On his ninth visit to Aġenzija Appoġġ, James Blewett, a British social work expert with over 15 years’ experience in dysfunctional family settings, emphasised the urgent need to deploy all possible resources and services to help troubled teens mature into responsible adulthood.
The emergence of rising trends like self-harm, alcohol abuse, and promiscuity even from an early age cannot be denied. According to Caritas, self-harm is the tip of the iceberg of a larger problem of personal development. Alarming statistics reveal that over 340,000 free syringes were handed out last year with an average of 30 monthly cases of substance abuse necessitating hospitalisation.
Appoġġ and Sedqa’s efforts, energies and resources in the Foundation for Social Welfare Services are being stretched to the limit. In the absence of an immediate pro-active approach to tackle this reality our future generation will have to bear the painful weight of engaging further reactive remedies. Even from a purely economic sense, not providing adequate resources immediately due to tight budgets will only lead to higher remedy costs in future. As TV host Chris Parker once put it: “Procrastination is like a credit card. It’s a lot of fun until you get the bill”.
At the root of harmful tendencies in our youth often lies a plateau of unresolved life issues, trauma and hurts, low self-esteem, unprocessed feelings in the unconscious, lack of happiness and the pain of loneliness, fulfilment and meaning. These underlying currents are often aggressively agitated by fierce social conditioning targeted mainly towards our vulnerable youth. This includes the illusion that social acceptance flows from having wealth instead of inner wealth, and the idea that social status is achieved by external standards and from a general individualistic attitude that promotes separation.
These underlying feelings of distress in our youth are not content to remain silent but instead clamor for release. When they express themselves openly and without disguise this activates the healing process. In the absence of healing, these unresolved feelings struggle to express themselves through other means, thus diverting painful feelings into a seemingly comfortable and soothing alternative. In the long run, these alternatives only prolong psychic misery and add new consequences to an already troubled life.
Yet the healing process is painful in itself and only the few who benefit from external support and self-understanding dare undertake it. As Blewett pointed out: “Adolescents don’t want to walk into a clinic or hospital for therapeutic support. You’ve got to have creative ways of going out into the community and reaching them where they are.”
Social agencies and NGOs operating in the youth sector are indispensable and warrant our full support. Through the Malta Community Chest Fund, Caritas (Malta) Community Outreach Unit has embarked on an innovative community development project aiming to educate the community about pertinent social problems and take collective and concrete action to address them.
The unit has already carried out a perception-based research study in Qormi which revealed the most predominant social issue is related to illegal drug use. Other social issues viewed as urgent are related to family stress, financial difficulties, unemployment and lack of adequate education. The project goes even further in engaging two part-time social workers in Qormi to intervene with families in need as referred to them by the local parish priests.
Emotional wounds that are not grieved poison the psyche. Conventional coping skills or medical remedies are important but these have to compliment the healing of a wounded spirit.
Within this setting, the Institute of Pastoral Formation is providing a resource of trained personnel in the field of spiritual accompaniment, adolescent and youth ministries. Integrating spiritual accompaniment in the healing process is of utmost relevance, irrespective of one’s own personal commitment towards any organised religion. Holistic wellness within the Christian context attends to one’s spiritual wellbeing and takes a person-centered approach. In the words of Abraham Maslow, “self-actualisation is spiritual at its core”, and according to Carl Jung, “the impulse toward spirituality is vital to human experience”.
It is, after all, a divine mandate for the Church as found in Luke 4.18: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that captives shall be released and the blind shall see, that the downtrodden shall be freed from their oppressors, and that God is ready to give blessings to all who come to him.”
gordon@atomserve.net
Gordon Vassallo is an accredited spiritual guide at the Centre of Ignatian Spirituality.