Dr. Shirlene Smith Augustine is a psychologist with a long history of social work in Belize. She's presently an assistant professor at the North Carolina A And T School Of Education, but is spending some time in Belize this month.
We caught up with her today at the Conscious Youth Development Programme - where the experienced counselor was offering the board some insights into strategies they can adapt in their social intervention efforts.
We asked for her perspective on crime and social disorder:...
Jules Vasquez
"If you look specifically at the daunting nature of the cascade of the social ills, you want to ask or you attempt to ask how do you fix anything when everything is broken or that's how it appears from the outside."
Dr. Shirlene Smith Augustine, Counseling Psychologist
"It is daunting and your looking and it's like everything is leaking and you don't know if you want to stop this side or stop that side. The key is to start somewhere you know it's looking at the whole picture and then strategically it's almost like you're playing chess I suppose strategically start to target one area then the next and then you move, we may never totally eliminate it probably not but you may certainly reduce some of the impact, we've talked a lot of talk over the years you know and you've probably been a part of a lot of those talks in terms of what the problems is. What we need to do and in 2010, we are still here and thing have gotten and in a lot of people opinion. A lot of parents are in despair they can't fine registration fees, they don't know how they are going to afford books they don't know how they are going to afford to send their child to school, that shouldn't be, we are living in a society and we are to be living in a system were children are guaranteed that education at no cost but if we don't give them that opportunity we are going to continue to complain not only complain, we will continue to suffer as a people."
Smith-Augustine is the former Dean, of Nursing/Allied Health and Social Work at the University Of Belize and is now Assistant Professor of Human Development at North Carolina A and T...
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