The Point’s staff lack the training to promptly and effectively manage personal and social issues that arise with participants during programming. This has hindered the Point’s ability to fully realize the goals of its programs. The Point plans to hire a part-time social worker who will take on a caseload of the neediest students and their families to provide counseling and referrals. The social worker will conduct workshops focused on developing socio-emotional skills and train frontline staff and volunteers to better handle participants’ issues. To help sustain this new component, the social worker will establish a relationship with a local social work school to provide clinical supervision and a team of Master’s of Social Work candidates to work with the Point’s participants.
The Point Community Development Corporation wants to improve its after-school and weekend programming, which serve 500 kids from the Hunts Point section of the Bronx and emphasize academic support and justice-based arts and service learning activities.
