In light of the so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty fac­ing our beloved land, one can look deep with­in and ask, "How and where did all of this be­gin?" There is an ur­gent need to ex­am­ine the num­ber of the na­tion's youth that is falling by the way­side. Many males and some fe­males are drop­ping out of school. Could it be that the sys­tem is not equipped to deal with the so­cial is­sues faced by some of these youth? Have we ever thought that it is not sin­gu­lar­ly a gov­ern­men­tal prob­lem per se but rather a so­ci­etal one? We have long aban­doned the phi­los­o­phy that ad­vo­cates the virtues and im­por­tance of "a vil­lage rais­ing a child." To­day the vil­lage has been re­placed by the tele­vi­sion and the com­put­er in so far as the su­per­vi­so­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our chil­dren is con­cerned.

How are the par­ent­ing pro­grammes dis­sem­i­nat­ed? What proac­tive pro­grammes are gen­er­at­ed for the young males in our so­ci­ety? Are our young men who are termed chil­dren at "risk" re­al­ly and tru­ly em­braced and giv­en the treat­ment nec­es­sary to be­gin the process of so­cial and emo­tion­al heal­ing? So­cial work­ers should be placed in schools from in­cep­tion to as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing and treat­ing with the is­sues, be they so­cial, spir­i­tu­al or eco­nom­ic, that tend to erode the very foun­da­tion of our so­ci­ety. They would be able to guide stu­dents and work with fam­i­lies in as­sist­ing to deal with these so­ci­etal and so­cial prob­lems.

Well-or­gan­ised and struc­tured com­mu­ni­ties al­ways have a far bet­ter chance of reg­u­lat­ing it­self so as to ad­dress so­cial de­viance, whether it is by in­sti­tut­ing neigh­bour­hood crime watch groups or or­gan­is­ing com­mu­ni­ty-based events to give the res­i­dents a sense of pride and be­long­ing. Com­mu­ni­ties which have be­come dis­or­gan­ised are by de­f­i­n­i­tion in­ca­pable of self-reg­u­la­tion. One main fac­tor that con­tributes to this dis­or­gan­i­sa­tion is the lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to earn a de­cent liv­ing. Re­search has clear­ly shown that com­mu­ni­ties that are pover­ty-strick­en and which have ex­pe­ri­enced long-term and his­tor­i­cal un­em­ploy­ment al­so ex­pe­ri­ence so­cial dis­or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Crime rates in such ar­eas are di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to the char­ac­ter of the neigh­bour­hoods. The ab­sence of prop­er san­i­ta­tion, lack of recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties, the pauci­ty of pub­lic spaces for cit­i­zens to re­lax and so­cialise al­so con­tribute to the con­tin­u­a­tion of the cy­cle of in­ter­gen­er­a­tional de­viance and de­pri­va­tion. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, enough em­pha­sis is not placed on the need for the so­cial work­er as a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor in the fight against crime. This is demon­strat­ed by the fail­ure of the pow­ers that be to cre­ate per­ma­nent po­si­tions with­in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment. At present con­tract em­ploy­ment is the or­der of the day and in some in­stances there is fail­ure to re­new same.

Mar­i­an J Tay­lor

Pres­i­dent

T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of So­cial Work­ers