From left to right: Mikhail, Stan, and Carolyn go over their notes before
meeting the kids at one of the Jamaican schools.
| With the help of the Minority International Research (MIRT) program, several undergraduate psychology students and one clinical graduate student (me) returned to Jamaica for another summer of research. As before, our work consisted of interviewing school children who were referred by either the teachers or the parents and writing reports for each child containing a diagnosis, if any, and treatment recommendations. Here are just a few of the pictures from this summer. |
From left to right: Mikhail, Stan, and Carolyn go over their
notes before
meeting the kids at one of the Jamaican schools.
Don't let them fool you...they might seem shy, but they love to get
their pictures taken. The boys do too, but like in the United
States,
they often try to avoid the girls at this age.
This was our only means of transportation in Jamaica.
It may look like a regular van... and in fact it is, but a strange
thing
happened while we were in Jamaica. A group of men used a white
van to abduct young girls from schools in order to perform some
kind of ritualistic acts which left the girls with scars all over their
bodies.
The men were at large for quite a while, despite the story being all
over
the news every day. You can, therefore, imagine the schools'
reaction
when we (a group of foreigners) drove in to interview the children.
It got so bad that several schools actually cancelled the interviews
and
we thought we would have to leave the country a month earlier than
planned.
Fortunately, the culprits were brought into custody and we were able
to go on with our work.
The interviews were only part of the job. Then, we had to write
clinical
reports with our assessment, a diagnosis (if warranted ), and recommendations.
Carl waits for a computer, while Carolyn and Mikhail try to finish
up their reports.
Although we were in Jamaica to work, we definitely found time to play
too.
Here, Carl and Carolyn take a scenic ride on a bamboo raft.
One of the most beautiful parts of Jamaica is this waterfall, not far
from
Ocho Rios. This is only part of the falls, which takes 15-20
minutes to climb.
It's only fitting that this chapter of the photo gallery is concluded
with a shot
of the group standing in front of a Jamaican sunset.
From left to right: Carl, Mikhail, Ebony, Stan, and Carolyn.
Cosette is the excellent photographer.
