The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron

placement number two.
    â€œSo, kids. Do you like them?”
    I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know many. “Yeah, I love kids.”
    â€œGood.”
    She bit into a biscuit. I had begun to notice that Chris did a lot of eating and talking during our sessions, which I found pretty gross.
    â€œAnd,” she continued, crumbs scattered over her shirt, “adolescents—you know, teenagers. You like them?”
    Thanks for the translation—I know what an adolescent is.
    I wasn’t sure how to respond to this either. “Yeah?”
    Chris dunked her biscuit into her tea and then extended a long tongue to lick in the sloppy, mushy end. “Were you a nice teenager?”
    â€œI think I was OK.”
    That was a massive lie—just ask my mother.
    Chris smiled. “Shame. I had you pegged as a pain-in-the-arse teenager.”
    I smiled, then wondered if I was allowed to. “I had my moments.”
    â€œThought so. Anyway, here’s the thing. We’ve got a regional shortage of child placements and so I volunteered you to do yours in an inpatient unit for young teenagers.”
    I had no idea what that was.
    â€œRight…”
    â€œYou’ll be dealing with kids who are presenting in a high level of crisis and so are too vulnerable to be treated in the community.”
    â€œOK.”
    Chris offered me the packet of Rich Tea. I shook my head.
    â€œSo,” she said, chomping into a fresh one, “you’ll spend the next six months in a unit just outside of London working with a specialist multidisciplinary team assessing and treating kids and their families, who are often in crisis.” Chris smiled brightly and raised her eyebrows at me.
    I swallowed hard. “OK. If you think I can…”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t I?”
    I blushed. I hated blushing. My heart started racing as I thought of Ray.
    â€œWell, you know, it’s just that I was kind of attacked by I guess what you would call a ‘patient in crisis’ in my last placement, and that was in an outpatient department…”
    Chris stared at me, unblinking. “And?”
    My face felt red hot. I didn’t want to tell her I was scared. “Well, based on my inability to manage Ray, perhaps I’m not ready to do this placement. You know, with kids and their families in crisis.”
    Chris folded over the torn flap of the biscuit wrapper and shoved the packet into her large, overstuffed bag.
    â€œI disagree. I think you can and should do this placement. You’ll be protected by a strong staff team, and you’ve got me with you every step of the way.”
    And so, reluctantly, I agreed. And it had started well. The staff team was strong. I liked the young people. I was really enjoying it until Imogen decided, that morning, to attempt to hang herself. Now I just wanted out.
    Walking back to my office, I wondered why I had let Chris talk me into this. What was I trying to prove? I suppose there had been some fantasy about sailing in on a cloud of compassion and being the one—the only one—who really understood these kids and could save them.
    Pretty arrogant.
    I was training to do a job where I had license to ask anyone anything and get an answer, where I would be part of a decision-making process that could fundamentally alter someone else’s life—it was important to remember that this didn’t make me all-powerful. I smiled at this last thought: I wasn’t the first person to imagine that she was the Almighty in this place.
    Time to grab a coffee and go into the critical incident debriefing. How did the suicidal kid have a dressing-gown cord? Wasn’t she on highest-level observation? Who had done the property search when she was admitted? A head was going to roll—thankfully, though, not mine.
    *   *   *
    The following afternoon, sitting opposite Imogen in our next session, I felt a hot ball of anger and frustration gather