Members from the UGA School of Social Work and East Athens Development Corporation (EADC) recently met to continue their partnership to address the needs of East Athens residents.
Dr. Llewellyn Cornelius, director of the UGA Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights, noted the technical assistance, community engagement and capacity building efforts that have been done through the joint efforts of the EADC and several UGA schools and organizations. The coordination of all the parties has allowed students to receive practical work experience, Cornelius said.
“This service has a placement for both the students in our nonprofit program as well as students in the School of Social Work,” Cornelius said. “In essence it’s like a pipeline where we’re training practitioners who will go out into the universe to do this kind of work, both in terms of one-on-one practice with individuals as well as in terms of community engagement.”
Several students have served as interns at EADC throughout the past two years, and these students were able to provide psycho-social support and advocacy services to the community. One intern built a training manual to increase EADC’s capacity to provide tutoring support in East Athens.
Throughout the past three years, three Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and a grant Athens-Clarke County Unified Government have been used to address the needs of the unhoused in Athens through EADC. In the future, the UGA Center for Social Justice and EADC plan to identify resources to provide behavioral health support and address the crisis of Black Education in East Athens.
“It just so happens the agency is an example of what we do outside of off campus, I would say, locally, regionally, nationally, you know, and so on,” Cornelius said. “What’s important, is that when we think about that phrase social impact, the impact is felt in the communities that we serve. That – in capital letters – that’s what it’s really all about.”
