From nightmares to new beginnings
A unique therapy using a Taranaki artist’s work is helping young New Zealanders turn their troubled childhoods into a fresh start. Deena Coster reports.
For a country which presents itself as a slice of heaven, the experiences of some New Zealand children can only be described as hell.
Aotearoa has one of the worst rates of child abuse in the developed world.
It’s a place where, on average, a child is killed every five weeks and about 5700 children and teens are in the care of the State because home is seen as too unsafe.
They’ve seen and heard terrible things, or been the target themselves of abusive and damaging treatment.
Victims of circumstance, intervention can move them to places of safety, but the memories and emotions are not so easily erased.
That’s something Laura* knows a thing or two about.
A difficult relationship with her now estranged father, a combative connection with her step-dad, troubles at school and substance abuse have dogged her life to date.
Constant police involvement with the family resulted in her staying in State care for a while.
All these struggles, and she’s only 15.
But through an innovative therapy technique, known as story book narrative work, Laura is getting the chance to write the story of her life, from her perspective.
She sees Kapiti-based social worker Ross McCracken most weeks and they are chipping away on the project, which will re-tell Laura’s life, through her own words and specially created images.
The woman tasked with creating these pictures is New Plymouth mother-of-two Bayli Johns.
She has worked alongside McCracken, her step-father, for about 15 years and together they have created about 38 books.
Johns isn’t sure where her inspiration for the pictures come from.
‘‘I’m very visual. I kind of see it in my head.’’
While the imagery might come easy, dealing with her own feelings when she reads about the children’s lives is hard.
‘‘It’s really emotional. I’ve cried a few times.’’
‘‘You do feel for the situation and what they’ve been through.’’
She is always humbled by the positive response she gets from the
‘‘I’m very visual. I kind of see it in my head.’’ Illustrator Bayli Johns
young people.
‘‘I just feel so happy when I hear back. One of the kids said ‘this has changed my life’,’’ the 35-year-old says.
McCracken is one of only a few people using the story book narrative technique in New Zealand.
He says the trauma children and young people experience can manifest itself in a variety of ways, including bad behaviour.
‘‘Adults become absorbed in the behaviours but to help children and young people we need to look beyond the behaviour and understand the trauma,’’ McCracken says.
He believes this is where story book narrative work can help.
Throughout, the focus remains on the child or young person’s story, their truth and experiences rather than a version of it provided through the adult eyes of their caregiver, teacher or social worker.
McCracken says like any form of therapy, some methods ‘‘resonate’’ better than others and the story book work really appeals to him.
‘‘I don’t use the word counselling. It’s a turn off for children and young people,’’ McCracken says.
‘‘I’m not an academic type, I work more from the heart.’’
He says ‘‘stories are powerful’’ and finding the right metaphor to tell the young person’s version is key to the story book process.
‘‘That can be kind of a key to unlocking things.’’
Coming up with a central symbol for the story flows out of conversations McCracken has with his clients.
The story slowly develops over time and always at the pace of the young person, as opening up and sharing information, maybe for the very first time, is never easy.
During each session, McCracken takes handwritten notes, which he goes over at every subsequent meeting with the child or young person, so they can correct or change anything in the manuscript.
The draft is then sent away to Johns for her special illustrations to be completed.
These are checked over before the green light is given and the final version completed.
A story-telling session is then organised, when the book is read aloud by the young person to an invite-only audience.
Everyone present then gets a chance to reflect on what they have heard.
It can be an emotional time, McCracken says. ‘‘Tissues can certainly be required.’’
Fiona* has seen firsthand the benefits of the story book work.
Sam* has been in her care for two years after being removed from his parents due to his exposure to serious violence.
Sam worked with McCracken on his book for several months and had been ‘‘really tentative’’ about reading it aloud for the first time.
But Fiona says once the 11-yearold started, he couldn’t stop.
‘‘He just kept reading and he just kept reading,’’ Fiona says. Even through the ‘‘horrible’’ bits.
‘‘At that time there probably was not a dry eye in the house.’’
As Sam’s caregivers, Fiona and her husband knew a lot about him and what he had endured through his childhood, but hearing it from Sam himself was something entirely different.
‘‘For us, lots of lightbulbs went off.’’
Through the process of shaping his life story, Sam has been able to put words and meanings to his emotions and feelings, she says.
‘‘It’s like a created taonga. It’s something he never had before that has helped him to understand his world.’’
For educators like Stephanie Greenslade, who heads up Waiopehu College’s learning support centre in Levin, the story book is the gift of greater understanding.
Another of McCracken’s clients is a student at the school and his book has been extremely useful for staff to gain a better insight into what makes him tick.
‘‘It’s the enlightenment that you get when you have the student’s voice,’’ Greenslade says.
‘‘When he presented it, the pictures were just as powerful. It’s true, a picture really is worth 1000 words.’’
Greenslade says for adults, it is so important to listen to what the young person is saying and take on their message, in whatever form it is delivered.
‘‘I think what’s important is that you don’t judge it and you believe it,’’ she says.
As her own life story takes shape on the page, Laura feels happier than she has ever been.
‘‘Life’s way better now. I reckon I have grown up a bit,’’ she says.
It’s not always plain-sailing but compared to how things have been, she sees a much clearer future for herself than she ever did before.
She wants other youngsters who face similar struggles in their lives to know one thing: ‘‘You can get through it.’’
As for adults who are trying to help, she also has some sage advice - if you ask the question, then care about the answer.
‘‘If you’re there to help someone, you should at least make it look like you give a s***.’’
*Not their real names