The Meeting:

Deanna (Lily’s Community Psychiatric Nurse), who works with Lily, is meeting with Jade and Rob to discuss how to support Zak and his mother. Zak himself said he would attend the meeting, but has not turned up. The others have decided to go ahead anyway. It’s the first time that Deanna has met the other two.

Rob: Jade and I felt we just needed to talk to someone who knows something about this family. It’s not Zak’s fault of course, but we feel we’ve basically been dumped with him. Children’s Social Care are funding his placement here, but that’s it. He hasn’t got an allocated social worker, even though he’s legally in care, and Children’s Social Care have parental responsibility. The team leader there told us a few weeks back that she was going to get an agency social worker to take his case, but the last couple of weeks, she hasn’t even been replying to emails. We’ve got precious little in the way of background on him, and there’s no plan for him at all. We’ve kind of been left holding the baby, and right now we’re just scrabbling around for whatever information we can get. .

Jade: He’s supposed to be going to college but isn’t. We’ve been trying to get the Virtual School involved – teachers who’d work with him outside of school – but they won’t touch it until he’s got an allocated social worker.

Rob: He’s in limbo. He’s basically just vegetating.

Jade: He lies in bed until the middle of the afternoon very often. He doesn’t seem to wash. He’s supposed to be going to college, but doesn’t. I can’t get anything out of him. He’s pleasant enough, but he just won’t engage. I mean, if I ask him what he wants to happen, or what his own plans are, he more or less shrugs and says he doesn’t know. The only thing that animates him really is when I talk about contact with his mum. I’ve got to say that my strong gut feeling –and I think yours too, Rob, yes? – is that he shouldn’t be here at all. I mean a willingness to engage is part of the deal he signed up to, you know?

Deanna: Okay, well, I don’t know what to suggest about any of that, obviously – it’s not my field – but I can certainly fill you in on the background. I know his mum fairly well. I’ve been working with Lily for two years. I guess you know she has schizophrenia? It’s normally controlled with medication, but from time to time she stops taking the medication and her condition then quickly deteriorates as she loses insight and her behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre. In this most recent episode she was running around the Fairfields Estate naked. She’s had to be sectioned on several occasions in order that she can come into hospital and be treated. As you know she’s in hospital right now.

When her condition is under control, she is a very quiet, gentle person. She tries to get on with everyone which makes her an easy person for professionals to deal with in many ways, but it also means that she is very easily exploited – and I’d say she has been exploited on many occasions by a series of fairly dodgy men. But her and Zak are pretty close. They remind me of a little married couple. I’ve heard Lily say of him that he’s her best friend.

Jade: Doesn’t she ever complain about him?

Deanna: She sometimes complains that he nicks her money, or her cigarettes, or something, but it’s always in an indulgent way, like it’s a bit of a joke and she doesn’t really mind. I’d say she basically lets him do whatever he wants, not because she doesn’t care, but she just doesn’t have it in her to be stern with him. She can’t cope at all with people being angry with her. And I’d say Zak doesn’t push it too far because he loves her, and he knows that she’s fragile and he doesn’t want to hurt her.

He looks a lot like his mum. Small, overweight. And he’s very gentle like her as well. Life’s a bit much for him too, I’d guess. I gather he’s always found it difficult coping with the rough and tumble of school. Never had close friends, other than his mum. Prefers his TV and his video games.

Rob: That sounds familiar.

Deanna: I suppose you know that in the past, when Lily’s been into hospital or was very unwell, Zak went to a foster-home. I gather from Lily he always went to the same couple, Mary and Ken Carpenter. She says they became almost like honorary grandparents. But I gather Mr Carpenter died and Mrs Carpenter hasn’t been well.

Rob: Funnily enough I know Mary Carpenter (Case Study D) a bit, because my partner Tracey used to live with her (Case Study J). Mary has come to see him once, but she’s not been able to get out much. She’s getting on for eighty, and it was only a couple of years ago that Ken died. Mary did mention that Zak and Ken got on well. They used to make model kits together, apparently. He used to go round there sometimes just to see Ken. But anyway, that wasn’t an option this time, hence the request to us, which we agreed to on the basis that social work support was going to be forthcoming.

Deanna: It’s a shame he couldn’t go to Mary. Can’t think he would have been much trouble to her, and I think he would have been much more comfortable there than in a hostel.

Rob: She just doesn’t feel up to it.

Jade: We’ve taken him over to see his mum a couple of times, but it kind of feels like there ought to be someone helping him with all this from outside of the unit.

Deanna: Well, I’ll do what I can, but obviously I’m Lily’s CPN, not Zak’s social worker.

Rob: Appreciate that. And appreciate what you’re doing.

Jade: His mum is very important to him. That’s so obvious when you see them together.  Like they just belong together. The two of them against the world! He phones her every day to see how she’s getting on. Such a strong attachment. Just a shame he won’t let anyone else get near. I do try to talk to him, but all that comes back is monosyllables. Can’t help wondering why he’s here if he doesn’t want to work with us?

Deanna: He doesn’t talk much to me either, but he’s a nice kid. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Rob: Well…

Deanna: You don’t agree?

Rob: Well, he doesn’t slam doors or punch holes in the walls, that’s certainly true. He doesn’t do drugs in his room, as far as we can tell. He doesn’t hit other residents. He doesn’t give us abuse. But he can be a devious little so-and-so at times.

Deanna: Yes?

Rob: We had another resident in here ­–Derek (Case Study B)– and, well, Jade knows what I’m going to say, but I think Zak played a part in Derek’s having to leave. Basically, Zak said that Derek was intimidating him, and, okay, Derek’s a big tough guy who throws his weight around and Zak’s a short overweight very unfit kid who –to use your words– would never hurt a fly, but I don’t think Zak was completely blameless in this. For instance, there was an incident when Zak was made some nasty insinuations about Derek’s family to another boy –a kid from outside the area – which caused a row between this boy and Derek in which Derek lost his temper and hit him, and got into trouble with us as a result I had a pretty strong sense that this was exactly the outcome that Zak wanted .

Jade: To be fair, Zak says he was passing on information that was common knowledge about Derek’s family. They are well known round here.

Rob: Well, yes, but that’s where he’s being sneaky. I mean, there’ve been several other times when he’s done something similar. Stirred things up, you know? But in a sneaky, deniable kind of way. I can’t help noticing he’s always careful to get Derek going when he knows one of us is close at hand, so that when Derek predictably loses his rag, there isn’t much risk to him.

Jade: There was another time when he got Derek talking about the drugs he was using in the building. He knew one of our colleagues was in earshot, making a cup of coffee in the kitchen, but Derek didn’t know that, so Derek basically incriminated himself. That was pretty sneaky.

Deanna: Well you must get quite a few who are like that, don’t you?

Rob: Oh of course. And if he was engaging with us a bit more, it wouldn’t be a biggie. It’d be something to talk to him about. Help him to find other strategies, but…

Jade: But that’s just not where he’s at all. I mean, I’d like to help him, but he makes me feel really useless. I just get this bland front, you know? He doesn’t really show me his real self at all.