The death of a youngster should not leave us indifferent |26 May 2017

The death of a young boy, especially under the circumstances we know, should not leave us indifferent ... 13 years old and in the prime of life, is not something acceptable. It must force us to question ourselves ... to ask ourselves about our adult posture. Beyond this tragic event, we have to ask ourselves about the society we want for our young people ... What future do we build ... what future do we want to prepare for them ...?
I noted that the Assembly had dealt with this case and heard the Minister for Family Affairs, Jeanne Simeon. I also took note, with great relief and hope, of the decision taken for the construction of an establishment at Cap Ternay, to accomodate young people in family and social difficulties, and this from January 2018 ...

Already in 2010, I was able to offer my services to the Department of Social Development as part of a project to build an establishment to receive “the youngsters presenting anti-social problems”. Miera Savy, the then director of the International Cooperation Section, had put me in touch with principal secretary Linda William Melanie for the continuation of the project. At that time, the ministry had advocated building at  Au Cap ... Unfortunately, to date, this project has not been implemented due to lack of funding ...

Concerning the causes of Dylan's death, Minister Simeon, in her reply, emphasised that the results of the autopsy concluded a death following a problem with his heart. We do not have to question these results, but it is possible that the boy died consequently to a suicide attempt and the state of his heart  accelerated his death. I understood, in the police report, that his body was found in an abandoned house.

This is a difficult subject, sometimes difficult to identify. The suicide of children is a phenomena often taboo. Short researches exist in the international field. This seems to increase in recent years. Child suicide refers to the act by which a child voluntarily causes his or her death. In most cases, it is not just a desire to die, but an ultimate means of escape from great suffering or from a situation where the child sees no possible outcome.

A suicide attempt is the act by which a child intentionally causes himself or herself to be injured or to put himself in a dangerous situation in order to bring about his death without succeeding. Suicide attempts, however, are not always failed attempts. Many are seen as a desperate way to draw attention to the problems or ill-being encountered by the child.

In 2011, I forwarded an article to Seychelles NATION, entitled "Halte à la stigmatisation des jeunes". (Stop the stigmatisation of young people). In the article, I wrote: « It is important to recognise that our youth has a different form of culture than the one we have known. It is their way of expressing themselves, of manifesting themselves, of EXISTING in the eyes of society.
It's like a challenge to us, adults: "Even if I'm different from you, will you continue to LOVE ME...?"
We know that young people are constantly in a paradox ... in all or nothing. A French psychoanalyst said that they sometimes manifest themselves through the "3 Ds" (the "DEFI", the "DENI" and the "DELIT").
We can only reach them through we LOOK at them "le regard", looking at them does not necessarily mean that we accept everything, but a look that lets the message pass that we understand them and that we are ready to make a small way with them. We are ready to accompany them but without complaisance or compromise.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves about our degree of tolerance ... How do we accept the other who is not like us ...?
Perhaps we should ask ourselves about the place we leave for our young people, on the framework that we propose to them. What idea do we have of AUTHORITY ...? We all know that authority is at first a mutual recognition before being a one-sided posture.
Should corporal punishment ("the stick!") be part of our relational arsenal ...?
Perhaps we should ask ourselves about the SENSE that we give to our lives and the message of HOPE we want to convey to our young people ...
Perhaps we should ask ourselves simply about the LOVE that we carry to our young people. LOVE also conjugates with TENDERNESS, HEARING, and RECOGNITION."

I forwarded another article to Seychelles NATION in 2012 entitled  "Our youths are not damaged goods that we refuse to handle..."

In the article , I wrote: "We need to educate our youngsters and try to establish a real relationship with them, based on a healthy authority. This is because we believe that the youngsters still have to go through their resilience and that things are still possible, nothing is lost. We have to believe in the capacity of our youngsters to rebound.... What sort of relationship do we wish to encourage between the adults and the youngsters? What message do we want to transmit to them...? Is it a message of promise and hope for the future or is it a message of despair because the society, because we, are unable to offer them a real place...?

We need to know what society we want to choose for our children...Do we accept to give them a helping hand as I saw in the subjects of the new strategic project for the Seychelles “Social Renaissance”...?. I believe that we do so. This means that a huge task is awaiting us. We have to accompany our youth in the difficult work of rehabilitation...Rehabilitate them to the society, to their families, to their schools. And the most important is to rehabilitate them to themselves...! It’s an exciting prospect for the future!"

I understand that at the age of 10, Dylan presented difficulties of adaptation in the school environment. Several solutions were provided by the social service, change of school, placement in the "foster care", then return to his mother's place, to finish in a placement in the President’s Village. Due to Dylan’s behaviour, the staff were not able to cope with him in the Village. So he was brought back to his mother's house. This was followed by presentations at the police station and before the "juvenile court".

For youngsters like Dylan who show difficulties of adaptation and behaviour problems, and for which no answer seems to be adapted, in France we call them "hot potatoes" (Les patates chaudes). They are carried around from one institution to another. These young people disturb everyone and they often undermine the functioning of the structures that receive them.

The violence of these youngsters certainly hide a great suffering that is manifested by their inability to land somewhere ... they have a strong desire to exist ... to count for someone and they are persuaded that no one loves them. Their passage from LIVE to EXIST manifests itself in a very chaotic manner .... They put us, the adults, in front of our limits and also  our inconsistencies ...What response do we have...?

In 2013, the Seychelles Children's Foundation missioned my wife (she is also a social worker) and me to accompany the staff of the President's Village to the conception and the writing of their "Institutional Project". In the project we proposed  tools called : "The Admittance Booklet", "The Resident's Contract" and "A Personalised Accompaniment Project"... This work was approved  by the Foundation, but I am not sure whether it was implemented...!

When Dylan was placed in the President’s Village, did the staff present these tools to the youngster and to his mother...Were the documents signed by the three parties...? This was a means for the social workers to concern the child and the mother in this accompaniment... We must not forget that a child is not just a "baggage" that we transport from one place to another...!

In an intervention in a Parisian university, entitled "Ethics or the need to give meaning to our humanity", I mentioned a French author, Philippe GABERAN, who in his last book: "Oser le verbe aimer dans l'éducation spécialisée" , tries to break a taboo that made us not to talk about love in our profession. His book tells us: If we want to save our profession, and more generally if we want to save human profession, we social workers have no choice but to dare the word "love".
To love means to educate each time we encounter. Because it portrays man in what constitutes the essential part of his humanity.

By asking the question "How to create a helping relationship? Carl R. Rogers (an American psychologist)  answered: "Am I able to experience positive attitudes toward the other: warmth, attention, affection, interest, respect? This is not easy. I discover in myself and often guess in others a certain fear with regard to these feelings. We fear being trapped if we let ourselves go freely to experience these positive feelings towards another person. They can lead us to "demands" towards ourselves, or to a disappointment in our confidence, and we fear these consequences. Also by reaction, do we tend to establish a distance between ourselves and others - a reserve, a "professional" attitude, an impersonal relationship. ".

The educational act is in essence an engaging practice. If the relationship is the prerequisite, it is never acquired.
It demands its share of unforeseen events and risks. It is necessary, however, for the professional  to abandon, at least partially, the position of knowledge to which society invites him, and agree to follow the paths of an ever-unique knowledge of the subject. This also means take the risk of the relationship...

What society are we creating for our youngsters...? Do we still believe in humanity...? How do we look on those who are surrounding us...? Are we able to look on our youngsters with TENDERNESS and are we trying to understand their suffering...? How can we help them to accomplish their “Resilience”...? (Term used by Boris Cyrulnik, French Psychiatrist and Ethologist).

In the case of Dylan, the solutions are never ready-made...we need to invent...to imagine...to try...When we accompany a youngster, we have to accept his weakness...his limits...his revolt...!

Is the project of building an establishment to receive these kids a solution...? It's perhaps one of the solutions...Other solutions exist...foster families, "parrainage", Sequential placements...In Seychelles we have the President's Village and the Roman Catholic orphanages. I can witness that the staff are doing a wonderful job with the kids despite the limited means at their disposal.

In 2015, we accompanied again the staff of the President's Village in the conception and the writing of a "Sequential Relay Space" which was supposed to receive, in a temporary way, youngsters who present troubles in school...Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education refused the project...!! (That's what I was told...!)

I am myself a Seychellois in “Diaspora” and I am attached to my country. My 17 years experience as a director of a French institution receiving 85 youngsters with personal, family and social difficulties obliges me to look at them with tenderness and severity, without compromising. I took my retreat five years ago. In 2013, I decided to write on my experience, my vision and engagement towards these youngsters who challenge the society.. The book is entitled "Le Passeur d'Ethique ou le Cheminement d'un travailleur social." published by l'HARMATTAN, Paris. I continue transmitting my experience and my passion as a trainer in the Social Training Centres in Paris.

Our youth, like Dylan, is not a delinquent youth...! It is just a youth that is looking for answers to his existential questions. It is up to us adults to show them the way. We have to make a place for them through how we look at them and how we act because they are our future...!

My thoughts go to Dylan and his family...!

Frank Underwood

franck.underwood@wanadoo.fr