I found a small person……
……wandering in the street. I was having a bit of a rest earlier and heard a small child screaming outside. I assumed that they were having a tantrum and that a relevant adult was dealing. The screaming continued, so I looked out and saw a little girl standing across the road screaming and screaming. I looked up and down the street and couldn’t see anything, so I went out.
I crossed over to her and asked her where her mum was, but she was only around 2 years old and clearly couldn’t talk particularly clearly. I asked her where her house was and couldn’t understand what she said, so I took her hand and walked down the street with her (in my socks). We got to the corner with another street where a load of children were playing - and as children generally know other children (even littlies, as they’ll know the tiny brothers and sisters who don’t go out) I asked them if they knew who she was. There was a fair few of them out and none of them recognised her, which I thought was a little strange.
At which point she pulled a mobile phone (!) out of her pocket. Sooooooo, I had a look in that and tried one of the numbers but there was insufficient credit, so I took her hand again and walked back to my house to use my phone to try a number, now with an entourage of local children. As we were going into the house a young man, maybe early 20s, possibly late teens, ran up and claimed that she was his girlfriend’s daughter.
Trying to keep as calm as I could I commented that she really shouldn’t be wandering the streets. He replied that his cousin had let her out of the garden. I said that perhaps they should keep an eye on said cousing, at which point he told me that she was 25.
?!!!!!!
I took a deep breath and said that such a small child should not be wandering the streets and that perhaps the cousin wasn’t the best person to leave her with and that they were incredibly lucky that I’d taken the time to go out to her (as plenty of other people must have been curtain-twitching) as she had been wandering around next to a road - and did he know she had a mobile phone? To which point he tutted and said she must have nicked it.
:0(
Sadly this isn’t an isolated occurence - it’s not the first time I’ve come across similar incidences and is one of the reasons I found detached youth work so depressing on occasion……
(Slings'n'things)
yeuch.
Comment by jax — September 22, 2005 @ 10:06 pm
oh my gosh!!! I think you handled that very well!
and to let you know we’ve finally found a blog we are comfy with
http://stefndawniy.wordpress.com/ is our blog address now
hope to be back on the ring soon, but pop in to see us before that happens if you can anyway
Dawniy x
ps Lana has just watched me and said - ‘Dottyspots, aren’t we going to see Dottyspots?’ we will deffo — I’m so unorganised Nikki x
Comment by stefndawniy — September 24, 2005 @ 12:22 pm
Ooh, Dawniy! If you do perhaps we could invade as well and actually meet you and yours?
Comment by Sarah, Dino & Mimi — September 24, 2005 @ 1:26 pm
Thank goodness you were around! Poor little girl must have been terrified. Well done for not yelling like mad at the boyfriend!
Cx
Comment by Clare — September 24, 2005 @ 6:07 pm