In the previous post I described how finding a magazine, Resurgence, (and having a train journey ahead with nothing to read) was a kind of trigger (to use a part-military expression) that sent me on my journey.
I’m not going to spend a long time describing that journey in full, but the real journey that brought me to writing this website started when I got a very lucky break.
I applied for a succession of jobs that would enable me to leave the Army and at the same time maintain the relatively modest middle class standard of living to which our family had become accustomed.
Being reasonably proficient at Gaeilge (and pretending to be a lot more proficient than I was) one of the jobs that I was interviewed for was a kind of roving reporter with Radio na Gaeltachta. Naturally enough I didn’t get it. Another was with a Boy’s Home in Dublin where, (even to my then very uneducated ears), I was really surprised at the line of questioning at the interview, and decided that in the unlikely event of my being offered the position I wouldn’t take it. I wasn’t!
However in July 1990 I was called to an interview for a job with Southill Outreach, a streetwork Project based in Limerick City. (This was my 13th interview in about two years). I absolutely loved the idea of this way of working. I’m not sure why but I think that it was because the word creative was in the ad for the job, and it involved building relationships (out of doors) and potentially doing a lot of outdoor pursuits such as camping, canoeing, hill-walikng, even horse-riding or soccer etc. all of which I liked anyway.
I was called to a second interview in August. I got a letter in September to say that I had got the job of Project Worker and that I was starting on a certain date.
When I arrived on the job the first day the Chairman of the Board informed me that the person who got the job of Project Leader had not turned up, and asked me if I’d take it on. With a bit of trepidation, I did so, and since then, (well, I can’t say that I never looked back) but if I did I certainly didn’t look back that much.
The only education that I had had at that time in the field of helping people in distress was a Basic Counselling Course in Cork Counselling Centre which I had done in my own time while attached to the Naval Service in Haulbowline near Cork city. I had enjoyed this Course very much and I learned a lot on it. And to me, at that time, it seemed a lot more than basic! I had also been to therapy myself, and had got involved in self-help groups and small one-day courses in helping people.
In addition to formal and informal training I had read copiously on the subject – many radical, (and to me anyway) profoundly eye-opening books such as The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere (which I already referenced); Anarchism by George Woodcock and, what I consider to be a very inspiring book for community workers, Why We Can’t Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to mention but a few.
When I immersed myself in the world inhabited by probation officers, social workers, teachers, experienced youth workers and such professionals I was not at all confident.
However, right from the start, I always felt that I had something special to offer the young people that were to form the target group, a moniker that I felt was funny having come from the Army, where targets were things we fired bullets at with the long-term aim of getting better at hurting other people. (That’s the last military type reference – I promise) ……..
But in my new job it meant something completely different. And ……. I got it!
What I got was that in order to build relationships I would have to meet the young people where they were at – and where they were at was not where I would like them to be.
In fact, where they were at, at first meeting, was often an unreasonable, angry, anxious and irrational place.
To recognise that irrationality might have a role in healing was one of the most valuable learnings of my early years in supporting very hurt people. (I will return to this theme later in the website).
Finally, in this bit about me, when working with families who seem to be excluded from the many positive aspects of life that the vast majority of the population take for granted, I often have there must be a better way moments.
(Maybe) because of this, I often have different feelings about things than that which prevails in the mainstream. For example, some years ago, when all the country was celebrating the passing of the Referendum to enshrine children’s rights in the Constitution, I felt sad – because it says so much about us that we have to have a referendum to enshrine rights of vulnerable people in the law.
I know that there are realities out there which demand that we do this – but I just felt sad about it.
Another thing about me is that usually, instead of complaining about what is, I dream of what might be. This kind of keeps me going because I generally don’t like complaining. If I can’t do anything about something that I don’t like (such as bad weather or my mobile phone helpline) there’s not much point in complaining too much anyway.
If it is something that I can do something about I find that complaining without doing something actually depresses me more than the thing itself.
This is different to sounding off or expressing my frustration at something now and again – I do plenty of that!