Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

About 50 mem­bers of the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of So­cial Work­ers gath­ered at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day evening to high­light the con­tri­bu­tion of so­cial work­ers as well as to com­mem­o­rate So­cial Work Month.The group staged a silent can­dle­light walk, be­gin­ning op­po­site the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). They then walked along Fred­er­ick Street with can­dles and plac­ards in hand be­fore end­ing at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian short­ly be­fore the march, pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion Lau­ra Davis said mem­bers wished to recog­nise So­cial Work Month as well as So­cial Work Day, which was cel­e­brat­ed on March 19.

"To­day re­al­ly is to talk about the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions of so­cial work­ers as well as to high­light some things about the pro­fes­sion," said Davis. She said many peo­ple still had mis­con­cep­tions about so­cial work­ers and still con­sid­ered them to be "char­i­ty work­ers" or "do-good­ers." How­ev­er, she said, mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion were trained and skilled, many of them hav­ing de­grees in so­cial work.

Davis said she be­lieved so­cial work­ers could do more to help with many wor­ry­ing trends, among them, crime."We can do more in so­ci­ety, but we feel we are un­der-utilised be­cause there is not the un­der­stand­ing that we can help in terms of solv­ing crime and oth­er is­sues."