Most Nigerians In America Want To Come Home – Busola Balogun, Social Worker

Every year Nigeria tops the list of countries whose nationals apply for the United States Diversity Visa. Practically every Nigerian youth is crazy about America. Even adults are not left out in this ambition to relocate to ‘God’s own country’ as people refer to the US.
But Olubusola Balogun, a Nigerian and social worker reveals that she would rather relocate to Nigeria with the next available flight if she could get a good job in the country. In this interview, she peels back the cover on the pains of her work, giving an insight on risks involved and the toll it takes on her personal social life. Excerpts…

What do you do?
I am a social worker and I live in The Bronx, New York City. My job entails helping parents meet the needs of children with respect to their education. I have to ensure that parents send their children to school by making them understand the underlying reasons why they should do so. It is not getting up in the morning and telling the child to go to school. If a child under 18 fails to go to school, the parents are held accountable. For such children too, the parents are expected to meet their basic needs that include food, clothing, shelter and of course educational needs.
Please paint a picture of life as social worker.
It is now challenging to be a social worker because of new legislation. No matter how well you do your job, if something happens to a child under your watch, you the social worker could go to jail. Let me give an example: let’s assume that you have a case and you visited the family without seeing the parents, you would not be able to prove that the children are not being properly cared for; you could close the case with the hope that somebody else would call and file a report against the family if anything wrong happens.
But with the new law, once a social worker has become involved with a particular case and something drastic happened to a child in that home, for instance, if the child died, the social worker would go to jail for not being alert to recognize the early warning signs of abuse, maltreatment or poor care. That would mean that you didn’t do your job well. When it comes to handling issues concerning other people’s children, you just have to be on your toes all the time. This new law even makes you more cautious in the way you treat your own children too because you want to make sure they are not lacking anything you ought to have provided to them.