Summer reading
Our Community Matters • 9 •
School-based learning of a different kind brings insights into community BY SOPHIE LENTON
As a student working towards a Bachelor of Social Work, I’ve been studying the concept of “community” for the past three years. Community development, community building, community breakdown and so on are part of the standard vocabulary of my lecturers and tutors. But the terms remained only abstract concepts, illustrated by statistics, until August this year, when I began my first practical placement.
high schools, which I was told was one of the most difficult in the area. I had already been warned about the issues and struggles these young people were facing in their daily life. I was heading off to a Schools Partnership meeting when a year eight kid followed me to the gate and asked, “Is it possible to swallow c*m?”. I didn’t respond, but I was shocked. At the meeting, I heard that some young male students were already exhibiting behaviours that could easily lead to abusive or violent tendencies in relationships in the future.
The kids loved hanging out with us – two students on placements and two workers – I was assigned to a rural, geographically isolated community centre west of Sydney, and during breaks, happy to shock us further by telling us about their drug use or their suddenly these abstract concepts started to dysfunctional family life or that they were seem very complex, very quickly. planning to fight someone. It was not unusual Assigned to the Child, Youth and Family Team, to hear phrases like “I’m going to go smash his I had no idea what to expect when I entered the face in” or “I want to die”. centre on day one. Almost straight away, I was asked to attend a meeting at the local council As my 15-week placement continued, I was exposed to various community organisations to help plan a mental health event. I wasn’t expecting to be thrown into it all so fast. I was and the ways they worked with people facing great difficulties. I saw just how many young bombarded by the sight of people from the teenage mums needed accommodation and council, mental health workers, community support, how many broken families, how many workers and all the ideas that trailed in with them. I started scribbling copious notes, and I financial, emotional, mental, relational and realised how crucial it was going to be to carry practical needs there could be within this one around a notebook with me everywhere I went, community. I discovered that the incredible team I worked with engaged powerfully in just so I could keep up. community. And I discovered this: Day two of my placement was a baptism by fire. I met the other workers at one of the local Community is complex.
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