Last week I talked about a situation where staff were a lightning rod for a client who lashed out. This 16 year old male has been kicked out of every thing due to anger management issues and threatening behaviour. All I can think of is that this young man is destined for prison.
What went wrong? Is this young person predestined to be an offendor? Did the "system" fail? How many opportunties were missed to make a connection that might have changed his life?
I obviously don't have answers to these questions. We are still trying to maintain contact with him but need to take care of staff safety. I believe that there are key moments in a person's life where an appropriate action taken can result in a life change.
We tell the story of "29" that we heard from another agency working with street involved women. A young woman came to the agency wanting to make a change. Every time she couldn't make the change permanent and returned to the street. That pattern continued until the 29th visit to the agency when she managed to leave the streets behind.
I hope that the last contact we had with the young man was #28. Maybe next time?
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