I remember watching a fly on the wall documentary about a group of teenagers, who were taken to south africa by their social workers for the adventure of a lifetime, in which they would work with animals on a game reserve.

Nearly all the kids in question had had traumatic early childhoods and were 'troublemakers' back home in the inner city. The idea was to get them out of the box so they could have a chance to see it from a different angle.

For most of the kids this was a lifechanging experience, and many went on to pursue their hopes and aspirations and developed careers.

But there was one girl who was simply unable to benefit from the opportunity. She was unable to compare herself with the local people, who had it much tougher but were able to be considerate, optimistic and co-operate with each other. She was also unable to operate within the boundaries that were set by the group leaders, and her way of dealing with it was to throw tantrums.

She was warned very clearly that if her behaviour didn't change that she would be sedated, bound, and put on a flight back to the UK where she would then be released ... back into the wild ... as it were ...


She sadly couldn't help herself though, and she ended up throwing yet another unreasonable wobbly, in response to which the group followed through with their warning, and restrained her, bound her, sedated her and put her on a plane.

Se had not been violent, but her behaviour was simply unmanageable using other means, and they could not afford to allow her to blackmail them with bad behaviour.


So sometimes young people are bound by their carers when there is no other alternative.