Geisha Kow­lessar

So­cial work needs to be rev­o­lu­tionised to make it more ap­plic­a­ble to the Caribbean says Ak­i­lah Ri­ley, pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer and teacher at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean. She was speak­ing at the start of a two-day sym­po­sium ti­tled "Bridg­ing the gap be­tween so­cial work the­o­ry and prac­tice" held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day.

Those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in­clud­ed wel­fare of­fi­cers, se­nior psy­chi­atric so­cial work­ers, pris­ons wel­fare of­fi­cers, med­ical so­cial work­ers, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of­fi­cers, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and lead­ers of non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Claim­ing it was im­por­tant not to dis­card what was taught be­cause cer­tain fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples could be ap­plied uni­ver­sal­ly, she said there were sit­u­a­tions which some­times dealt with the cul­ture of a com­mu­ni­ty.

Touch­ing on her field­work, Ri­ley said she was "hum­bled" by her ex­pe­ri­ence with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers which en­abled her to bet­ter un­der­stand spe­cif­ic is­sues af­fect­ing a com­mu­ni­ty, as in the in­stance of Laven­tille, Sea Lots or the Beetham.

Say­ing the work of a so­cial work­er or pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer en­tails many long hours, Ri­ley said the re­al test is putting the­o­ry in­to prac­tice."Al­ways be trans­par­ent with clients. And there must be re­spect. We must al­so see a client as some­one who has a voice," Ri­ley added.

Al­so speak­ing was Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne, man­ag­er of the Vic­tims and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice, who said it was vi­tal to work hand-in-hand with the com­mu­ni­ties.

She said the unit had made progress not on­ly with mur­der vic­tims and wit­ness­es but vic­tims of all types of abuse.