Social Services jobs in JA.

[nalongo]

I am currently looking for employment in JA, preferrably the west, in the social services field. I have a Masters of Education in Counseling Psychology and over ten years experience working in a community-based health organization. If anyone has any advice as to where I should look or any links, I would appreciate some feedback. I am open to the whole island but have spent about 5 years on the west coast and that is where I am most established. peace and blessed love

[BlessedLadyOfZion]

Re: Social Services jobs in JA.

Good luck to you cause lord knows I can't find none.

Where'd you go to get that degree? I'm working on my masters in counseling right now *sigh*

[nalongo]

Re: Social Services jobs in JA.

I got it at Temple University in Philly. I am truly trying to find some links but it doesnt make sense how hard it is to find a way to make a little money in JA. ughhhh! I truly want to return. where are you in school? how long is the program?

[BlessedLadyOfZion]

Re: Social Services jobs in JA.

Nova Southeastern Univ in Florida.I am in my 3rd semester [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] So I got about a yr and change left

[evanovitch]

Re: Social Services jobs in JA.

Social work and Caribbean identity

Geof Brown
Friday, August 12, 2005



Geof Brown
Social work as a profession is about solving problems that concern human behaviour and its related contexts. Please understand that this has nothing to do with the ill-informed image of the bountiful handing out of goodies to the hapless poor. Professional social work brings the fruits of research, clinical experience and empirical data to bear on solutions to the day-to-day human struggles for adjustment, well-being and survival. But a great deal of what has been practised as social work in our Caribbean context has been borrowed from the experience and theoretical formulations of North America (especially the USA) and Europe (especially the UK). That is why the just-concluded four-day biennial Caribbean and International Social Work Educators Conference at the University of the West Indies is of mould-breaking significance.

Caribbean social work educators interspersed with fellow professionals from various North American universities have been giving shape to a Caribbean mould for dealing with Caribbean social and behavioural challenges at the conference this week. Some 15 universities or related colleges apart from the host, the University of the West Indies, presented over 90 research papers and related workshops bearing on the Caribbean experience either specifically or in the wider context of global influences. And although many foreign universities were represented at the conference, most of the presenters were Caribbean academics based in these institutions of higher learning, applying their learning and experience to Caribbean social and behaviourial problems at home or in the diaspora. They brought Caribbean know-how married to academic expertise.

The non-Caribbean presenters were equally appropriate, for they were either dealing with Caribbean minorities in their foreign spheres of operations, or with ethnically related populations, especially in the USA.

The broad areas of focus included migration, crime, justice and rehabilitation, youth, child abuse, disaster preparedness, ability and disability, HIV/AIDS and international issues, government social policy, and community organisation and development. Some titles of presentations may enlighten.
"The sequence of Caribbean emigration and return:
Rethinking and unravelling the interlocking dynamics" was one in the migration section. It examined the causes for migration flow to metropolitan countries and return flows, especially to Jamaica, with the economic and social consequences. "Understanding aggression in seven- to
eight-year-old children from a transactional analysis perspective: a gender comparison" was one dealing with the theory that children are "scripted" to become aggressive, but from a Jamaican perspective. "The dynamics of ability grouping, Teacher Expectations and School Engagement:
The Barbados context" was a paper challenging the Euro-American pedagogical concept that ability grouping contributes to negative outcomes for students. It challenged the notion of generalising to the Caribbean context.

Some titles reflect new breakthroughs in understanding interpersonal relationship difficulties. For instance, "Partner violence: Religion a neglected factor" addressed the impact of a religious belief and male headship and leadership in relationships involving partner violence. The context was Barbados. In the Jamaican context, a paper: "Beyond Child Protection: Camp Bustamante - a hospital-based violence prevention response" presented a case study of a pioneering hospital-based child abuse mitigation project that could reduce the need for out-of-home placement. Lessons learned included the potential that exists for home-based family counselling. In the Antigua context, a paper : "Trauma and the Adolescent: a Caribbean Perspective and Social Work intervention" shows that adolescents in the Caribbean experience trauma on an almost continuous basis from physical or sexual abuse to natural disasters such as hurricanes and volcanoes. They may thus be traumatised either as victims, or vicariously through witnessing these events. Social-work intervention treats with the negative implications for adolescent development.

The examples above, picked almost at random from a cursory review of papers presented and workshops held at the biennial conference, represent the push for Caribbean solutions to Caribbean-generated problems. They are a clear breakaway from the parroting and aping of North American solutions appropriate for North American-generated social and behavioural problems. It is high time that we recognise that the cultural underpinnings of behaviour in the Caribbean demand culturally appropriate responses and treatment. By the proceedings at the conference, the social work profession is now setting pace for some academic disciplines to follow, while keeping pace with one or two others. To assert our Caribbean identity requires a proactive shift from academic malaise on the part of some of our resident academics.

But there is hope. The Association of Caribbean Social Work Educators now has a high quality Caribbean Journal of Social Work in its fourth impending volume of production. It joins the pre-existing inter-disciplinary social science and humanities journal Ideaz in promoting a Caribbean focus.
The social work journal issues have a great collection of Caribbean-focused publications, typified by examples of conference papers cited above. Whether you are a lay person or a trained social work practitioner, you owe it to your necessary awareness of indigenous Caribbean and local practice to acquire copies. They may be had from the UWI Bookshop, the Social Welfare Training Centre at UWI, the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at UWI and also from the publishers, Arawak Publications.

And congratulations to the ACSWE team and its local hosts for the excellent work in helping to reshape the mould to fit our own Caribbean circumstances. History will applaud your efforts.

[wedinjamaica]

Re: Social Services jobs in JA.

If you find any please let this social worker know...