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Saturday, July 12, 2025

T&T marks Social Work Day tomorrow

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20120324

March 20 was World So­cial Work day. To­mor­row, March 26, is the Unit­ed Na­tions' So­cial Work Day. The In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of So­cial Work­ers (IF­SW) has de­clared it a week of ac­tion. Here in T&T, as the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of So­cial Work­ers (TTASW) marks the oc­ca­sion, the so­cial prob­lems fac­ing T&T are plac­ing their work right at the fore­front of mak­ing nec­es­sary so­cial trans­for­ma­tion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion, whose mot­to is: "Em­pow­er so­cial work­ers to make a dif­fer­ence," is fo­cused on help­ing so­cial work­ers to fa­cil­i­tate client func­tion­ing and cre­ate so­cial change. Over the three decades of its ex­is­tence, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has brought mem­bers to­geth­er to dis­cuss crit­i­cal is­sues fac­ing peo­ple work­ing in their field and the coun­try at large, through con­fer­ences, ex­change fo­rums, so­cial events and train­ing ses­sions.

TTASW vice-pres­i­dent Ak­i­lah Ri­ley says, "At present, we are fo­cused on ex­po­sure and ed­u­ca­tion," as well as fos­ter­ing "a close­ly-knit net­work of so­cial work­ers". "We have con­duct­ed pan­el dis­cus­sions and fo­rums on crit­i­cal so­cial work is­sues-in­clud­ing the vi­sion for so­cial work-at the ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions. We see this as im­por­tant so that bud­ding so­cial work­ers will un­der­stand the pro­fes­sion and the tasks ahead.

"We have al­so held dis­cus­sions and pre­sen­ta­tions on oth­er im­por­tant is­sues such as child pro­tec­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing, and in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence. Our train­ing chair­per­son is al­so in the process of find­ing new train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for our mem­bers so that mem­bers can im­prove their prac­tice." Ri­ley is op­ti­mistic about the fu­ture or the as­so­ci­a­tion but sees many chal­lenges in their day-to-day work.

"The as­so­ci­a­tion needs to be­come more vi­brant and more vo­cal on pub­lic is­sues. At present, the hands are few and the tasks are many." In ad­di­tion, the as­so­ci­a­tion needs a home, an of­fice out of which to op­er­ate. "This as­so­ci­a­tion is an NGO," she says, "so there are many fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing it. But if we had an of­fice space, we would be able to do much more work. So­cial work­ers have their in­di­vid­ual of­fices, she notes, "but this um­brel­la body needs one as well".

Some chal­lenges are more uni­ver­sal: "I would say that the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so strug­gles with the prob­lems that all so­cial work­ers strug­gle with, like burnout and frus­tra­tion with the sys­tem. "Chil­dren's is­sues are a pri­ma­ry con­cern for us. There is need for prop­er leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect chil­dren. There are too many gaps in the cur­rent laws, too many in­con­sis­ten­cies sur­round­ing age lim­its, too many un­clear, in­ad­e­quate de­f­i­n­i­tions of abuse.

"The so­cial work­er al­so needs more pow­er through the leg­is­la­tion to con­duct ef­fec­tive prac­tice. Luck­i­ly, the leg­is­la­tion is on the front-burn­er again, so we will see-we are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed. The group is al­so work­ing on be­com­ing a reg­u­la­to­ry body, so that all so­cial work­ers will have to be reg­is­tered and li­cenced with the as­so­ci­a­tion in or­der to prac­tise.

More in­fo

For more in­for­ma­tion on the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of So­cial Work­ers, vis­it their Web site at ttasw.org


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