2013 I am really enjoying my now not-so-new role as Incredible Years Facilitator. The Incredible Years is a is a beautifully put together parenting programme with a really well established evidence base. It is great not to have to reinvent the wheel and focus on delivery. I am constantly inspired by the parents and granparents I work with. I am also enjoying no longer being on call, which I was most of the time for the first two years in New Zealand. Matt is almost TEN. We acquired two rescue hens to add to our two cats, one fish and a lizzard. They have been a pleasure to have. Thanks Matt for nagging to get them. We have drawn a line at a pig, a goat, a brazillian finger monkey and ... (the list goes on). Richard and I miss South Africa. The smell of rain on dry ground. However there is pleanty to do here and we make ourselves useful.
2012
Change is in the air again. Our Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care team achieved it's acreditation. Jon Stoddart has done an excellent job of taking over the reigns, and I'm currently a noisy bossy second fiddle as I let go of "my baby" MTFC and possilby move back to work with new parents.
Matthew is intense and passionate and a great joy to us both.
2011
Well our application for international acreditation of our Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care Programme is handed in and we await the outcome with baited breath. Meanwhile never a dull moment at work.
Matthew is nearly 8 and a complete delight. A lot of what we are teaching him is the very stuff we find we need to teach the 12 to 16 year olds on our programme, how to ask politely, how to take care of your stuff, keep yourself clean, make and keep friends, tidy up your room.
One would think that with the passing of time longing for home will grow less, but oddly for both Richard and I, it grows more.
I think we're a little bruised and shaken. Rich has weathered a redundancy, my job has been well - pretty much 24/7, and I think the two big shakes in Christchurch shook us up too.
Who knows what the next chapter may hold?
Richard's Microlite arrives in 8 days. He's counting.
2009
After much soul searching we have decided to cross the Pacific Ocean and explore life in "the land of the long white cloud", Aotearoa New Zealand.
I'd hardly touched ground when I was inextricably drawn to a job implimenting a best practice Multidimesional Foster Care Treatment for young people with conduct disorder (see www.mtfc.com for more details). This has left never a dull moment, and sometimes a great longing for a dull moment. It has brought me into a rushing torent of new information about the culture, in every sense of the word, of the various people's who've found their way to these shores, the social welfare, youth justice and education systems and psychology as it is practiced here, and a particularly kwirkiness that is New Zealand (for more on this google The Flying Concords).
While it's all washed over me at times, I've mostly managed to swim. The work is intensely demanding and at moments hugely rewarding. Parenting has remained close to my heart, as I approach it from the other end of childhood, with young people who've missed out big chunks of good enough parenting, or have proved very challenging to parent, and ten rather unique individuals who are prepared to take them on for a time, as a bridge back to family or on to independence.
Matthew, now 6 and a half has adjusted really well and loves the freedom and life near the sea.
Richard, as always, embraces all and needs more than one life to follow all his passions. He also misses his microlight, left behind in South Africa.
