Page 139 - moondani kyema
P. 139
ndani kyema, My Story - Ray Moore 139
I spent the next six years or so here and we built up quite a good service. I had a
secretary and two counselors who did a fantastic job. I admired their skills, especially
when dealing with children and teenagers, an area in which I did not perform very
well.
From the start we let it be known that it was not going to be an emergency service
with twenty four hour availability, as there were a couple of emergency after hours
services already. I thought this would make life a bit easier for us, but I had not taken
into account another development. We were asked by the Department of Human
Services (or whatever it was called at that time!) to manage some residential homes
for teenagers. This gave rise to a huge clash in my value system. Because the
young people we were asked to care for were regarded as the more difficult kids in
the system, we could not run these homes as regular homes with a couple of house
parents in charge. We had to have a rostered staff who worked eight hour shifts and
then went home. I had a great group of people on the staff. They honestly cared for
the young people and were able to develop some terrific strategies to deal with their
behavior.
An example of the kind of reward we savoured was the response of one of the young
people for whom one of the staff bought three pairs of socks. He looked at the socks
there on his bed and burst into tears. He had never been given a gift like that except
on some of his birthdays, and then it would only have been one pair of socks - but
three!
Of course there was the other side of things where the residents ran away or abused
the staff and even drew knives on them. All of this we could have handled, if we had
not been supervised or controlled by the Department by whom we were funded.
They had an entirely bureaucratic way of handling things, and the people who were
directly involved with us had got to the top because they worked hard at being
bureaucrats and not carers.
The final straw came when I was asked by our Baptist Social Services Department to
draw up a Purpose Statement. This was to sum up the principles on which the
service would be based and under which we would work. As this was a Christian
organization and all the staff had signed on with the agreement that whether or not
they were Christians themselves, they were happy to work in an organization based
on Christian principles, I felt it important that this Purpose Statement should reflect
that. After consulting with my staff, I put it together and sent it to the Baptist Social
Services office in Melbourne. It was sent back to me asking me to scrap it entirely
and draw up another statement based on some (entirely secular) examples which
were attached.
Not only did I disagree with this, but they also ignored some important forward
planning I had been doing with another agency in the Latrobe Valley. I put in my
resignation dated a couple of months away to give them time to find another
manager. I was told by the CEO of Baptist Social Services to pack up immediately
and leave, which I refused to do, but agreed to leave at the end of the week. I should
add that the CEO, whom I had known since teenage years, did ask me to attend a
staff meeting in Melbourne some time later and paid me some nice compliments
including the comment that I had been responsible for reminding them that they were
working in a Christian organization.
I spent the next six years or so here and we built up quite a good service. I had a
secretary and two counselors who did a fantastic job. I admired their skills, especially
when dealing with children and teenagers, an area in which I did not perform very
well.
From the start we let it be known that it was not going to be an emergency service
with twenty four hour availability, as there were a couple of emergency after hours
services already. I thought this would make life a bit easier for us, but I had not taken
into account another development. We were asked by the Department of Human
Services (or whatever it was called at that time!) to manage some residential homes
for teenagers. This gave rise to a huge clash in my value system. Because the
young people we were asked to care for were regarded as the more difficult kids in
the system, we could not run these homes as regular homes with a couple of house
parents in charge. We had to have a rostered staff who worked eight hour shifts and
then went home. I had a great group of people on the staff. They honestly cared for
the young people and were able to develop some terrific strategies to deal with their
behavior.
An example of the kind of reward we savoured was the response of one of the young
people for whom one of the staff bought three pairs of socks. He looked at the socks
there on his bed and burst into tears. He had never been given a gift like that except
on some of his birthdays, and then it would only have been one pair of socks - but
three!
Of course there was the other side of things where the residents ran away or abused
the staff and even drew knives on them. All of this we could have handled, if we had
not been supervised or controlled by the Department by whom we were funded.
They had an entirely bureaucratic way of handling things, and the people who were
directly involved with us had got to the top because they worked hard at being
bureaucrats and not carers.
The final straw came when I was asked by our Baptist Social Services Department to
draw up a Purpose Statement. This was to sum up the principles on which the
service would be based and under which we would work. As this was a Christian
organization and all the staff had signed on with the agreement that whether or not
they were Christians themselves, they were happy to work in an organization based
on Christian principles, I felt it important that this Purpose Statement should reflect
that. After consulting with my staff, I put it together and sent it to the Baptist Social
Services office in Melbourne. It was sent back to me asking me to scrap it entirely
and draw up another statement based on some (entirely secular) examples which
were attached.
Not only did I disagree with this, but they also ignored some important forward
planning I had been doing with another agency in the Latrobe Valley. I put in my
resignation dated a couple of months away to give them time to find another
manager. I was told by the CEO of Baptist Social Services to pack up immediately
and leave, which I refused to do, but agreed to leave at the end of the week. I should
add that the CEO, whom I had known since teenage years, did ask me to attend a
staff meeting in Melbourne some time later and paid me some nice compliments
including the comment that I had been responsible for reminding them that they were
working in a Christian organization.
