Put social workers in schools

Cut the talk about the need for social workers to be placed in the island’s schools to deal with the growing number of at-risk youth and just get them there.

The President of the Barbados Association of Professional Social Workers (BAPSW), Sharon-Rose Gittens, wants the call for more guidance counsellors to be placed in schools to stop when there is really a need for more social workers.

Gittens said under the current school environment, how many more students in both the public and private schools must commit suicide, be labelled deviants or underachievers due to lack of form promotions or be victims of abuse at home and at school.

As seen quite often in society, Gittens wants to know how many more teens must go missing before they have social workers to turn to for professional guidance and help.

Speaking at a church service held at Restoration Ministries, Brittons Hill, St. Michael to acknowledge BAPSW’s new executive, the President announced that in an effort to show Government the need to put the professionals in schools, the Association will be working on a comprehensive programme proposal to be presented to the Ministry of Education.

“We will continue to ask the right questions to the right people for the right people and to write the right proposals for those who are tired listening and are ready to read,” she declared.

She indicated that while the secondary school environments have welcomed the marriage between social worker student interns and guidance counsellors, many of their projects within the schools are stopped when the internship period ends.

Gittens said that many prominent people in society had made calls for Government to put social workers in schools, including former BAPSW presidents; a former head of the Government Industrial School; the President of the Barbados Teachers’ Union; UNICEF children rights champion, Faith Marshall-Harris; and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Senator Harcourt Husbands, among others.

“Who else needs to recommend Social Workers in schools... We would never place a doctor to do a lawyer’s job, a pharmacist to be a nurse or a pastor to be a mechanic on Sundays. So why ask a guidance counsellor to be a social worker? Is it that we want the school system to fail? People continue to call for social workers in schools, but it is just not happening,” Gittens said.

The President informed that because social work has been legislated a profession within the Civil Service, employers will no longer advertise for “a related field”, as a request is specific for an Associate Degree or Bachelors of Social Work.

Meanwhile, pastor of Restoration Ministries and Chairman of the National Assistance Board, Senator David Durant, also spoke about the dire need for social workers to help the island’s youth. Durant said too many young people in Barbados seem to be falling through the cracks, and appear not to have parents to help them in the way they need to be helped.

Senator Durant encouraged those social workers present to continue carrying on the fight to end inequality and injustice at every level, and to push for
legislative reform to strengthen the rights of those vulnerable groups. He also stressed that it is comforting to know that people choose the career because of a love to help people and a desire to make Barbados a preferred place for everyone to live, work and raise children.

“As BAPSW, I want to encourage you, to admonish you to be careful how you offer care to those God has entrusted to you to serve and to empower. It is very important to treat individuals with respect in order to build rapport.

“In today’s society, it is very easy to become stressed and overwhelmed, but social workers must always remember the code of ethics and criteria in which you serve. . .” Senator Durant said. (AH)