ABSTRACT
I have worked with young people in secure adolescent settings; in both on-and off-campus special-ed units; and in special residential, adolescent social care centres. Classrooms, youth centres, and day centres all figure in there somehow. I’ve worked with murderers (14 years of age), rapists (12, 13, and 14 years of age), prostitutes (male and female: youngest, 11 years of age), addicts, burglars, the homeless, the aimless, the rootless, the let-down: unloved, abused, unwanted, and tired. They’ve been Black, White, Asian, and any admix thereof; working class (blue-collar); white middle class; gang members; loners; isolates. Full of hate, full of hope, full of despair, full of love. Tearful, raging, submissive, seditious, rebellious, visionary, honest…
What can I do? The best I can. How can I hook them in, these unreachable kids? It’s OK to call them that. I always apologise when
tipped colouring pens?
