ABSTRACT
Two things happened which influenced the direction of my career. In the first place, I spent my undergraduate years studying psychology at McGill University in Montreal. Unlike the situation in the UK, Canadian universities have long summer vacations, and these made it possible for me to find unusual vacation work placements. I spent one summer on the Lower East Side in New York, working in a church project with Latino youth. The long, hot months of June, July, and August 1960 were taken up with attempting to keep the young people off the streets and out of trouble. In my second summer I got a job on a farm in Ontario, working with emotionally disturbed teenagers. These summers represented turning points in my career development, as I met inspirational adults, enjoyed myself hugely, and developed new skills. These experiences were also fundamental in later stages of my career, when I myself established a residential center in the UK.
