Preventing delinquency: Parents need help

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 13

Preventing delinquency: Parents need help

Last year 274 young people were referred for help to a specialist support team with the Social welfare Department in Christchurch. Anti-social behaviour, substance abuse (drugs or solvents), anxiety disorders, depression, abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) and inappropriate sexual behaviour, were some of the reasons for referral. The young people, many of whom are labelled “delinquent” by society, are referred to the team by the department’s social workers. They will have been a nuisance to someone — a teacher, their families, the community or the police — for long enough to have been brought to the department’s attention. Seventy-two per cent of all those seen will be under the age of 17. Six per cent will have been before the Children’s and Young Persons’ Court, or the Childdren’s Board. The specialist team was formed in March, 1982, and was the first of its kind in New Zealand. Its members are: a clinical psychologist and team co-ordinator, Mr John Watson; a child psychotherapist, Ms Heather Ryburn and a part-time consultant psychiatrist, Dr Robyn Hewland. Most of its referrals are from the Christchurch area, but the team also works in Nelson, the West Coast and south of Christchurch as far as Dunedin. The team was brought together to provide a backup service for the social workers. It works in much the same way as the relationship between a general practitioner and a specialist, says Dr Hewland. “There was a long waiting list for back-up services and consultation, so the department decided to provide its own people. If a social worker thinks there may be a psychiatric problem or something else* they don’t understand, they will refer a child to us for a second opinion.” The team sees those young people who are “at the end of the barrel,” says Dr Hewland. Their problems were serious enough to bring them under supervision or care. Many of the people seen by the team are in boys’ and girls’ homes, D.S.W. family homes and foster homes. When making assessments of young people and their families there are no judgments involved, says Dr

as community support and counselling for those who aren’t coping.”

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Dr Hewland stresses that quantity of time given to children is no substitute for quality of relationship. “Staying at home doesn’t necessarily make you a good mother — most of the women we see are at home and always have been at home. You can be physically available without being emotionally available. “More part-time day care should be available, so that mum can get a break and come back to her children fresh. It would also let mothers build up a trusting relationship with people in the centre to go to for help if needed.” People who hark back to “the good-old-days” and ask why there were never any problems then, are wrong, says Dr Hewland. “We didn’t manage any better then than we do now, but two generations ago. people could not admit to not being able to cope with parenting. It was a taboo subject, like sexual abuse is now.” Reconstituted families, where the parents have separated and formed new relationships, can be worse for kids than if the parents stayed single after separation, she says. “Overseas studies have shown that children whose parents remarry don’t do as well at school as children whose parents don’t re* marry. “Most kids find it difficult to get on with mum’s new. boyfriend. If parents remarry, children can be under the same tensions all over again.” Most of the children the team sees are aged between 10 and 16 — too late to help the majority of them, says Dr Hewland. “Prisons are adult orphanages. The young people we see are headed for the adult orphanage all because of a shaky start to life. “Early intervention and preventative work is the most pressing need. It is possible to change the cycle, but people have to recognise it and be taught new behaviour.” Dr Hewland says Christchurch needs many more foster parents, and people to volunteer for social work as “careers.” The community should provide enough support and help for everyone, but it must be good quality support, cheap and easily available, she says.

LIZ ROWE

Hewland, who is also the president of the Association of Psychotherapists and Counsellors. “The assessment includes an explanation, but we neither blame the parent nor excuse the child. “A happy child is never a naughty child. These children are protesters — they are their own worst enemy, and very hard to help.” “Delinquent” or “protest” behaviour is a reaction to

A lack of trust is the basic problem. This comes from being unable to form a good relationship with anyone, and usually starts at a very early age. Helping these young people such as the girls who get to Kingslea Girls’ Home, is by trying to “break the cycle of despair” and rebuild trust, says Dr Hewland. “Firstly we have to stop them from running away from their anxieties by putting them in a secure environment that they can’t run away from. “Suitable staff have to be provided who can offer a relationship within this environment.” The girls build up a relationship for the first time in their lives, still mistrusting and kicking, but slowly they stop kicking and start to relate, says Dr Hewland. Then the trust can be built up. The girls will start to listen and learn new ways and want to change. “You cannot short-cut this process, or leave out any of the stages. The staff members have to do all the reparenting that the kid missed out on. “It’s very demanding on the staff and I have started working at Kingslea, with the staff, to provide some of the support they need.” Unless the problem is tackled to this extent, nothing will be achieved. Building up trust is a long and slow process, she says. According to Dr Hewland, problems usually start with a lack of good parenting. She would like to see much more help and support given to parents. “Being a parent is extremely difficult. Just being a female does not make you a mother — we have to learn how to parent, and our ability to do so depends very much on our own parenting. “Recognition and support is needed for parents, such

not feeling wanted, says Dr Hewland. They have no self-esteem or self-confidence, don’t trust anyone and do not feel they belong. “Many are what I call ‘day-one drop-outs’ at school. They don’t have the self-confidence to be keenabdut wanting to learn, so they fall behind in reading and other school work, which can add to their sense of not belonging.” Some feel they have nothing to lose by going out on the streets with their mates and getting into trouble. They are fighting to survive as individuals, she says.

Anti-social behaviour in children and adolescents is often the result of a family trauma.