Whether it’s a playground scrape or something horrifyingly
worse, we like to think our teachers and family workers are ready to respond:
capable of response, and willing to do so. Of course, in a child development
program like Head Start, there’s always more to do, always more that could be
done. This child’s needs of the moment – a playground bump on the head – were
met easily, with little more than simple comfort and brave words. Sometimes our
families need more than comfort, more than words. When it’s more, it’s rarely
easy.
One night, after a deadly house fire from which a mother and
one of her children escaped, firemen could not find the body of a
three-year-old boy, one of our Head Start children. When no one else at the
scene knew where to look, our family worker did. Leading them through the
rubble, she took searchers straight to the child’s bed and the body beneath it.