Denise Oskarsson, a social sciences student from Stockholm, Sweden is currently doing part of her practical
training at Child Welfare in Grahamstown.
Denise Oskarsson, a social sciences student from Stockholm, Sweden is currently doing part of her practical
training at Child Welfare in Grahamstown.
Oskarsson is studying for a degree at Mid Sweden University in Östersund but her course requires her to gain 15 weeks of practical experience in a foreign country. She has already spent five weeks at the Aids Haven in Port Elizabeth and will spend the remaining ten weeks here in Grahamstown.
When Oskarsson first arrived at Child Welfare she was taken on home visits to learn how the organisation operates. She then learnt how to conduct visits on her own and now she has her own clients. She finds the work rewarding but admits that it is sometimes difficult because she does not understand the language most of the clients speak.
Oskarsson had a very emotional experience on one of her first home visits here in Grahamstown. Being new she did not know what to expect when she went out with one of the social workers. She says, “We went knocking on this house where we found this little boy, he was around six or seven years old, and he was crying.
He was all alone in the house and he seemed very afraid. We tried to talk to him but all the time he was just crying. It was hard to see him so scared and so sad. All I wanted to do before I left was to make him stop crying and to see him smile instead, but I didn’t know how. It was really hard leaving him like that.”
Oskarsson said she is really enjoying her work here and will be sorry when the time comes for her to return to Sweden.
