It's A Man's World

Winter 2005

Derrick Whitney is a now a social tutor with Sense East. But he started his working life in more traditional ‘men’s work’. He talks to Talking Sense about making the transition to a new and satisfying career

It’s just after lunch and Puja’s attention is flagging after a morning’s activity at the Kettering Resource Centre. So her tutor, Derrick Whitney, decides to wake her up by getting her to count the bean bags. Despite Puja’s multiple disabilities she could count to ten when she arrived here two years ago. Derrick has a style all of his own with Puja – he throws the bean bags and a fast, furious game ensues as Puja lobs them back. She has just enough vision to throw them where she knows Derrick will find it hard to catch them! In no time Puja is wide awake and whooping with glee. It may not look much like learning but Puja recently managed to count to 20, a small but significant step for her. And for Derrick it vindicates his instinctive awareness that Puja’s need for fun is key to her ability to learn and progress.

This sensitive, one-to-one work with Puja is a far cry from Derrick’s first long-term job. A few days short of his 18^th birthday, Derrick joined the navy where, in a career spanning nine years, he specialised in mine disposal. “You’d be surprised how many live mines there are around the world,” he says. He reckons that he helped defuse about 30 of them around the shores of Europe, though he says his scariest moment was bobbing around in a small boat trying to defuse a live missile caught in a trawler’s nets. “In this job you only make one mistake,” he jokes. He was disappointed to miss the Falklands campaign because, at the time, he was on a full-time training course, learning to defuse the newest mine technology.

After the navy, Derrick took a job with a brewery where he worked as an engineer and welder. “I really took to welding so I stayed with the brewery for 17 years,” he says. Then, a couple of years ago, major surgery forced a rethink. “I found I could not really do welding when I got back to work; it was too heavy and dirty. And I had been putting in about 60 – 70 hours a week. I wanted fewer hours.”

Few men with such a background would have thought of a career in care work but Derrick decided he wanted to work with children. “I was brought up in a children’s home from the age of eight to 16 so I wanted to put something back into the system. You need to show young people that you can make a go of life after being brought up in care. I had also been helping with the local Cubs Pack and then took over completely when the organiser retired. The membership of the Pack grew from nine to 21 so something must be working! I really enjoy working with the Cubs and I also do some voluntary work for the YMCA after I have finished here, helping to support the young residents. Some of them have real problems – kicked out of their homes, drugs, in trouble with the police, you name it.”

Work with Sense isn’t exactly working with children, but Derrick felt he could ‘relate to it’, so when he was offered the job he decided to take the plunge. Did he really know what he had let himself in for? “It’s hard to put into words. Yes, it was different from what I expected but I had no problems, I took to it like a duck to water. The biggest challenge was learning about all the different behaviours. That was an eye-opener because I knew all about tantrums but I had never dealt with anything like this. But you learn very quickly and Sense training is excellent. With Puja I cottoned on straight away that she has a great sense of humour – if you have a laugh and a joke with her, she responds. I know that some new staff have been frightened of her and she senses it; that’s when she can get difficult. You just need to approach her with total confidence and it’s fine.”

“It wasn’t difficult to leave ‘men’s work’ and do this. I have two kids of my own and I have a caring nature I suppose. In my life I have seen and dealt with lots of different things – it’s all been good experience for working with disabled people. My operation made me think differently too – I treasure life more.”

What do Derrick’s family and mates think about his career move? “They thought it was strange at first – there are so few male carers – but they’ve all been great about it.”

Can men bring something special to care work? Most definitely, in Derrick’s view: “I think our users respond differently to a man - they mess around less. It’s an authority thing I suppose - like the difference between hearing your Mum tell you to do something and then your Dad. I really think the women here have a harder time of it.”

What would Derrick say to other men considering care work as a career? “Do it! The job satisfaction is immense – it blows you away some days, especially when you see the users achieving something. No two days are alike. And there’s a career ladder. I’m starting to learn BSL soon, then I’m doing NVQ level 2 and 3 probably and I hope to move up the ladder eventually. Already after less than a year in the job I have found that I am mentoring the newcomers, so you can learn quite quickly. You’ve got to want to do it of course, and it’s not the best paid job in the world, but I can’t praise it enough. I’m not going back to welding for sure!”