Metro and the Salvos have a project going on where bands of youth workers rove the trains and stations, talking to young people and heading off potential graffiti etc. I know this because they’ve started to come to the station when out Flexible Learners come in from their school. They hand out lollipops and chat to kids and try to entice them into their Employment and drug counselling programs. Things have been pretty toxic with the FL’s these last few months. There’s been verbal abuse, racial vilification and one incident of breaking into a car and fighting with police that lead to kids being arrested. Individually they seem like nice enough kids, but it’s hard to take the long view that these are troubled kids for who need to be patiently enticed away from behavior that will lead to jail in later life when you’ve had them telling you that you’re a F***ing M*** and I know where you live. But having the Salvos there does seem to help keep a lid on things. And they had out lollipops to the rest of us too.
Hi Jane, yes it’s difficult sometimes to keep that indulgent smile going when confronted by groups of teenagers. ANY group of teenagers. You can feel the buzz of hormones and testosterone. It’s almost visible in an electric haze above their heads. And any group is a different being from any individual. There’s borrowed courage, so things are said and done that the individual would not have done, and there’s no-one to take responsibility. A group provides a hiding place, and group-think in reactive and a millimetre deep.