At the same time, social workers have a lot of work to do before they could safely say that he is living a normal childhood; helping him overcome the pain of the last few years of his life would be their hardest task.
Shurland went missing from his Kuru Kururu home on April 27, 2010 just shy of his ninth birthday and was subsequently found wandering in the compound of the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, East Bank Demerara. Two days later, he was handed over to the agency after a concerned guard took him to see a doctor at the institution.
The child, who had suffered some sort of traumatic event, was very withdrawn and revealed only his first name to probation officers. It was after an article in the Stabroek News in which his grandmother, Katie Shurland, expressed fear that he had been killed, that Shurland’s identity was revealed and he was later reunited with the elderly woman who had cared for him when he was much younger. Now two years later, Shurland is more open and upbeat.
Recently Stabroek News met the young man well dressed in his school uniform and he was very cheerful.
“I like my new home,” he said referring to the CCPA’s home in Sophia. He has been there for most of the last two years. He had gone to live with his grandmother but things did not work out and he was returned to the agency.
When this newspaper arrived to visit him he was seated quietly on a chair but moments later he was chatting and his face was beaming with excitement.
Amidst smiles the Grade Three Redeemer Primary School student said he loves school since “it’s a lot of fun”. He said that Mathematics is his favourite subject.
“I did writing in school. I did spelling too and I get two wrong”, he said outlining some of what he had done in class that day. Because he was not going to school prior to him being placed in the agency’s care, he is way behind in school. He is now 11 and should already have written the National Grade Six Assessment exam or should have been preparing to write it this year.
The bright faced little boy opening up a little more said that he loves to play football and ride bicycles. He said too that he misses his grandmother a lot. CCPA Head Ann Greene said that while he had come a long way, Shurland still has a far way to go.
Greene explained that the agency had reunited the child with his grandparents. She explained that Katie and her husband, who was in the interior when the child was found, would often visit.
“The bonding started and then they said that they wanted to care for him,” she said stressing that from all appearances the child’s mother had not been found. Agency officials had visited the Kuru Kururu area in search of the woman but to no avail. She had two children younger than Shurland and was not sending him to school while he was in her care.
Greene noted that unlike the mother, the grandparents were showing interest in the welfare of the child. “So we gave him a good send off in August 2010,” she said, explaining that arrangements were to be made to get him a school near Westminster, West Bank Demerara. The agency would assist the child with school supplies among other things.
But shortly after, he was placed in her care, the grandmother informed the agency that things weren’t going well. Greene said that Shurland was not with his grandparents care for any long period of time as they had not yet made the arrangements for his schooling. Greene said that based on the grandmother’s explanation the child was showing signs of disruptive behaviour “which for us was strange because he never showed any when he was with us”.
Shurland at this point was taken in once again by the agency and he later returned to the school he was in before.
Katie, when contacted, told this newspaper that she saw a different child explaining that this might have been the result of what he experienced while with his mother. She said he ran away from home and her husband had to run behind him.
She said she talked to the child repeatedly but “it was like he was in another world. He is not the little boy I knew”. She added that she was left with the impression that the child felt like no one loved him. Based on his behaviour, she said, a decision was made to take him back to the agency.
Katie said that she will visit him before Mashramani. Katie had sent him to live with his mother three months prior to his disappearance because of her poor health and her inability to take care of him financially.
Greene told this newspaper that Shurland never had the early educational foundation. “When he came to us it was like he never attended school so he couldn’t even write his name,” she said explaining that he has improved greatly thanks to the agency’s afternoon tutor. According to Greene, he can now write his name, say his two times table and do some mathematics.
“His whole behaviour pattern is symptomatic of a child who was badly abused, emotionally as well as physically,” she added.
The grandparents last visited the child during Easter last year.
Time needed to heal
Greene said that after he returned from the grandparents he was taken for a “psyche evaluation because you see when you suffer abuse like how he is suffering it will affect children. They hardly ever overcome it. It will take a lot of therapy, a lot of work. It is not so much counselling, it is therapy at this age.”
Greene said too that Shurland needs a lot of love because he is suffering from rejection. “There is a pain of abandonment. It is a secret pain that children go through when they feel they are abandoned,” she explained.
She said that if this rejection is not dealt with when the child is young, “they take it into adulthood and it affects their social relationships and in fact, now, [his] social skills are not every sharp but it is because he has this secret pain. He needs a lot of help.”
Stabroek News was told that the evaluation did not reveal anything worrying. She said that Shurland has deep trust issues. “People who he loves and are close to him have left him. So he has trust issues and we are working on that,” she said.
Making a projection for the future, Greene said what is needed is a good foster home for him adding that a lot of bonding needs to be done before he is sent with anyone because of the trust issues that he has.
“He had just started trusting us when they [the grandparents] came and I think the trust issues surfaced again,” she said.
The plan, she said, is to find that good foster home “where he can get lots of love and attention, it will help him deal with these secret pains of abandonment and rejection.”
