Social Service Centre, Shillong

About the Agency: Social Service Centre

Social Service Centre (SSC) is the social action wing of the Catholic Archdiocese of Shillong, Meghalaya and works towards the integrated development of all sections of the society irrespective of caste, ethnicity and religion with special emphasis on the tribal groups and other vulnerable communities operating mainly in East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi districts of Meghalaya. It is a non-profit, non-political, secular voluntary organisation registered under the Meghalaya Societies Registration Act XII of 1983 (SR/SSC-8/88 of 1988) owned and managed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Shillong. Social Service Centre was started in January 1988 and its office is located at Archbishop’s House, Laitumkrah, Shillong.

SSC is an organisation with a motto of “Renewing vision, enriching life” with the vision of visualising a holistically developed tribal society, which is directing its own destiny and living in harmony with all people and the natural environment. The organisation’s mission is to bring about a qualitative change among vulnerable groups especially of tribal society (at family, village and society level) through animations; formation of people’s organisation and advocacy.” The organisation was set up with the objectives, such as; to devise schemes and projects towards fostering qualitative education amongst the underprivileged community. To mobilize community towards disaster preparedness and mitigation to undertake programmes aimed at imparting better and qualitative leadership and to build a healthy community by sensitizing them on environmental and gender issues also to look for convergence with collaborating agencies.

The agency has a number of concentration areas that are being implemented and yet to be implemented, viz: Economic development, education, health, gender equality, strengthening local governance, peace building, sustainable agriculture, disaster preparedness and management programmes. There are three pilot programmes/projects which are being implemented by the organisation under each coordinator, such as:

1. The Integrated Development through Empowerment and Action.
2. The Community and Family Disaster Preparedness Programme.
3. The Curative and Preventive Community Health Care on Malaria.
 

Integrated Development through Empowerment Approach

SSC, the social action wing of the Archdiocese of Shillong implemented the programme called Integrated Development through Empowerment Approach (IDEA) a Caritas sponsored programme with the aim of integrating all the development programmes in Shillong Archdiocese. It is a concerted effort by different stakeholders and different personnel in the Archdiocese with an objective of building the capacity of the people in targeted village. In the state of Meghalaya, the project covers the two vast districts i.e. East Khasi Hills District and Ri-Bhoi district focusing with the economic, education and forming of SHG were focus is in Umsning Block and covering Mawkynrew and Mawryngkneng Block.

Community and Family Disaster Preparedness (CFDP) Project

The project titled, “Community and family Disaster preparedness” is the project which has newly selected 10 villages been taken by the Social Service Center (SSC) since 2010 and it is still an on-going project under the name of Community Management and Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR). It is a pilot project to initiate disaster program aimed at sustainable reduction to lives and properties due to disaster in the new 10 villages of Laitkroh Block. This project has been implemented with the support from Caritas India.

Preventive and Curative Community Health Care on Malaria and Mother and Child in the North East Region

Considering the situation of vulnerability of the people to various sicknesses, this project is for the purpose of tackling health issues mainly Malaria and Mother and Child Health. The project aims at ensuring people’s accessibility to preventive and curative health measures, especially for people living in villages where there is a lack of proper health care in Malaria and mother and child. The Social Service Center (SSC) has taken up this program for 70 villages, which include 10 villages of the East Khasi Hills District and about 60 villages of Ri-Bhoi District. The project is being implemented through the network of Health centers/Dispensaries run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Shillong that are spread out throughout the East and Ri-Bhoi districts of Meghalaya.

Caritas India

Caritas India is the funding agency of Social Service Centre projects. It is the National Organisation of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) for Social Concern and Development founded in 1962. It is recognised as a leader in responding to the natural and other disasters in the sub-continent, and serves the poor and marginalised throughout the country regardless of caste, creed or ethnicity. Caritas India is a network organization with 160 local counterparts who are the Diocesan Social Service Societies (DSSS) and hundreds of NGO partners. Through partnerships, Caritas India strives to reach the remotest parts of the country.

Administrative Structure

Social Service Centre functions under the administration of the Governing body, such as the president, vice president and the director. Under the director, there are one coordinator for each project and another two to three animators, supervisors and health workers under each coordinator of the projects. The present Organogram as given below:

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The agency is in the process of improving its human resource section. The newly proposed structure of its organogram as given below:

PROPOSED ORGANOGRAM 

Objectives

1. To gain practical experience in the organization and administration of the agency’s services
2. To gain practical knowledge about the various programmes or projects of the agency
3. To gain knowledge about the concepts of delivering services by the agency
4. To study and understand the conditions of the agency’s field
5. To determine our professional strengths and weaknesses in the field of Social Work
6. To examine our ability to build healthy and productive professional relationships with the agency staffs as well as the clients

Activities

During the entire placement in the agency, the student social worker has the following activities. Visited the agency’s field in the East Khasi Hills district where community mobilization meeting on disaster preparedness was initiated. In every meeting, it was the field supervisor who takes the initiative in the mobilisation process, whereas the student social worker assisted or acted as the felicitator whenever it is required by sharing ideas and views as per the topic being discussed. The student social worker takes the initiative when it comes to Participatory, Learning and Action (PLA) process by guiding the villagers what they should be doing. The other activity that the student social worker experienced was compiling and analysing of socio-economic, disaster preparedness survey data, which was conducted by the agency. Facilitate women group of few villages to form Self Help Group to improve their socio-economic condition. The students’ social workers, in the presence of the field supervisor met the Sub-divisional Officer of Sohra and briefed him about SSC’s social work in the village level.

Programme Organised/Attended

The students’ social worker did not organise any programmes by their own, but with the field supervisor. Community mobilisation meeting was organised and attended thrice during the placement in the agency. Attended the Self Help Group (SHG) awareness campaign among the women in Laitlyngdop and Jathang village, also attended another meeting with the village members of Diengkynthong and Disaster Management and Agriculture Awareness program at Pyrda Village.

Learning Outcomes

Working with an agency for fourteen days was indeed a good experience and it was like an act of breaking the iceberg to professionalism in the field of social work. The first thing that comes into my mind through the observation on the first day in the agency was that, to be a truly successful social worker, one need to spend maximum time in the field rather than table work. The other thing that makes me more satisfied with the fieldwork is that, I gained the basic idea and process of formulating a project proposal.

Analytical Ability: From the compilation and analysis that was done during the placement by the student social worker it is learnt that closed ended question is much better than opened ended questions for any kind of survey, reasons being that, in closed ended questions the respondents find it more convenient and greater response than opened ended questions. Opened ended questions are difficult to analyse as they are from different perspectives of opinions. I was in the opinion that some of the questions were irrelevant to the objective of the conducted survey.

About the pilot project, ‘Community and Family Disaster Preparedness Programme’, where the student social worker was assigned to in the agency was indeed one of the urgent needs of the villages where it is being implemented. The approach to disaster preparedness plans should be a dynamic venture, which needs to be reviewed, modified, updated and tested on a regular basis. As per the student social worker analysis, the above-mentioned pilot projects needs more improvement in its approach.

Communication Skills: Unlike the way I used to consider what an effective communication should be, I am able to view communication skills with different perspective from my field work experiences. I learnt that an effective communication skill is not only an out-spoken ability, but the ability to stay focus, ability to listen attentively and try to see their point of view. It is also the ability to adapting to difference of opinions with open minded approach.  Though I cannot communicate with the villagers in English, I learnt how to have an effective communication through an interpreter.

Administrative/Recording Skills: I understand that a social worker cannot write a good record unless they can decide which is relevant to observe; decide what information is required to understand the background of the topic being discussed or undertaken; select and summarise the most important aspect of the topic; define the aims of their records in a way in which they and others can later judge the extent to which aims have been achieved; define the actions and tasks which they will undertake. As per the student social worker self-evaluation, I realised to certain extend I have improved my recording/writing skills in a professional way. As far as administrative skills is concern, the student social worker learnt that how to form an administrative structure to run an effective social service.

Problem Solving Skill: During the placement in the agency, the student social worker act as the felicitator is sharing ideas and views to certain problems being face by the villagers/clients. To solve their problems, it would at least take four to five months’ time. The student’s social workers are very unfortunate in this regard, as time does not permit them to experiment their theoretical knowledge.

Using Field Instructions: The student social worker followed the field instructions in good spirit.

Punctuality/Regularity: I must say, punctuality is what I am born with. As far as possible or if there is no unavoidable circumstances arises, punctuality or regularity is what I maintain since my high school life. During the fieldwork, be it, to the agency office or to the field, I used to reach the destination before the scheduled time.

Professional Development: The student social worker would consider himself climbing to certain step to professionalism in the field of social work. The practical experiences that I gained in the organization, I think boost up my professional confidence to certain extend. I could picture out immense improvement in building a professional rapport with officials and staffs in the office as well as with the clients. However, the placement is a short span of time, I am able to practically implement some of the theory that I learnt in the class. Over all, I know I am certain steps ahead in professionalism. The professional way of planning a day and setting objectives is for the work immensely improved. The professional way of writing reports and recording greatly improved.

Conclusion

The placement in the agency could have been more educative had there been a problem to carry out case study or doing research where I can practically implement my theoretical studies. Nevertheless, it is satisfactory that I could gauged our my professional strengths and weakness from the field work.

It would be more productive if the faculty as well as field supervisors could evaluate us on weekly basis, so that we the students’ social workers can improve our performance into a real professionalism.

~ 1st Semester, Master of Social Work Field Work Summary Report, 2011

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