Tampa boys are her pride and joy

By MICHELE HEWITSON

As public portraits of social workers go, this one is pretty unlikely. A woman wearing a leather jacket and big gold hoop earrings putting one of her "clients" in a headlock. The client - in the bereft lingo of the profession - is a cheeky, charismatic young Afghan refugee.

They are horsing around. As, presumably, social workers occasionally do with their charges. But it is not the sort of picture the Child, Youth and Family service often allows us to see.

I attempt to find a way to put it to Julie Sutherland without being rude - "oh, go on," she says - that the stereotype of the social worker is ground-down, over-worked, under-appreciated. It seems a job with little joy. Sutherland doesn't mind me saying so.

What people know about social workers is what they hear when "stuff-ups happen".

She knows what people think of social workers. She knows what she thought of social workers.

Sutherland has been hearing it for the 20 years she's been doing this work. A little longer ago than that she emerged from university after having achieved, in a desultory sort of way, a Bachelor in Social Sciences.

Her mother would say: "Julie's going to do social work."

Sutherland had her own view. You hear some unlikely language from this social worker. The publishable part of what Sutherland recalls her younger self saying is: "I spat on the idea."

Social workers were boring people who wore "patterned jumpers with Roman sandals and socks. They were so unsophisticated and they weren't glamorous at all".

Sutherland is pretty glam for a "mother of 41". The "one" is Sutherland's teenage daughter. The 40 are the Tampa Afghan refugees, now aged between 16 and 20, who arrived in the country two years ago. Sutherland is their legal guardian. Her full-time job is as manager of CYF's Mangere and Otahuhu office. She visits her wards every second night, and one day a weekend. This is unpaid service, although she would not use the word. "This? It's a bliss. This has probably been one of the most joyous experiences of my life."

Sutherland stands on the sidelines at the Selwyn College soccer games. (The guys are soccer mad. The All Whites should take note, she says. A chance for a plug seldom escapes her.) "And it's a very lonely place being the only mother there."

One shy 18-year-old who declines to have his picture taken tells me, "I love her very much. She is my mother."

On the guided tour of the hostel - along the halls are piles of pongy trainers and "interesting boy funky smells" - Sutherland bangs on the door of Jafari's room. "Quick," she says when this polite young man answers the door, "kick your underpants under the bed."

It's the sort of thing a mother might say to her teenager when visitors are expected.

When, at the beginning of next year, the relatives of the 40 refugees arrive, Sutherland will have to step back. She will no longer be their mother-figure. She imagines that she will go from guardian to mate. That "I will have 40 wedding invitations over the next 10 years."

For now, there are boundaries in place. The boys cannot go to Sutherland's home. But they do text her - all the time.

"You have to display some emotional intelligence working with them. We've been as open as humanly possible with them so that they understand the rules about where we all fit in."

Still, "it is hard to not worry about them when they buy a car and you think: 'I wouldn't let him in charge of a broom'."

Before anyone shrieks about taxpayer money being spent on cars and cellphones: "They've saved up. They work. Burger King does very well out of our boys. And if anyone's got any extra jobs out there ... "

It is not Sutherland's job to defend a Government decision to allow the refugees' families to join their sons in New Zealand. But Sutherland does many things that, strictly speaking, are not in her job description. "What I know is that these boys need their families. Like every child in New Zealand, they deserve the opportunity to grow in a family."

Fine, say the objectors, reunite them with their families - in Afghanistan. "Mmm, well yes, that's another supportive point of view." Remember why they left in the first place, says Sutherland. All but one of the boys is of the minority Hazara ethnic group. Sutherland does not believe their safety could be guaranteed in Afghanistan. But she would rather talk about the "potential for really brilliant outcomes" in terms of their future contribution to this country.

Her wards are well aware of political attitudes. They know who Richard Prebble and Winston Peters are - both have been outspoken on refugee matters. What do they think of Peters? Ask Jafari, she says.

Jafari: "I have no comment."

Sutherland, giggling: "You see, Afghans are very diplomatic people."

Sutherland is not quite as diplomatic - she says she "runs off at the mouth" - as do most of those who deal with sensitive issues of youth welfare. She is forthright and exudes a contagious, effervescent enthusiasm.

She manages to use the words "passion" and "joyous" without sounding like a proselytising do-gooder. Of course she does good, but she delivers her do-gooding with a dry humour and easy grace. She is immensely likeable and CYF should use her in its next recruitment drive.

It helps that she is having an enormously good time. The boys are the "jam" in her job. You can see why this work might be "jam" in comparison to working with badly abused children, for example.

Oh sure, she grins, "the guys are easy. They're like 40 teenagers all at once: hormone-charged, testosterone-inflicted young men who are all drop-dead gorgeous. They're in your face, they're cheeky, they're rude. They're kind and sweet. Oh, they're just angels".

They also arrived with nothing. Sutherland has "thought a lot" about whether working with the refugees has challenged her tolerance.

Social workers do not, or not publicly, make comparisons - or judgments - of circumstances. Social workers are human. "We have kids you work with who have all the privileges in the world: they have a home, they have a family, they have a free education. They have all of these things going for them and they still turn up their nose at it and say 'I don't like that, I don't want that'. There are some frustrations there. You see a group of very motivated young people, then you see a group of very unmotivated young people."

These "boys" are motivated all right. Perhaps too motivated, Sutherland says with affection.

In all ways regarding their education they have developed in areas typical to New Zealand teenagers, and in ways decidedly at odds with their own culture.

"We are," says Sutherland, "a bit worried. How are we going to explain these kids to their parents when they come out with their pants halfway down their backsides and their underpants up there? Some of them have got earrings and a couple dye their hair."

There is also the little matter of a few speeding fines and there is the drink. "We all know that Islam doesn't allow drink; we know it does happen." There are "girls, of course". Family Planning has visited for "deep, meaningful chats. And there are some people who say the boys shouldn't be talked to about these things because it's not Islamic".

Sutherland believes that her boys, "to survive in this country have to be equipped with everything every other New Zealander needs".

Including an appropriate vocabulary: "They all actually now have a fair smattering of really bad words."

They could not have hoped for a better role model.