How to change?

Attended a meeting at MCYS yesterday over the case of a physically abused client. 12 people were involved. Other than school counsellors and MCYS social worker and her 2 seniors, other participants included doctor from KK, police officer,MOE psychologist, representatives from various student care and child care centres where the victim and his siblings are attending, plus people from organisations I didn't quite register. The Objective is to review whether the measures recommended by the MCYS social worker is comprehensive to avoid further incidents of abuse.

Initially I was rather impressed and thought to myself I have underestimated the comprehensive network of social support provided by the government. However I cannot help but wonder at the amount of man hours and resources spent on the case. This impression is further validated when my colleague, the school counsellor remarked that the recommended measures are quite standard and such meetings are more of a formality. I have a feeling it is to establish a joint responsibility.

The so called victim is my client and was referred for counselling by the form teacher for behavioural problems in class, mainly not handing in his work. Whoa! Every time I go to fetch the student for the session, the teacher would break out into an endless lament of him not doing his work, disturbing classes etc. The teacher's relentless complaint and phone calls have made the mother of the child very stressed and frustrated. This despite the teacher being aware that the child's mother suffers from depression and has once attempted suicide. To be honest, I have never really made it my main focus to tackle his behavioural problems in class. I was targeting the root of his attention seeking behaviour which I perceived as low self esteem. As I worked with him I noticed a lot of self despise and I tried very hard to get him to see his strength and to believe in himself. Earlier on in the year, the form teacher did make a remark that he behaved a bit better but went on to add "but he thinks one good behaviour justifies another bad behaviour". The vital difference in attitude between a teacher and school counsellor lies in the level of expectation. Whilst a counsellor is pleased with a small improvement as a first step towards change, the teacher expects almost a normal behaviour in line with the rest of the class overnite. I later learnt that teachers can be quite pent up over his/her students' work because the students' work is reviewed by a supervisor regularly. Maybe it forms part of the teachers' KPI.

The form teacher's complaints and an incident of his son telling a lie drove the mother frenzy and she beat him up so badly that the bruises were noticeable, hence leading to police investigation, hospitalisation for observation etc etc etc. You will not believe it. After the whole commotion and the boy's leave of 2 weeks in hospital, the first thing the teacher told me when he resumed school was "he has not done his worksheet"!!!

At yesterday's meeting, the chairperson asked me about any change in his behaviour with counselling. I just replied "there is not much progress". You can't say I feel good saying that but I certainly didn't feel lousy too. Perhaps it was because in the morning I had a very uplifting conversation with the father of another client whose mother passed away last year. I know I have helped in some cases and I couldn't do much in others.

Sigh....but I guess I can't just leave it at that. For the earlier case I really need to engage the teacher for a more effective management; and mind you, adults are just as difficult if not more difficult to change.