Dealing with the emotional turmoil of a teenager, the police, social services and our own turmoil of “where did we go wrong as parents” the one constant and grounding through the whole ordeal was Rachel.
No matter how well or not so educated one is, what sector of employment you are in or not, when it comes to your child, and your faced with an incident like our ours, as a parent you become lost, you feel like you are drowning and you don’t know where to turn to for help.
We automatically expected to be privy to all conversations that were taking place around us because our child was under the age of 16…… we thought we had a right to be there when he was being questioned (but not under caution) what ever that meant.
No one explains what is going on and no one explains the terminology that is being used, your hearing words like caution and warrants and seizing assets! It can only be described as a bomb being dropped, it exploding, and being left to process what happened and to pick up the pieces.
That was day one… Day two we engaged the services of Rachel who met us at a time which was convenient for us (after school less disruption as social services parting words were “try and keep some routine and don’t worry yourself until we know more”), Rachel went through everything that happened, the what, the why, and more importantly what happens next.
When you are left in a position like this you need someone that takes control of the situation, I know it's their job, but there’s doing your job (paying lip service) and doing your job (meeting us at 4pm, agreeing to meet us at the weekend if that was easier for OUR LIVES).
As a parent you have to ask yourself “ am I comfortable with what is happening” and “can I give this control to someone I don’t really know, to help my child” with Rachel it was an easy decision… YES
She made our child feel at ease, she made our child feel safe and she was honest with our child, (nothing presented through rose tinted glasses, this could be bad!).
When we had to meet Rachel we could feel the tension in the car and walking to Slater Heelis or where ever we were meeting Rachel. The journey home was always the opposite, no tension a relaxed child that was actually feeling happier even with all this going on.
Roll on a year, Rachel has maintained contact with our child and us, each time being updated with where we are today, and a reminder of what is supposed to happen.
As parents we don’t know what the conversations were like with the police and social services nor do we want to, as parents without the help of Rachel we acknowledge that we could not have had the outcome that we now have.
Sometimes trusting a stranger is what you are forced to do, we are fortunate because for us that was Rachel, someone that we knew very little about but now owe a huge thanks to.
Would we refer Rachel…. we wouldn’t want anyone to experience what we did BUT 100% yes, we can’t explain the relief that we as parents now feel, it is in the past now and we can close that chapter down and move on.
As for our child, one thing that we have said is that this is a huge learning experience, one that he is lucky that he had Rachel to help with, if ever a friend needs help with something similar pass on Rachel’s details and tell them your story, scary as it may be try and help someone else because they won’t know where to turn to for help!
Thanks again Rachel…. Our child can now be a 16 (almost 17) year old teenager!
