John Cassells || On Youth Work
“Vegas. Said she was going to Vegas.” Andrew answered between gulps of homemade soup. “Buddy, with a big car, was buying her lunch from the first day she got down here. She felt special. She thought maybe he was going to help her get things sorted out. She was what? Eight, maybe nine days on the street…Can I get pair of socks? Wherever he took her, I hope she’s OK.”
Except that she was sleeping on Queen Street during the chilly nights of mid’ October, she looked like any other teenager. She was nervous, when I approached. Her clothing was still clean and the name on her volleyball team jacket matched the one she gave me. “Jennifer”. I saw her twice over the course of a week. Then she was gone.
Street: 1, John: 0
The bad news is, the street beats us more often than not. But we don’t actually tell people that. And sometimes we can’t even admit it to ourselves. If a young person is to become homeless, it happens at 15 years old, on average -Jennifer’s age. It troubles me to tell you that these same kids don’t usually connect, in a meaningful way, with street outreach workers until they’re at least 17. In the first two years of being on the streets they are without appropriate support; repeatedly subjected to violence; not knowing who they can reach out to; not knowing who they can trust. I’m not OK with that.
Jennifer wasn’t actually the first one I saw disappear. There were a few before her. Around the time she went off the radar, Kaitlyn resurfaced. Like Jennifer, I had taken special note of Kaitlyn. I knew that she was particularly vulnerable, and I worried for her safety. Keeping an eye out for her was about all I could manage. I had a program to run. The responsibilities on my shoulders meant that I couldn’t be out on the street looking for lost kids every day, buying them lunch. In the case of these two precious young people, somebody else did just that.
When Kaitlyn returned, she was different. Her childlike innocence was gone -like when a young soldier returns home from war. Kaitlyn barely knew me, so I was glad to get this much: “I’ve been in Peterborough for the last year and a half. I went there with my boyfriend. Well, not really my boyfriend, as it turned out. Lots happened -lots I don’t want to talk about.”
Like Kaitlyn, there’s lots I don’t want to talk about either. In my newsletters, do I mention the ones I lost? Not likely. Don’t get me wrong. I still believe that inspiring people is an important role of mine. And I’ve got a hundred good news stories that do just that (PTL). But with young lives hanging in the balance, every opportunity requires our very best. Jennifer and Kaitlyn didn’t get my best, simply because I didn’t make time for them. While I tripled the number of street youth my program served, I did little to increase my program’s capacity to respond effectively the urgent needs of individual kids. Just running the thing, became all-consuming. I don’t think I’m alone in this. It seems to be the norm among outreach programs. The busyness of the program and the appearance of success is all too often placed ahead of effectively helping the ones in the deepest need.
In the world of youth work, much has changed, and youth agencies across the country are struggling to stay effective. Some are struggling to simply keeping their doors open. The problem I brought up here, is one of many that we face. What do you need to talk about? I’d love to hear from you.
It’s my hope that Canadian Street Dialogs will be a safe place unpack some of those untold stories, and where we can wrestle with the hard questions. It’s not actually meant as a place to confess our failures, but does provide an opportunity to honestly examine the challenges that lie before us. Together, we will move forward, building on our successes, charting new routes that lead us past the obstacles and onto more of the good work we love to do. That’s the purpose of Canadian Street Dialogues: candid discussions on reaching street involved youth. Thanks for reading.
-John
