One day I was at a meeting about homelessness and its effect on children and the room was full of passionate people who were genuinely concerned about protecting children who, we knew, were going to be homeless soon. We were all practitioners working in voluntary agencies on the ground, or, at the coalface, as we say!
We were discussing how to reach such children with the limited resources that are available. As we discussed creative ways of including a family who had all nine of the characteristics described in the Sub-Chapter on the Focus Group, (who might do what, what might have a better chance of working, and how many agencies would be involved etc. etc.), I was thinking ‘we can’t have families picking and choosing’.
My thought was sparked by my exasperation. However when I took time to reflect I was not at all proud! I realised that it was a kind of take it or leave it sentiment. It was, I suppose, a response to frustration arising from scarcity of resources.
However it was also born of Pillars thinking.
Let us say that I want my child to be fluent in Mongolian [1]. The school that he attends won’t suddenly drop subjects that are necessary for the education of the vast majority of children so I can have my way. (I am fairly sure – though I haven’t checked – that the same would apply in a Mongolian school if a parent wanted their child to learn Gaeilge).
Pillars thinking will ordain that when it comes to education, a universal, mainstream pedagogy will fulfil the needs of the majority and that this will suffice for the education of almost all children.
To expect anything else would be unreasonable.
In other words, the Department of Education cannot have me picking and choosing, and if I want my child to learn Mongolian I should have to pay for it myself because hardly any children want to learn Mongolian, nor is it deemed to be an important language for a school leaver in Ireland to have. (There is, also, of course, the scarcity of the resource, i.e. teachers of Mongolian)! The curriculum is the curriculum, and I, the parent, have to take it or leave it!
However, when this kind of thinking filters into the helping areas, in particular those areas that support families in the Focus Group, it becomes problematic. That is because the issue is not actually about families picking and choosing; it’s about me as a practitioner being able to collaborate, listen, adapt, and respond in a human way, even if there may be nothing practical that I can do to solve the actual problem at that time.
The suffering experienced by a child who is isolated, poor, highly anxious, suicidal, and abandoned is more likely to be a lot worse, and have far more implications for society, than a child who cannot learn Mongolian. And if her family leaves it, because they have not the wherewithal to take it, it has more serious consequences than someone leaving a subject in mainstream education.
In our family support projects, by definition, we try and make up for deficits in the functioning of the family, or, to put it another way, try and fill the emotional gaps in families.
The fervent hope of virtually all practitioners that I know or have known is that this holding will assist the family in getting a kind of breathing space, or respite, so that they can ultimately find strengths within themselves to function in a healthier way. In order to do this, practitioners need to be empathic with the family.
The civil/public service rarely if ever looks through the eyes of, (or tries to walk in the shoes of) people who are suffering. Individual statutory practitioners will do it, and often do it very well, but, mostly, their opinions struggle to be heard amidst all the other imperatives that are driving policy and practice.
And many of the members of the families that are affected by imprisonment displease society at large. In this respect, families often feel that they have lesser rights than those who please society – and, in particular, don’t have a right to be uppity.
[1]. I’m just picking the country of Mongolia because I was listening recently to Mongolian Throat Singing – absolutely marvelous if you haven’t haven’t ever listened to it. So the country is on my mind.