Space.

I am interested in volunteering for a youth work organisation in Northwest London called Space.  I found out about the organisation through a series of connections and I have a meeting with the head next Friday.  I can't wait.

As a foretaste of our meeting, the head sent me an article that was written about the org in Youthwork Magazine: "Coffee with Rebecca Hamer".  It's so awesome.

Here are a few bits from the article and the things that they remind me of:

• "Often as a youth worker I have found that I have had to check my motivations. Do I want to give an answer to her because I have a need to help her, or because I genuinely want to help her? "

This is something that I've been thinking about for awhile, ever since I wrote [this post] after talking with a guy from my church who is doing his Masters in Counselling thesis on what motivates people in helping professions to do their jobs.  Even a quick skim of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality the other day refreshed the idea in my mind.  In it, Peter Scazzero goes through his genogram and highlights his family structure that explains why he needed to help people.  However, as the guy at my church said, none of our motivations will be 100% selfless.  We are fallen people.  We should seek to be aware of our motivations and seek accountability for them.  Or something.

• "Rebecca explained that the young person is, ‘having to find the solution themselves. They have to problem solve. And once you have problem solved once, you can possibly do it again."

This reminds me of an article that my sister in law posted on Facebook a few months ago: "UVA research: Arguing kids could have benefits"  which is all about how kids who are able to argue with their parents and develop logical reasoning for why they will or will not do things have a greater chance of resisting negative peer pressure.  The process of talking aloud trains teens to be able to think through issues wisely.  This is what the Space project wants to provide!

• "We take this small group through eight weeks of thinking about how their thoughts and feelings are connected: why we end up in the same situations, what’s driving our thinking. It gently gives them the space - when they’re ready - to start to challenge some of their strongly held negative beliefs about themselves. "

This is basically the counselling that I've been (semi) trained in at seminary.  Rock on.

• "This person feels that they aren’t worth anything. So let’s stay with that, let’s acknowledge it - saying, “That must be really hard – how does that feel?” Let’s stay there with them in it. I love Henry Nouwen’s book The Life of the Beloved. He talks about befriending our pain. I love that. He says the key to our healing lies in our pain. So if we can befriend the pain of our young people, then maybe we can help them to find the keys to their own healing. "

Magical!  Henri Nouwen!  Yay!  Yes, it is so important to be with young people in their pain and let them feel the legitimacy of it.  One of my favourite quotes is by Carl Jung: "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering."  Instead of running away from our pain and the pain in this world, to see it, face it, let Jesus heal it!  But running away from it or covering up the pain just buries it so that it continues to fester and create more problems.

• "We also need to remember that we are not counsellors. The listening deals with the present – but if it becomes always about the past, then we have to be signposting young people to counselling. All of this edges towards therapeutic youth work so we need to be very clear about boundaries. Youth work is a beautiful role because it stands between teacher, counsellor, pastor, friend, sister – but we have to be extra careful about knowing what our role is.’"

Very good and healthy.  We can't pretend to be something that we're not trained to be.

• "‘We are motivated by a Christian faith and operate within that framework but don’t impose the beliefs of that framework on the young people we work with. The story that inspires me, as an example of something being faith-based but not faith-biased, is the story of the healing of the ten lepers. Jesus heals the ten lepers, they all go their separate ways, and then one comes back and says: “You are the Son of God”. Only then do they have a conversation about who Jesus is. The heart of The SPACE Project is to offer healing to any young person of any background."

Very good.  Beautiful.

I can't wait for the meeting and hopefully the opportunity to get involved with the Space project!