to go into C.Y.S. I don't want to
see kids treated like criminals just because they live in a group
home. I think that also if I had been shown some care and felt that
someone actually cared about me there I wouldn't have felt like just
another paycheck for the group home. Many of the kids I lived with
there felt the same way.

The isolation retards your social skills considerably, I hadn't even
talked to anyone outside of Sacred Heart for over the 5 years I had
lived there, except for my C.A.S. worker at the time. Not good for
coping with life.


I was then moved to Hayden Youth services in Oshawa. I thought that
it may have been an improvement over S.H. but it had problems all
its own. I was dealing at age 13 with a majority of older peers who
had not been so isolated from an early age. Again I had very little
interaction with the outside world. Anyone that tells you that there
is no abuse by other kids in a group home is a liar. I witnessed a
lot of sexual and psychical abuse in this group home that could have
been stopped if the staff at the time had been supervising. (Funny I
went from a place where I was watched 24-7 to a place wear abuse was
rampant because as long as the staff knew that u were in the home
they really didn't care what you did).

This group home had a part time shrink on their board who was also
some kind of employee at the time of Whitby psychiatric hospital. I
guess he had a quota because he tried to have 5 of the kids I was
living with transferred to Whitby in one year. Sometimes he was
able to convince their workers that they were not mentally stable or
mentally able to deal with the world. I couldn't understand why this
was because some of those kids were my friends and knew as much of
the world as I did, sometimes they even knew more than I did. I
realized that the shrink had an ulterior motive when he misdiagnosed
my learning disability as paranoid schizophrenia. I have been to
many shrinks since and none of them has been able to tell me
something to confirm that diagnosis.

But his signature saying I was a raving lunatic was almost enough to
have me placed in a psychiatric hospital. My worker didn't bite
however. She didn't believe that I was that troubled. She was right.

These are a few more reasons why I want to become a child and youth
worker, 1st I would like to see in the home style residences like
Hayden perhaps a bit more interaction between staff and kids, not
the staff acting like a highly paid baby-sitter. That is the way I
believe I would act towards the kids. It might help the kids to know
that they have friends in the staff such as me that actually do care
about them and don't treat them like just a paycheck they might open
up and say something if they are being abused by other residents OF
the group home.

As well I truly believe if there is an interactionalist approach
towards these kids and they become close with the staff, The staff
can figure out what might be wrong with some of these kids.
Misdiagnoses by doctors about a grouphome kids mental state would
probably decrease if staff were more involved with the
kids.

Remember most of
these kids have little or no family that cares about them and have
been abused both psychically and sexually.

The worst crime committed by Group homes is the practice of turning
them loose after they turn 16 or 18 depending on the C.A.S.
wardship. Many of these kids have no place to go and usually end up
on the streets. I was placed in a school for phycologicly
problematic teens around the spring before my 16th birthday. It was
one of the worst experiences of my life. Many of my peers here were
suicidal and manic depressive and had already lived on the streets
or had been in jail or major psychiatric institutions. Only a few of
us even lived at home.

I had been living with my mom at the time and had started to date in
my social circle, which was the girls at school. The first one I
dated I was deeply in love with and she had been sexually abused and
was now abusing herself by cutting (scaring oneself with
razorblades) and doing drugs and booze. No one seemed to care about
her except me. I felt like I was the only person in the school that
was helping her cope with life.
I eventually started getting depressed over my own problems and
began cutting and delving deeper into drugs and booze.

Here again I would notice that someone was having problems and try
to discuss it with them instead of having an apathetic view like the
staff did their. They thought that if they want to destroy
themselves on their time let them do it. I can't tell you how many
times I tried to overdose while out on the weekly afternoon bowling
games. Many times I would just swallow a bunch of ritalin and no one
would notice. A good child youth worker has to notice something like
that or else they are not doing their job right.

Many staff abuse the kids as well and nothing is said because it is
kept and disciplined inside of the institution. One of my ex-
girlfriends was raped by a male staff member while living at a
grouphome in Hamilton. Nothing was ever done except until I came to
see her one day and she told me and I threatened to rip his head off
(Thats putting what I wanted to do nicely). The view that it can be
dealt with inside the institution is bull****, If another staff
member knows about abuse they should report it immediately to both
the institutions heads and the police.

The C.A.S. should not just let these kids out on the streets to fend
for their own. Many of the kids I have lived with or went to school
with are on the streets, dead, or working as prostitutes. most of my
street friends had at one time or another been in some form of
children's aid. Remember these are people who have already been
abused by someone and they go to the streets and are abused more.
Many of these so-called agencies are just breeding grounds for pimps
and dealers.

The problem is many of the workers in these street outreach programs
are volunteers and very little experience and are told what to do by
higher ups. A place like the evergreen in Toronto is run by a church
and hires mostly former streetkids as volunteer workers. That in
itself is not a problem but it doesn't ask for the skills required
so many of these volunteers work for pimps and dealers to locate new
blood to work the streets.

As the C.A.S. has no jurisdiction here it is imperative that things
in these outreach programs be changed, I would want to work in an
environment like this only if I knew that my coworkers were not
their to exploit the kids. If I caught someone trying to exploit the
strretkids I would immediately report them to the police.

If I could just get through to a kid once and make him realize that
he isn't just something on this earth worth nothing and make him
know that he can achieve something with his life that would be my
ultimate goal as a C.Y.S. worker.

That in a nutshell is why I want to become a child and youth worker.