Declan Harris makes no bones about it The Education Centre is the last place some parents want their children at. They come full of fears that their offspring who have been booted out of everywhere else have been consigned to a dumping ground before embarking on a lifetime of failure.

"I have told a number of parents in a few weeks, you are going to thank me."

And sure enough many do while some don't want their children to leave.

That's because Mr. Harris and his skilled staff have a knack of helping transform even seemingly incorrigible cases, most spectacularly with the case of Nikki Bascome who entered as a "belligerent and nasty" teen but who left with an attitude change and a GED which has helped him secure a job.

Most changes are less spectacular but all are worth the effort, even for cynics who simply want to save cash rather than souls.

Mr. Harris said the average cost to the state of incarcerating and dealing with unreformed delinquents throughout their lifetime was between $1.7 million and $2.3 million, according to international estimates. Here the price is likely to be even higher, estimates Mr. Harris.

"With Nikki I believe we have saved the taxpayer $2 to $3 million."

It's a blessing to the paying public but for Mr. Harris it's not saving cash which matters, it's saving lives. And it's something which has kept him going despite the dangers and daily confrontations.

"The rewards when you have a success are probably one of the most amazing natural highs you can get. Nothing beats it. Unfortunately you don't get them as often as you want to."

The highs come at a price. Mr. Harris spent eight years in some of New York's toughest districts - South Yonkers and the South Bronx - working with kids who were often on their way to - or just out of - incarceration.

He was there when a colleague got stabbed by one kid as he restrained another. "I have been bitten several times and had my car stolen and smashed into bits."

Gang violence between the Bloods and Crips was rife.

"In my last couple of years in Yonkers the Bloods and Crips became the big focal point. It was a bit scary. People from the community would recruit these kids.

"It was mostly Bloods so there was a threat that a group of Crips might roll up because they know where these kids hang. I didn't go to work on a daily basis fearing for my life but it was much more of a reality than it ever would be here.

"I wouldn't say I got scared but certainly looking for assistance when you have a kid who is six foot seven and 220 pounds."

Thankfully in Bermuda the kids come a bit smaller.

He vividly remembers the first student he made a breakthrough with - Jasmine MacKenzie who he spotted at the top of an outdoor fire escape, threatening to jump, with a throng of excited students and worried adults below.

"It was chaos - nobody knew what to do. But I happened to have a good rapport with her - she did stuff in the class room for me a lot of my counterparts weren't able to achieve.

"I said to hell with this and climbed the ladder. I got to within ten to 15 feet of her and asked her permission to come a littler closer. I didn't want to be the one who drove her over the edge.

"I said 'Can I tell you something? See all those people down there? This is going to make you laugh. She was smiling already so I knew I had her. I said: 'Listen, if you take my hand and you allow me to bring you down from up here. Everyone is going to clap and I will become a hero'. And she started cracking up. She said: 'You are crazy!'

"I said 'Maybe. I will take you down and we will go for a ride to McDonald's. How does that sound? Not only are we going to have a laugh together but we will get a bite to eat to find out what's going on with you.'

"She said they are probably going to call the psychiatric hospital. I said that is probably going to happen and there is nothing I can do about that but before I do that I promise you we will go for a bite to eat.

"We were about half way down and sure enough the whole place erupted. She was laughing so hard she forgot why she was up there."

It's a lovely story - but with a tragic twist for Jasmine who had struggled with a history of sexual abuse.

"I always thought she was a kid who, if she could just turn the corner, would have a lot of success. She was very intelligent.

"She was scared to death of maths - she would get the shakes. But she would quote and perform Shakespeare with a level of brilliance.

"Unfortunately when she left high school she got gang involved and ended up being stabbed to death in Central Park over drugs."

But other successes have been more lasting. He recalls one child he built a rapport with in the States who battled the odds to graduate high school at age 21. Now he is doing his Masters.

"It's about trust. There are no racial or cultural lines when it comes to that. None.

"About a month and a half of returning home I was at a meeting with Ministry of Education officials and people from Child and Family Services and I was describing what I hoped to achieve with The Educational Centre."

Mr. Harris, who returned to Bermuda in 2001, was asked how as a white man he could achieve success teaching predominantly black children.

After outlining he was Bermudian and well-qualified he said such children didn't see colour.

"They know who is real and who is not and they know it awfully quickly.

"I take it as a compliment - they say: 'Harris, it's not like you are white, you know. It's like you are black.'

"I think I know what they mean by that - it is because they feel comfortable.

"If they believe you can help them - that you have their back - I am confident some of my kids would stand in front of a truck for me."

And it was the same overseas. "I dealt with a kid who used to come to me every morning and he would put so many 'Fs' in me, calling me 'white supremacist' and whatever.

"I would say 'It's nice to see you as well this morning Kevin' and he would go and have a seat. After a while me and him became the best of buddies. He realised he wasn't going to get a rise out of me."

Another kid would come in everyday and clear Mr. Harris' desk - just because he reminded him of his father.

"I would just stand back but over time we got close. I would say 'You didn't knock over the desk today, that's progress' You have to be careful, I am actually quite sarcastic, if they pick up on it you run the risk that you are disrespecting them.

"The bottom line is consistency, day in, day out - how you interact with them and greet them. We are trained to take the verbal abuse and the disrespect.

"It's like having a rain suit on and they pour stuff on you. And once they have finished pouring it you take it off and you are dry.

"They give you all of that but you don't react. They are looking for either attention or some sort of task avoidance - which is why they do it - but you don't give them the attention they are looking for."

Mr. Harris has an abiding belief that kids can have success at any level, even if they are not destined to become high-flyers.

But it requires massive amounts of empathy on the part of the teacher, said Mr. Harris went into straight into special education in 1994 in America after getting qualified.

"I felt like I could relate more, I grew up in Prospect which had some challenges.

"You are either empathetic or you are not. No child comes into a school and kicks over a desk for no reason. All behaviour is linked.

"The fun part of it is playing detective to figure out why it is. Sometimes you find out and sometimes you don't. Some kids won't let you in.

"Those who have been abused physically or sexually put up the most barriers. The wounds are quite deep so it takes quite a bit of prodding and time for them to open up.

"If you don't have some level of rapport you won't have success. You can't force your way in. They have to allow you to enter."

Some kids stay for a short time before heading back to their school.

"They got an injury, we patch them up and we get them back. We are like the ER for behaviour."

But the older kids stay. Those with the literacy skills go the GED route while those without are given life skills training and leave equipped with a drivers' licence, passport and bank account and, hopefully, a trade.

"But they have to step up to the plate then. It's up to them."

It's a task made more difficult when the parents are unable to provide a stable environment. The first step is to admit the child had a problem but sometimes he is amazed how well the children do considering the family they come from.

"If they leave me and that's what's being modelled at home then how the hell are you doing as well as you are doing, even though you are not doing that good?"

Drugs are a major barrier for children trying to escape dire circumstances and join normal society.

"We have to stop pretending there aren't some serious issues at hand. If we don't take them head-on it will only get worse.

"I believe it will get to the point of explosion - any society would - there's gang involvement, chemical dependency.

"I would come home often and people would say you are working in New York City, that must be tough? And I would say some of the behaviour I see here scares me more."

Most of the children he deals with readily admit smoking marijuana, some with the encouragement of their parents. "Some parents say they tell their children to smoke at home so they don't get caught out in the street."

So success is often in small steps rather than huge life transformations.

"The truth is there is always going to be a section of the student population that you never going to change. That is the sad reality. If anyone thinks we can save them all then they are mistaken because no society does but that doesn't mean we give up but there needs to be more praise on even minimal success.

"What Nicky did was just phenomenal - it doesn't happen. The truth is if a child 12-15 years old they have learned that behaviour over that many years so it should take just as many years to get them back to baseline.

"This is all learned behaviour. Maturation might speed it up."