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Originally Posted by annesingleton
Sorry Gordon I haven't responded to you properly. I do agree with current safeguarding procedures even though they can be very frustrating. There should never be a need for physical altercation between adults and young people. I don't think I can answer your question fully on Accyweb, it would take far too much space! In brief, think about young people who have a cXXp life with their parent or parents who are wholly inadequate, probably drug users and have never worked, and for whom criminality is the norm. They have no positive role models, no extended family and know nothing better than the behaviour they display which they have learnt from their background. They need positive adults who can show them an alternative way of life which will be of benefit to them and to their future generations.
From my experience I can say that there are very few people who I have been able to influence, but the ones I have I consider to be successes - my aim is to implant seeds into their heads which they may think of in years to come. I think I've said previously that I often want to take them home and care for them, but obviously its not an option!
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Well put Anne. I don't think that conversion is possible. At the end of the day everyone with sufficient brainpower and more importantly the will to resist peer pressure makes their own decisions for good or ill. If they are unaware that there is a better, more reasoned way to act, then they are highly unlikely to choose it. A case in point from my own experience concerns two boys, best friends from age 6or7 with serious criminal role models in their immediate family, one now a professional footballer, the other an entrepreneur dealing in illicit substances. I don't say that school made either of them choose the path they took, but hopefully it helped one of them to see that right choices can bring their own reward.
That makes me sound airy-fairy. I'm not. One of his classmates punched a guy in the throat, which resulted in his death after hospital treatment failed. He then burgled the guy's house and was put away in H.M. Hotel aged 16 for some considerable time. Did all the reasonable input that he got at the schools he attended do any good? Definitely not.
Some are born broken, others sink to brokenness due to their circumstances whilst still more choose to be broken. Allowing kids access to a way that they might be mended is a slim glimmer of hope that a few might catch onto.
Great now I sound like a vicar!
