Local News

Human Services staff normally deal with sensitive cases involving children who are in situations that can be detrimental to their wellbeing.  When the officers who deal with them do not know what tips to look for or what questions to ask, then it does not help.  So today and on Friday the Human Services Department is conducting training for those officers just joining the system.  Love News spoke with the Program Director at Human Services, Diana Pook.

DIANA POOK, Program Director (Human Services)

“When the social worker gets an investigation then they go out and investigate that query or whatever is going on, the situation and based on – they have an actual report form that they have to follow and then based on that and their finding they need to access what is going on and what the family needs.  So that is what we are teaching them to do.  How do you assess, what do you look for so that you can assess correctly.  Then after the assessment we are also teaching them how do you do the case plan, how do you know ok these are the problem that they have and what steps we need to take so we can help them out.” 

MARION ALI, Reporter

“Now what situations would you find a social worker dealing with that this kind of work will have to apply?”

DIANA POOK, Program Director (Human Services)

“Well basically most of the situation can work in child protection, in family welfare problems.  It can work with domestic violence as well but mostly human services deal with the family violence and child protection areas and welfare.”

MARION ALI, Reporter

“Is this a refresher or is it an advancement on the basics?”

DIANA POOK, Program Director (Human Services)

“For some it will be a refresher and for some it will be an advancement because like I said before, most of the officers in this training are officers who have just started or are in the department for about five months or less.”