March 7th, 2019

        The empowerment I’ve seen in my job has always been characterized by teenagers by their own affairs. As everyone else. The decisions that I’ve been able to make, what I’ve told them or suggested, maybe have encouraged these processes. But rather than the small professional decisions, what really contributes to their empowerment, in some cases, is he fact of being there.

To put an example, there’s a boy – let’s call him Riki – that was derived to me last July 2017. He didn’t want to be with his mother, he wanted to be with his father. The mother was heartbroken. From the school, they were all worried due to his lack of motivation and

apparent sadness.

I met him and he seemed a very educated, understanding, and kind person. He wanted to look calm, confident, and emotionally relaxed. But I could tell that deep inside, there was something that was wrong.

He said he preferred living with his father because his mother was manipulative, always reproach unfair things to him, and she wasn’t well. With more trust, he told me that the father wasn’t well either. That he wasn’t a good person and that he was aggressive.

While I was on vacation in August, I got a call from his girlfriend and she told me that they went to report his father for domestic and psychological abuse for a big part of his life; when I came back, I

learned that he was given a restraining order against his parents, and that his grandmother has his custody. 

Here we can see an empowerment process, yes. Have my decisions and what I’ve told him had anything to do with this? I don’t know. The fact of being there? I don’t know that either.

In contrast, during this process, his girlfriend’s support has been valued by him, and I’m sure she has played an important role in his empowerment process.

Summer days go by and he tells me that in his grandmother’s place he feels calmer. A few days later, and he tells me the contrary, that his grandmother is very nosy and unfair. She tells him that he is a rascal, and she is always pissed

at him. He thinks she’s been influenced by his aunt – his father’s sister – who at the same time is influenced by his father and uses this so that he goes back to living with his parents.

After a while, the boy calls me saying that he’s at his grandmother’s, and that she wants to call his father to pick him up.

I ask him to put her on the phone, but he says she doesn’t want to. I reminded him that in doing that they would be breaking the law, so he could call the police.

After two days I went to see him and he had returned to his parent’s place. It’s hard to see him.

When I try to meet him, he tells me that

he’s alright, that his parents are trying to change and that he thinks that my visits are not necessary anymore. I see him very confident, although I can tell he’s hiding the truth, and that his parents are trying to drive him away. I respect that, and I say okay.

From the school, they still see him unwell, unmotivated, and lonely. I ask him to meet with the excuse that the school is worried. He agrees. When we meet, he tells me the same thing: that he’s alright. He tells me his father no longer lives with him.

After a while, he asked me to meet. When we do, he breaks and explains me that he hasn’t been alright at all. That he’s afraid of his father, that he has abused and mistreated him in a violent

way and that when he came back home he did it again. Now he had moved, but his mother continues to see him. He’s afraid of running into him as he tries to live with him again.

He has hurt him all his life.

He wants to be with his mother. He knows that she’s not the best mother, that she’s not well emotionally, but she doesn’t hurt him. His father does.

From here, we take the case back to social services, and now we keep a counsel with EAIA, so they review the case and find a solution.

He has empowered himself once more by telling the actual situation and taking action to change it, in spite of threats, fear, confusion…

There has been another empowerment process, yes. Have my decisions and what I’ve told while I was with him… had anything to do with this? I don’t know. The fact of me being there? Yes. It’s clearly a yes.