By: Kenneth V. Hardy

AT 14, MALIK IS NEARLY FULL GROWN. HE BOPS INTO HIS first therapy session dressed in jeans so baggy that two of him could fit into them, with a 3-inch black belt that doesn't do anything to keep them from riding so low that they could fall off at any moment. He's here because he has been suspended from school for talking back to his teacher. As he slouches in his chair and looks bored, I sit with the team, observing the session through the one-way mirror.

Valerie, the therapist in the room, is a white woman in her early thirties, one of my trainees. Because Malik is African American and dressed in the uniform of his generation, I worry that Valerie will automatically experience him as menacing. As she closes the door, I can already sense how her discomfort pervades the room. A fine therapist, Valerie is clearly more guarded and tentative than I have ever seen her. Later, she denied she was afraid of Malik, then added that she was never comfortable with teenagers. When we discussed it further, she said she worried that admitting to being afraid of a 14-year old African American boy, who hadn't done anything but slump sullenly in a chair, would mean she was a racist. This is a problem many of my white colleagues and trainees encounter. When is their fear justified, and when is it the noxious fallout of racism?

Malik describes his unhappiness in school, telling the therapist, "You can't trust the Man" and "They're out to get you." He is speaking in code, raising the issue that is foremost in his mind, yet Valerie is reluctant to pursue it. She keeps asking him general questions about his life, ignoring his many allusions to racism. At one point, Malik makes a reference to the O.J. Simpson trial, "I grew up hearing about two things you don't do," he tells Valerie, "you don't mess with the Man's money and you don't mess with the Man's women." After confirming that Malik is referring to whites, Valerie carefully replies, "Yes, I guess some people do have trouble with interracial couples." Malik suddenly becomes very alert and asks her, "What do you think?" Startled, she answers, "What I think isn't important. People think different things: But Malik insists on getting an answer. "No, I'm asking you," he says. "What do you believe." When Valerie says she has never thought about it, Malik persists. "I guess I probably wouldn't want a son or daughter to date someone black," she finally tells him. "But, it's not because of what you might think. It's just too hard, given the way things are."

"I'm glad you said that." Malik tells her, looking directly at her, setting up straight, his voice louder, "because this is how you white people feel. Only, you don't want to be on the up and up about it. So I got to walk around feeling like I'm f__in crazy." Behind the mirror, none of us seems to breathe, each of us wondering if this session is about to get out of control. I am torn between wanting to jump in to "rescue" Valerie and wanting to let both her and Malik learn from each other. I'm not altogether sorry the conversation has taken this turn: the issue of race is definitely out on the table now. Malik and Valerie need to address it head-on. But the problem is, Valerie is uncomfortable not only with the topic, but with the vehemence of Malik's expression. As he seethes with pent-up anger, Valerie's response is, understandably, to divert it to something safer. I see this a lot when I supervise white therapists working with African-American clients. Like Valerie, they often try to change the subject. "Malik, let's talk about what happens in school,:" insists Valerie.

"I DON'T' GIVE A F___ ABOUT SCHOOL! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I DON'T GIVE A F___ ABOUT SCHOOL! I DON'T GIVE A MOTHERF___ ABOUT SCHOOL! F___ SCHOOL"
This is one of those tightrope moments in therapy, the pivotal seconds when the core issue, the raw emotion, is finally out there. I know it will be exhilarating to get to the other side, but I am also acutely aware of the danger of walking this line, how easy it is to slip. I decide to call in. "Valerie, I think you're doing a nice job of getting him to express some stuff that he needs to get out," I begin, trying to reassure her. "It's like he's throwing up now, and you need to let him. Try to empathize." But I know it's hard to empathize when the therapist feels threatened. I have done therapy with self-confessed "nigger-hating," white teenagers, so I know when I can no longer be helpful and have to attend to the part of me that's fearful. Still, being a good therapist means learning how to hold one's own fear and focus on what the client needs at that moment. We have talked about fear in an abstract way in Valerie's supervision, but this is her first experience confronting it in the flesh.

I watch Malik come to life as he screams out his frustration and pain. Although it churns up all kinds of emotions in the rest of us, I can't help but think this is an important experience for him. Unfortunately, Valerie cannot stay with it. She wants what we all want when we feel threatened: control. "Look," she tells him in a tight voice, "you're entitled to feel what you feel, but I'm not going to tolerate you yelling in here." Malik immediately shuts down, although I can see the rage still in his eyes. I worry that, as Valerie lays down the law and becomes the embodiment of all the put-downs and slights that he feels besieged by in a white world, his rage might suddenly shift to her.

Valerie has used her position to do what Malik believes whites always do: tell him to shut up, make him feel small, wrong, and frustrated. At the same time, Valerie is now in a bind because the therapy has become a conversation about Malik talking more quietly. With teenagers, it is almost always a mistake to focus on issues of style-take the hat off, pull the hood down, pull the pants up, sit up straight, take the headphones off, stop swearing, stop yelling. I have never found it useful to get into these stand-offs.

I call in again and ask Valerie if she is willing to take a one-down position now. Can she admit that she felt overwhelmed by what Malik has been saying, but assure him that therapy is a place where he can express himself in whatever way he needs? She tells Malik, "The team just told me what I was already feeling. I realized I got a little carried away when you were yelling. And yelling at you for yelling didn't help. So let's start over," and she extends her hand to him as if to shake it. "Deal?" Surprised, somewhat reluctant, Malik nevertheless shakes her hand. Then she says, "It seems like your life so far has been about people telling you what you have to do. What is this thing about school?"

There is now a tone of genuine curiosity in Valerie's voice. Malik relaxes for the first time and the session shifts. He talks about feeling singled out and persecuted by his teachers for being black. He feels he hasn't done anything to deserve the treatment he receives. As Valerie listens to him fully, he is finally opening up to this white therapist who has invited him to talk about the ways his white teachers are screwed up.

Once Malik feels Valerie is, in some small way, on his side, she is able to challenge him a little about what he might be doing to contribute to the hostile tug-of-war at school. After Malik describes a confrontation with a teacher, she says, "So when you got up to walk out of the classroom to use the bathroom, and you ignored the teacher when she asked you where you were going, what would have happened if you had just said, I'm going to the bathroom?" As they talk, he defends his position. At times, he tells her, "You don't understand. You can't understand." Maybe this is true, but maybe her questions also sink in and give him some options he can try next time he feels helpless to change his teacher's attitude toward him.

With adolescents, I treat every session as if it is the last, and try to make the greatest amount of impact I can while they are in my office. At the end of the session, I don't know if Malik will come back again. But my guess is he will because he took away some connection to Valerie, some sense that she understood him.

THERAPY WITH TEENAGERS HAS TO be about creating, and then holding, a connection. As a therapist, I am like a spider trying to lure my adolescent clients into a web that will support them. First, I work to spin a strand of connection between, and when that is established, I focus therapy on strengthening or reconnecting the teenager's bonds to his or her family, school and community. It is when teenagers lose their connection to these sources of support that they are most at risk. Everything in their worlds becomes one-dimensional, and all that matters then is their pain and the relief of it. These cut-off kids become the ones who are capable of staring you in the eye and pulling the trigger with absolutely no remorse, and even some inner thrill.

Adolescence is a time of life when teenagers define who they are by trying on different identities, like trying on shoes and discarding the ones that don't fit. But if you are a black kid in an overwhelmingly white society, you have fewer opportunities to try on different identities or even to define yourself because you are constantly grappling with society's blanket definition of you as, first and foremost, black. Being devalued as a person of color means being drained, every day - of personal dignity, respect, validation and one's sense of belonging. Under a barrage of countless, and recurring, negative images and messages about black people. Many African-American teenagers find themselves in a trap: how can they forge a positive identity - the developmental task of adolescence - without having a positive racial identity, and how can they cultivate a positive racial identity in a racist society?

A black 15 year old young man knows that when he walks into a store, he will be followed, suspiciously, by the manager, no matter what he is wearing, how much money he has in his pocket, what grades he gets. His blackness is the first, and sometimes only, thing that most of the whites he encounters will either see or care about. He is put into a slot that links him with drugs, guns, violence, crime, jail. If this 15 year old has chosen to dress in the fashion of the times - the baggy jeans, the baseball cap turned backward - he will almost certainly be assumed to be a gang member, a menace to society. While white teens his age can dress in the same clothes and be regarded by the white adult world as "going through a phase,: black kids are less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt. A white teenager might skip school, steal a car, get into trouble with the law, but then settle down and work hard in school because he wants to get into college. White kids have this freedom to make a mistake and then get a second and third chance, the stakes are much higher for African-American youth. Making the mistake of getting into trouble with the law or getting a bad reputation in school is much more irrevocable because there is far less latitude for failure.

Therapists who work with these kids have the task of holding the racial context of the teenager's life in front of them like a pair of glasses, without making race the sole explanation for why people are the way they are. In the case of Malik, his therapist's job is not to assess whether the teacher was picking on him because he is black or because he was simply frustrated by a kid with a bad attitude. The therapist's job is both to support Malik and underscore the legitimacy of his feelings about racism, while also challenging him and holding him accountable for his own actions. Both pieces need to be there, or racism can be held up as an excuse not to try, or it can be ignored and minimized, fueling Malik's rage even more. While I try to use the context of racism to help African-American teenagers understand their situations, verbalize and vent their feelings about its effects on their lives, I also want them to develop inner resources and tools for handling the adversity they face in more useful and productive ways. Some kids have to learn to develop a stronger shell when the world looks down on them for being black; others have to find drastically different strategies for handling conflict, hurt feelings, and rage if they are to avoid self-destructing.

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD TERENCE WAS referred because his parents, particularly his mother, were concerned about his behavior. The focus of Terence's rage, as it often is with black teenagers, was outside the family. Terence, like most teenagers today, needed more support than his parents, alone, could provide him. So I invited his friends - a group he called his "posse" - to come to therapy, despite knowing this would upset his parents. It's my belief that parents who want to have an impact on a child who is involved in a gang or a group of friends can do it best by having some access to the friends. For a parent to set him or herself up in complete opposition to the peer group is a recipe for impotence.

After that session, I heard a lot of criticism from Terence's parents, even though I had called to let them know that I was meeting with the posse. Fortunately, by this time, they trusted me enough to accept my judgment, and I continued to meet with Terence and his friends. A year later, Terence is still in school. His parents and I are holding our breath that he survives the next few years

Of course, the danger for Terence won't simply disappear if he graduates high school. A lot of therapy is about helping him to imagine a life beyond age 20. He is motivated by our connection and his strengthened bond with his parents. While he keeps challenging the adults in his life to give him more line, he gets his grounding by knowing we won't let go of the rope.

SO OFTEN, MY WHITE COLLEAGUES and students ask me whether it's possible for them to forge a connection with African-American teenagers the way I can. Certainly, being black may give me an edge at first, when an African-American client first meets me and sees someone who looks like he does, but then I often find myself facing questions from my African-American clients about whether I am "really" black - or black enough. Establishing a therapeutic bond is always a challenge, but I believe in the possibility of clinicians making a meaningful connection with clients across all our apparent differences. I have seen the white trainees like Valerie negotiate the tortuous barriers of suspicion and fear to establish a bond of real trust with their black clients. Similarly, I have seen my black colleagues and students forge therapeutic connections with their white clients. This is not to say that differences are not challenging at times, even painful and scary, but they need not be an impediment to making therapy work.

Therapy is about healing and also about promoting connection. The healing starts when we lance the wounds our clients bring in, help them vent their pain and rage and let the toxins pour out. The more difficult part of the process is rooted in the bond the client feels with us. While that relationship can seem small and insignificant in the face of the devastating social problems that clients bring in, it nourishes the seed of hope from which all change grows. Ultimately, the impact of therapy depends on our making a human connection, but to make that happen, we must overcome our fears and dive into the process.

Kenneth V. Hardy, Ph.D. is the Keynote Speaker for the MHBFSA Annual Conference. He is head of the Department of Child and Family Studies at Syracuse University. The article presented here is a condensed version of his work featured in The Family Therapy Networker, May/June 96.

Fall 2000
By: Timothy Monroe, ACSW

Schools are back in sessions and footballs are flying through the air, these signs signal the return of the Michigan Home-Based Family Services Association's Annual "Families Together Conference." This year we will be celebrating the 13th annual conference and it looks to be one of the best. I am looking forward to seeing many of our members in the fair city of Frankenmuth.
We have been busy getting ready for the conference, locating speakers, preparing the brochure and organizing the mailing. All of the work you don't see that goes into putting a conference together is done by volunteers. The MHBFSA has what I describe as a working board. Board members give of their personal time to support home-based family-centered practice. If you know a Board or Committee member make sure you thank them for their dedication to families and home-based counseling.
The Association is always looking for members to participate on Committees. Currently there are three active committees; Training, Membership and Public Education. Training, as you would expect, is responsible for organizing trainings for the Association. For the last few years these efforts have focused on organizing the Annual conference. The Membership Committee is responsible for recruitment, the annual membership drive, and other forms of publicity such as merchandise and the web page. Public Education publishes Practice and advocates for the Association. If you are interested in supporting the Association's efforts consider joining a committee. Look for the recruitment table at the annual conference.
In July the Board participated in the annual retreat. Nine board members were able to attend. The retreat is a time to reflect on the Association's accomplishments for the past year, assess progress on the current year's goals and to resolve any problems that may have arisen. Another task is to evaluate how the Board is working. A survey is given to each Board Member to evaluate their own, as well as, Board efforts. The results this year reflected a high level of cooperation and accomplishment. Highlights of the year included; completion of Membership packets, an increase in the number of new members, an upgrade of the Web site and early planning for the conference. Hopefully, with your help, the Association is headed in the right direction.

By: Jill Peck

It is time to cast your ballot, not for President of the United States, but for the Michigan Home-Based Family Services Association's President's Award. This award is presented at the Award's Banquet, Wednesday night at the Annual Conference. The Association is accepting nominations from its members for workers, agencies and families who positively represent the mission of the Association, "to strengthen families and communities through advocacy, education, and promotion of family-centered home-based service delivery."
In 1999, the Association introduced a Family Award. The purpose of this award was to acknowledge the partnership we share with the families we serve and to accentuate the premise that it is the family that does the work not the counselor. To nominate a family, a worker or agency can submit a letter citing a family's accomplishments. The Association will waive conference fees for 10 families. The agency, sponsoring the family, must agree to cover the cost of lodging, meals and travel. The family participants are encourage to partake in the full conference experience by attending workshops and other conference activities.
It is not too late to submit a letter of recommendation for a co-worker, your agency or a family you have worked with. Send letters of recommendation to :

by Doug Nuerenberg

It is time to mark your calendars and make preparations to attend the 2000 MHBFSA Annual Conference!

The conference will be great fun this year. The theme, Changing Systems, Changing Needs, sets the stage for the many interesting topics that will be discussed. Headlining the conference is a closing presentation, Friday morning, by Ken Hardy, Ph.D. Ken is a leading scholar on working with at-risk adolescents. He is currently co-authoring a book , Dying to be Saved: Strategies for Addressing Adolescent Violence, which will be released soon by Guilford Press.

During his presentation Dr. Hardy will present a model for understanding and working with troubled youth and a framework for understanding youth violence. Strategies for assessment, engagement and treatment will be provided. This is a timely topic and one that is of concern to counselors working with families in their community.

The conference begins on Wednesday afternoon, October 4. You will have two presentations to choose from running from 2:00 pm till 5:00 pm. Beck Dunn will offer advice on working with families experiencing Domestic Violence. Ms. Dunn will tailor her presentation to the in-home counselor, offering instruction in assessment, strategies, and unique obstacles encountered by victims of Domestic Violence. Insuring the safety of the family and the worker will be the primary focus of this workshop.

The other presentation on Wednesday afternoon will be, "Working with Sexually Reactive Children" given by Cheryl Marie Gully. This workshop will offer participants an overview of normal child developmental stages and needs and will focus more specifically on the unique needs of children who have been sexually abused. Assessment, interventions and accessing resources and networks will be highlighted.

Thursday, will be a day filled with interesting and innovative workshops lead by members of the Association. Home-based practitioners sharing their experiences and successful interventions with other members. These workshops have been highly praised by past participants. Review the Conference brochure to plan your day.

In addition to learning the conference is a great place to network with other home-based workers, relax and have fun. There will be a Networking Bash from 5:30 to 6:30 Wednesday evening, followed by the Awards dinner. And to top things off the conference is being held in Frankenmuth, a beautiful setting with many local attractions and shopping opportunities. Don't miss out, send in your application today!

Have you been checking the MHBFSA website for the most recent edition of Practice, upgrades to the website, and new messages posted on the Bulletin Board? Since the beginning of February, 2000, we have been monitoring the number of hits our website received. To date, there have been over 575 visitors. This is exciting news! Future changes to the website will include links to member agencies and organizations, information about the various committees of the Association, and more!. If you have suggestions or comments about the website, please contact me at jgreshak@bethany.org or by phone at (616) 686-0157.

This feature is available on the website. Chat with other MHBFSA members about interventions, strategies, employment openings, success stories, safety tips, or whatever would be helpful with your home-based practice.

When you post a message on the Bulletin Board, you will receive an email from the people who respond to your question or comments (if desired). Give it a try! It's easy. Follow these steps and you will be ready to use the MHBFSA Bulletin Board.

1. Go to http://www.mihomebased.com
2. Look for the title "MHBFSA Message Board" and click on it.
3. You should now see the "Coolboard.com" web page.
4. Look for the words "New Account" on the right side of the screen and click on it.
5. Enter the requested information then click on "create account."
That's it.

Notice! You will need to be emailed by Coolboard.com to verify your information before your account is activated. Once this is done, you will be ready to read and respond to posted messages on the Message Board. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to email the Membership Committee Chair at jgreshak@bethany.org.