But I suspected he also needed to explain why he had hurt me too, and have the opportunity to learn that his poor choice of behaviour does not equate to the destruction of relationships when it is framed with courageous understanding and real talk. I needed him to hear how hurt I was, I needed to say it and have him validate it so I could move on with getting back to the business of working with him. I was surprised by the amount of people who were in support of "charging him with assault," Surprised, not because it wasn't assault - it was by any interpretation, but because it wasn't the most effective way forward for him or me and I thought in the field I worked in, people would get this. We both had a part to play, we both were in the relationship together and we both had to solve it together. And while I was humiliated and impacted, so was he. This was a relationship that was ruptured for him. This wasn't a relationship that was ruptured just for me. So let's pause for a second and look at this from the shared story, the non judgement and the restorative angle. This is in no way to absolve the responsibility of the young person in spitting on me, or to give him a free pass on this behaviour - it is a horrible behaviour, has a huge impact on someone's self-esteem and whilst this was before Covid, in the current climate it is dangerous. I had worked too hard to cultivate a relationship of respect with this young person, and I was adult enough to see that I had played a part in the rupture. I could attempt to repair it or I could bin it. So now that I had played a part in rupturing this relationship, I had a choice. The ability to put aside the "story in your head" and really slow it down to listen to what a person is feeling is a lot harder than we think. Nil points to me.įailure to receive communication is one of the most common reasons for misunderstanding, one of the most common reasons for escalating behaviour and one of the most important reasons to learn restorative listening skills in working with, well anyone. Trying to tell someone what you want them to feel instead of connecting, empathising with them and reflecting what they are presently feeling is a sure fire way to disconnect from someone - it is a sure fire way for them to unconsciously realise that you aren't hearing their communication and it is a sure fire way for them to up the ante and communicate in an escalated way what they are feeling again in an attempt to get you to hear them - in this case with a great big gob in the face. I wanted to solve the problem instead of empathising with him.I went straight to pushing him to take on a psychological state he wasn't capable of achieving whilst he was stuck in his emotional, survival and "downstairs brain.".I failed to connect with him in his distress and reflect what his emotional state was in a strategy to de-escalate.In the interests of radical responsibility let's break down what my part was in this. The one's where people you have connected with suddenly and confusingly disconnect from you. Sometimes these are the hardest humiliations to recover from. The public nature of this happening in front of colleagues that respected my skill set and, well, see point 2 above. My pride that I was a skilled worker and these things didn't happen to me.A basic belief that I was "safe" from attack because of my relationship with him.To put you in the picture, my ego and pride had a big part to play in how I experienced this damning display of rejection by a young person I was fond of, I had built a good working relationship with and whom I had worked hard to support. A great, big, wet, gob that landed right in the middle of my face. A torrent of abuse let rip at me in front of colleagues, members of the public and other young people, and as he left the office he spat on me. Let's all do the eye roll and accept we are not perfect. Now bearing in mind I was a seasoned Social Worker of nearly 15 years at this point, I did the one thing you should never do when a person is in a state of anger. He was disorientated, paranoid and angry, but couldn't quite explain what he was angry about. He arrived at the office for a meeting and it was as clear as the nose on your face that he was under the influence of something. He was a great kid, but had a lot of difficult trauma in his background. I'd been working with this kid for nearly two years. I want to tell you a story about a young person I worked with, had a great working relationship with in fact, but which went horribly wrong one wet afternoon in August.
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