géag (branch, limb)

I am just finishing up my master’s degree in Social Work and came to Northern Ireland to do my final field placement, the last requirement (besides an online course) before I graduate. This “last requirement” has turned into an amazing and stimulating professional experience, and one of the richest times in my life. The master’s placement takes the place of your normal graduate thesis paper and will end up to be 550+ hours of voluntary experience working in the field. I am at the Koram Centre in Strabane, Co. Tyrone working in multiple capacities: individual counselling, community building, teaching/ facilitating two courses at the local Women’s Centre, and learning about the steps (both backwards and forwards) that Northern Ireland is taking towards peace – which is about healing, recovery, pluralism and tolerance. The Koram Centre and the Consolidating Positive Relationships Peace Project is based out of these two houses.

A lot — I will write more here as soon as I can!

However, I’ve already had my photo in the paper – this was taken during my first week at the Koram Centre. Cute, huh? The Derg family has a Christmas lights display every year and they raise money for charities; this year £2,500, and one of the beneficiaries was the Koram Centre.

Social services in Northern Ireland are currently in the process of change. Agencies are rethinking the old approach based on the charity model (solely addressing the needs being presented) to one based in prevention and education (where an intervention occurs before individuals and families reach crisis or a point of desperation).

Northern Ireland has traditionally been the UK’s smallest regional economy and also the least prosperous, with employment levels lagging behind the rest of the UK. Right now in the largely rural Western region, where Strabane is located, they are at a point of trying to modernize and improve services to address clinical and social care. There are many barriers to this work, but those engaging work within a collaborative framework are seeing the benefits, especially when it comes to access to funding.

These factors don’t directly impact what I am doing here, but I certainly feel the tension and have interviewed directors and project coordinators at other agencies and am gaining a experience of individual perspectives: motivation, fears and the difficult process of change.