Helping failing families

I taught myself to juggle.
 
Nobody else in my family could juggle, nor could any of my friends.
 
So I just taught myself, and I was pretty good.
 
Then, one day, I happened to go to a juggling workshop. 

I didn’t need to learn to juggle but the workshop was there and I thought maybe I could learn to do more than just three balls or something.
 
I discovered I couldn’t juggle.
 
What I was doing was all wrong. I needed to scrap everything and start from scratch if I was ever to get anywhere.
 
I was devastated.
 
Fortunately, I was physically shown why what I was doing was wrong and why I needed to change. I now understood where I had gone wrong and I could see how to do it properly.
 
It was going to take a lot of work and I had a lot of bad habits to break. But I had seen how to juggle correctly and I was shown how to get there.
 
Recently I watched a programme on social work which followed a case of potential child neglect. It was obvious that the parents were not doing a good job and couldn’t even look after their home, let alone their child.
 
By now the boy was three and already developmentally delayed and without speech. His behaviour was poor and he was still in nappies.
 
How do we know these parents were failing?
 
Because we think we know what a good childhood looks like. Most of us had a reasonable one ourselves and lots of us have had experience of seeing good parenting even if not within our own families.
 
These people hadn’t. They didn’t have a clue. They needed help.
 
The social workers told them what they needed to do. They even wrote them lists of what the parents needed to do. But nobody showed them how to do what was needed and nobody helped them do it.
 
Everybody could see what was going wrong and everybody knew what was needed to put it right. But it wasn’t anybody’s job to actually get their hands dirty and physically help these people on a day to day basis.
 
It may not have helped. It’s a difficult thing to get someone to appreciate that everything they are doing is wrong and there would have been huge resistance. There was building resistance from the parents anyway, but it was understandable.
 
Neither of them had good experiences of social workers in the past and knew that their child would probably end up being taken away. 

So, they resisted when they could, and did their best to comply with what was asked of them.
 
Yes, they could have done a lot better. But they did the best that they could in the circumstances. They couldn’t do any better without help and they didn’t get the sort of help they needed.
 
I thought I could juggle because I didn’t know any better. Just being told I was wrong didn’t help. I was doing the best I could and, to my mind, I was getting by.
 
It needed someone to explain to me why my methods were wrong.
 
It needed someone to show me how to do it right.
 
It needed someone to spend time with me and help me practise doing it right. Giving me positive feedback and gently correcting my mistakes.
 
It wasn’t in me to admit I was wrong. But I was shown where I was going wrong and why it wouldn’t work in the long term. I was helped to convince myself of the need to change.
 
The price of failure didn’t worry me. Nobody was going to take my son away from me if I didn’t get it right.
 
It was easy to label these parents as neglectful because they were. 

But they were doing the best that they could.
 
It just wasn’t good enough.
 
It was never going to be good enough because nobody was teaching them. Nobody was showing them what good parents do. Telling them wasn’t ever going to help.
 
There were loads of professionals involved. All were helping in their own way and each was being effective, in their own way. 

They were all there to help the child, to protect the child.
 
There was nobody on the side of the parents. Nobody to really help them to try to get it right.
 
So they failed.
 
The case reached the inevitable conclusion and the family ceased to exist. The parents split up during the proceedings and both, no doubt, felt like failures with the world against them.
 
They seemed damaged individuals to start with and they just got more damaged.
 
Maybe all the help in the world wouldn’t have worked. But at least someone would have tried.
 
From the professionals point of view it was the right result and I couldn’t help but agree with them. The children (by then there were two of them) were removed from neglect and will never have to face those circumstances again.
 
Hopefully they will both end up with good foster families. But for one little boy, the damage is already done.
 
How does this affect Guernsey?
 
I looked on the internet for a local organisation that helps struggling parents.
 
Nothing.
 
I looked for a local charity.
 
Nothing.
 
I looked on the States website.
 
Nothing.
 
I did find some parenting classes in Guernsey.
 
Guernsey, Ohio, USA.
 
If there is something out there, then it is well hidden.
 
Meantime, families in Guernsey are failing.
 
We know they are failing because we keep seeing the results of poor parenting hitting the headlines and hitting the courts.
 
Hopefully, somewhere out there on this Island, there are trained professionals organising meeting groups of ordinary mums (and dads) where they can talk to each other and receive good advice and practical help on good parenting.
 
Somewhere, where parents can practise these skills and get sympathetic guidance.
 
A training school for failing parents.
 
If there is, then it needs better publicity.
 
If there isn’t, why not?