We've all had it happen. Twenty, thirty, fifty people a day come in and ask for help, but the one you think needs it most stands outside and doesn't accept it. What do you do?
1) Ask yourself if the person really needs the help you're offering, or if your desire to help the person is making you see her situation as different than it is. Sometimes our own need to help can make us see events in other peoples' lives as problems when they aren't issues for that person.
2) Get to know the person. Ask him how he's doing every time you see him. Show interest in the things he's talking about, and ask open ended questions to get him to tell you more. If there is a real problem, and you have the ability to help, it may take a long time to build enough trust that some people will ask for help.
3) Tie what the person needs to what the person wants. She needs to get clean from crack cocaine, but what she wants is to get a job. For instance: "Vocational Rehab can accept you if you do some outpatient substance abuse groups. Let's get started with that," or something similar. Sometimes its important that both happen at the same time, as frustration can make a person give up or back slide.
4) Give him room to do it his way. You might think that the best way for him to handle his addiction is to go to AA meetings, but he thinks that writing in his journal every day is a better way to keep on the straight and narrow. Show interest in his solution when you see him and ask him how it's working for him. If it is, add it to your repertoire of possible solutions for people. If it's not, offer him another path.
5) Accept your limitations. Perhaps the person is not yet ready to accept help and you need to spend more time getting to know him. It is also possible that you are the wrong person to help him, in which case you should refer him to someone else. In this type of work, it's very important to be able to "let go and let God". It is not your fault if you have done what you could and something bad still happens to someone you're helping.
The key in this situation is to balance your need to help and the person's need for help. This is a prime area where helpers find themselves crossing boundaries and getting into trouble. Be careful that you are providing the person with the tools to help herself, not just doing the work for her, and never "give up" on a person emotionally, even if you find you are not able to help.
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