Résumé

There is an urgent need to address mental health conditions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and humanitarian settings. This symposium sheds light on the significance of localized mental health practices and interventions, exploring gaps and opportunities for future research. The first paper emphasizes the need for reliable, culturally valid measurement tools, as well as rigorous and replicable research designs. It stresses the integration of local knowledge, practices, and implementation science methods in global mental health policies and programs for optimal effectiveness. The second paper explores the potential of digital technologies, specifically eHealth literacy, in reaching marginalized populations, including forcibly displaced youth in Uganda. It underscores the necessity of contextualizing and tailoring mental health information delivered through digital tools to the specific needs of displaced populations. The third paper underscores the unique concerns and needs of children and adolescents in refugee settlements in Uganda who are experiencing conflict and displacement. It suggests that increasing educational activities, improving access to livelihood resources, and supporting caregivers' parenting methods can enhance young people’s mental health. The final paper delves into the process of engaging diverse stakeholders in co-learning to identify locally informed mental health practices. It advocates for the integration of traditional healing practices rooted in diverse cultural traditions. However, it also emphasizes the need to balance localized methods with a do-no-harm approach and evidence trusted in low-resource contexts. Collectively, these four papers emphasize the critical importance of incorporating locally informed approaches and culturally appropriate mental health policies and practices to support individuals and communities in diverse global settings. They advance our knowledge about the importance of harnessing local knowledge, practices, and digital innovations to address prevailing mental health challenges in LMICs and humanitarian settings.

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global mental health, local knowledge, indigenization, eHealth, displaced populations, refugees, co-learning

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Social Development in Mental Health

Résumé

Guyana is a culturally diverse society with six ethnic groups. That diversity in recent years has been further extended with the inflow of Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum as well as immigrants from other nationalities seeking to benefit from the new and developing oil and gas sector.\\ The ethnic diversity of the country has shaped social systems and together with the distribution of natural resources and the nature of governance systems, has influenced economic disparities in the performance of ethnic groups and geographical sub-systems. With the economic and social landscape of the country shifting, policymakers have been required to adjust to accommodate new sub-groups such as migrants, as well as to increase focus and reconsider policy needs of existing marginalized and vulnerable sub-groups such as persons with disabilities, children and indigenous communities.\\ This symposium is focused on papers that examine the challenges confronting vulnerable subgroups in Guyana inclusive of the protection of children in the care of the state, persons with disabilities and migrant children. All of the papers follow an interdisciplinary approach and seek to understand the current needs of the identified vulnerable groups. As Guyana is at a watershed moment in its development, the analyses are useful in identifying gaps that may need to be addressed to improve the general welfare of the sub-groups and professionals providing psychological and social support to such groups. This would help to shape social action, policies and academic discourses that can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable development going forward. \\ \\ 

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vulnerable, diversity, responsive, welfare, disabilities, children, professionals, migrants\ Note: Submission is being proposed as a Symposium that will include the following papers which have been submitted separately:Abstract Number 1:\ Theme # 17(a):Social Work/Social Development in Child/Family Welfare/Child Protection\ \ Revisiting the Madhia Tragedy: Implications for Social Work Practice in Guyana\ \ 1Mrs. Dionne Frank (MSc)2Associate Professor Craig Burns (PhD)3Mr. Julian Khan (MSc)\ \ \ Abstract Number 2:\ Theme # 17(c):Health/ Mental Health\ The Impact of Vicarious Trauma on Helping Professionals: The Mahdia Tragedy in Guyana.\ 1Mrs. Shonell Smith Enoe (MSc)2Dr. Paulette Henry (PhD)3 Ms. Latoya Beckles (MSc)4 Ms. Ornetta Waldron (MSc)5 Ms. Chelsea Halley Crawford (MSc)\ \ Abstract Number 3:\ Theme # 17(d):Disability\ Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Guyanese Society: Challenges and Setbacks\ 1\ Dr...\ Dianna DaSilva-Glasgow (PhD)2\ Mrs.\ Dionne Frank (MSc)\ \ \ Abstract Number 4:\ Theme # 17(i):Migration, Refugeeism, Asylum Seeking\ Language Barriers, Social Integration and Learning Challenges: An Exploratory Analysis of Venezuelan Migrant Families and Students in Guyana\ 1 Dr. Duane Edwards (PhD),\ 2\ Ms. Anjie Lambert (MSc)\ 3\ Mr. \ Jason Allicock (MBA)\ \ 

Résumé

This paper\ is focused on persons with disabilities (PWDs). It provides a cursory situational analysis of the extent of disabilities in Guyana and assesses the current state of participation and factors posing limitations to effective participation of PWDS in Guyana. The paper employs a mixed method approach where qualitative data is obtained from interviews and focus group discussions with PWDs as well as a national cross-regional survey. Based on both approaches barriers are categorized along the lines of physical, organization, and attitudinal and practice barriers.\ In light of the current policy initiatives and the barriers identified, the paper undertakes a gap analysis to provide directives on areas where further policy guidance may be needed to position PWDs to more effectively participate in society, particularly in light of the evolving economic and social landscape of the country.\ Theoretical insights are drawn from Sen’s Capability Approach which had identified conversion factors as key to the ends people are able to achieve from the resources available to them. The results confirm that among the list of barriers considered, organizational barriers are more pervasive as well as physical barriers. The research recommends that more active steps be taken to have all PWDs registered with legitimate bodies that could support them through information dissemination and other forms of support. The research also recommends swifter implementation of the national strategy to support development of PWDs as it will help to address several of the challenges identified by PWDs.

Mots clés (séparés par des virgules)

Persons with Disabilities, participation, organizational barriers, physical barriers, policy\ 

Résumé

Guyana's contemporary history records Monday, May 22,\ 2023,\ as one of its darkest days, following the incineration of the Madhia Secondary School Dorm and the resultant deaths of twenty indigenous children from four remote communities. While\ the tragedy evoked rapid responses from\ governmental and non-governmental agencies, the\ public discourse focused on the\ state's failure to follow\ occupational and safety standards in\ state-controlled buildings,\ the\ plight\ of\ parents who enrol their children in "dorm schools" to facilitate their access to education and\ the vulnerability of Guyana's indigenous peoples.\ As social work educators and\ practitioners, Guyana's limitations in realising the rights of children in state care and\ the\ gaps in the national response were obvious. Further, our deconstruction of the universal response to the tragedy highlighted numerous areas of mitigation and prevention where the social work profession is uniquely situated to provide guidance and leadership to prevent such tragedies.This\ paper\ uses a critical lens to interrogate the responses to the Madhia tragedy. It is based on the content analysis of global news publications, reports, and a disaster response framework.\ Using the 2019 fire at the Jamaica National Children's Home as a case study, we examine the role of a comprehensive disaster framework in protecting institutionalised children before, during and after a disaster.\ Further, we recognise the need for Guyana to embrace one of the historical foundations of social work practice, the person-in-environment perspective, based on its integration of systems theory. We conclude the paper by\ identifying\ areas where social workers and the social work profession as a national entity\ in Guyana\ can change the practice approach.

Mots clés (séparés par des virgules)

Madhia Tragedy, Guyana, Disaster Response, Social Work Practice, Person-in-the-environment perspective\ 

Résumé

The ongoing economic, social, and political crises in Venezuela have pushed over 6 million migrants and refugees out of the country since 2014, large cross-sections of which are entering neighboring Guyana. Consequently, Guyana is now home to more than 24,000 Venezuelan migrants and refugees. Three factors have influenced the influx of migrants into Guyana: geographical proximity and a porous border, historical links with Guyana, and the fact that Guyana has emerged on the international scene as a major oil producer with projections of significant economic wealth. Venezuelan migrants are coming as entire family units with parents and school aged children. This paper is focused on the academic welfare of migrant children. It provides an exploratory analysis of the experiences of Venezuelan migrant students as they attempt to integrate into the local school system in a different cultural context from what they are used to Understanding the experiences of migrant children is important to position Guyana to more effectively support the children displaced by this humanitarian debacle who have sought the country’s aid through relocation. The paper employs a mixed method approach using descriptive statistics and thematic analyses which focus on the nature of the challenges faced by migrant families and students, the educational challenges and performance gaps between migrant and local students and the opportunities to create an inclusive environment. The study finds that the main challenge affecting migrant students is the language barrier. It therefore centers the analysis around this core issue and analyses the main strategy being currently employed to remove this barrier.

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Venezuelan migrants, Venezuelan students, immigration in Guyana, refugees in Guyana

Résumé

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ Twenty young lives were lost in a fire in an Amerindian village -Mahdia- in Guyana. Social workers, psychologists, and other helping professionals (SPHP)\ were galvanized into action as they were moved into Mahdia to counsel and provide psychosocial support to survivors, family members, and other bystanders within the community. As is customary with most helping professions, every effort was made to provide service beyond self.\ Although our helping professionals have been addressing trauma, the magnitude of the Mahadia tragedy was unprecedented. This has placed a heavier burden of care on our SPHP.\  This study uses vicarious trauma which evolves from the Constructivist Self-Development Theory (CSDT) in the conceptualization of the trauma experienced by SPHP. Several explanations of vicarious trauma point to its detrimental impact on professionals based on their exposure to second-hand trauma.\  The literature has shown that helping professionals experience vicarious trauma resulting from the traumatic experiences of their clients. While the emphasis is on vicarious traumatization, other forms of occupational stress resulting from the interventions of the SPHP will be discussed, the primary questions that this study seeks to answer are: (1) What were the experiences of helping professionals during the intervention processes with the survivors of the Mahadia fire? (2) How were SPHP affected by these interventions? (3) What formal and non-formal frameworks are in place to\ support SPHP? Data for this qualitative study is garnered from debriefing sessions and key informant interviews with SPHP. The findings will be useful for social work educators and professionals at both the teaching and practice levels in supporting curriculum reform geared towards exploring how SPHP address or cope with vicarious trauma and the impact on SPHP if left unattended. It would also be important for policymakers to understand how trauma impacts\ SPHP so that they can receive the support needed.\ \ 

Mots clés (séparés par des virgules)

Helping professionals, vicarious trauma, Mahdia, tragedy

Résumé

This symposium is composed by two conferences that aim to present a SW non-dominant episteme developed in Mexico throughout a period of thirty-five years, that has constituted itself as one of the main referents across LATAM for practicing and thinking about contemporary SW, after the reconceptualization movement. It relates to the Joint Conference on SWSD 2024 central theme, because it will present a disciplinary proposal in which the professional action of SW falls onto the relational forms as social configurations resulting from myriad types of relationships created by subjects who weave together every day social processes, such as: equality/inequality; competition/ cooperation; exclusion/ inclusion; violence/ solidarity; integration/disintegration; liberty/submission, without leaving no one behind. Moreover, it relates to theme number 7, because the SW epistemology that will be presented in the symposium has to do with introducing an alternative logic from the dominant that integrates knowledge recovered from professional practice.  At the same time, it articulates a comprehensive common language for our profession while considering that neoliberalism, capitalism, and socio–economic models imported by the global north onto the global south, have resulted in differentiated social dynamics within global societies that tend to spread narratives that generate enemies while establishing violence as a dominant form of relating to each other. In that sense, the symposium also relates to theme number 10, because it will address the task of SW faced with the global problem of social violence, aiming to provide a useful benchmark for practitioners when intervening within contexts of violence, towards a social co-existence of solidarity.The desired outcome is to create awareness on the fact that even when SW has been spoken about and done in so many myriad ways, it is still possible to build from our differences and to identify unity in the ontological dispersion of the profession/discipline itself.

Mots clés (séparés par des virgules)

non-dominant episteme of social work, international social work, social intervention against violence, social coexistence of solidarity, task of social work.

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Shantal Gámiz Vidiella, Symposium Convener  Panel 1. About Social Work The region of LATAM went through a deep politicization period during the era of SW reconceptualization. In consequence, SW practitioners learned tough but fruitful lessons about how SW as a profession/discipline, could subsist in the disciplinary field of social sciences: not as a subordinate to other professions but concerned with the construction of specific conceptual, historical, and methodological elements. As such is the case of Mexico with Tello’s non-dominant episteme of SW which should be understood as an invitation for different Traditional/Postcolonial/Decolonial/Indigenous/Emancipatory approaches of SW to try and find points of agreement on what it is that SW studies as a profession and what it does as a discipline. In this panel, Tello will explain why SW can only be a comprehensive theoretical construction if its framework of knowledge is constructed through a transdisciplinary outlook, with a complex thought, and based on a specific epistemology that is capable of articulate knowledge from the point at which a segment of reality is being approached. In that sense, the panel will be about a new SW episteme, that reflects on its task, and it is functional in differentiating its specificity. On that note, Tello will share the conclusions of her latest academic publication[1] that include the ontological-theoretical and methodological benchmarks of her SW non-dominant episteme. Therefore, in this panel, the author will delve on her own SW Theory and talk about how to develop intervention strategies and models from such a SW episteme. It is worth mentioning that the guest speaker of this panel has reflected on the knowledge presented on this panel and discussed it with numerous colleagues, academics, and professionals in the field of social work, as well as with students for over the past thirty-five years and that her latest academic publication reintroduces, specifies, and summarizes the results about social work that she has gathered and disseminated across LATAM.   Panel 2. Social Work Towards a Social Co-existence of SolidarityFully understanding the non-dominant episteme of SW that is being presented in the symposium, implies that social workers should be capable of positioning themselves in the subject’s social relations, or with the social processes (i.e., equality/inequality; competition/ cooperation; exclusion/ inclusion; violence/ solidarity; integration/disintegration; liberty/submission) as the point in which they intervene, and not in the product of such relational forms. Even further, thinking about SW from such a non-dominant episteme also implies that social workers know that they are going to unleash processes of change, but that it is not their responsibility as a profession to totally modify society. Instead, their professional practice contributes to the construction of autonomous subjects with socio-historic responsibility that enable solidarity co-existence. Thus, it implies that social workers have clarity on key concepts conceived by Tello’s such as, violence, spaces of safety, social processes, among others. In this panel, Vidiella will talk about why Tello’s non-dominant episteme should be seriously considered into the international debate of SW as well as how it can inform various SW Traditional/Postcolonial/Decolonial/Indigenous/Emancipatory approaches, such as Māori Indigenous SW, Ubuntu as a SW pan-African concept and Sewpaul’s Emancipatory SW theory. On that account, the guest speaker will also present her latest academic publication[2] which delves into the task of international social work against violence. Therefore, Vidiella will present her contributions to Nelia Tello's theory and will delve into the key concepts to strengthen the disciplinary limits of social work and the specialized knowledge that practitioners bring when they join multidisciplinary teams that work against violence: Towards a social so-existence of solidarity. It is worth mentioning that the guest speaker of this panel has maintained a twelve-year relationship with Tello; on a personal basis, as a student, and later, as an apprentice, wherein she has had the opportunity to learn and discuss in-depth the non-dominant episteme that will be presented in the symposium.  [1] Tello, N. (2021) Social Work. National Autonomous University of Mexico [UNAM]. CDMX, Mexico.  [2]  Vidiella, S. (2022) International Social Work against Violence. [Master Thesis, Makerere University]. Kampala, Uganda.

Résumé

The objective is present the proposal of Critical Social Gerontology, a current structuredin Brazil, based on the Critical Theory of the Ethical-political Project of Social Work.According to which it understands aging as a process that is the result of individual andsocial life, deeply marked by social inequalities of class, gender, race, ethnicity, amongothers, thus showing the heterogeneity of aging. The following assumptions are adopted:contemplate, in theoretical-methodological analysis, the historical movement of socialrelations of capitalist production and reproduction; approach old age as a socialproduction, as in modern society this analysis is related to the socio-metabolic order ofcapital reproduction; contextualize ‘health x illness’, associated with pauperization, ofold workers: expression of the social issue and the vision of totality against the rationalityof capital. This Symposium is expected to socialize the discussion of Critical SocialGerontology, aiming to build a network of knowledge production (research) andexchange of knowledge about aging, which becomes increasingly urgent given that theworld population tends to live more and more. It can be seen, from now on, that the humanbeing in his most advanced stage is an elderly person and, therefore, in order for him todevelop his potential, it is necessary that his life is valued socio-intellectuallyeconomicallyin full, that is, that the Arriving at an advanced age represents a growth inconsideration and influence in society due to the experience that only years can give tosomeone. Thus, as social work works to guarantee social and human rights, aninternational mobilization with a scientific methodology and excellent logistics can bestructured and inaugurated from this symposium, making the international integration ofsocial workers gain more weight in contemporary times, when ultra-neoliberal

Mots clés (séparés par des virgules)

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The proposal of Critical Social Gerontology: contributions to the debate on thetheory and practice of Social Work\ Alexandra Mustafá