A Three Day Virtual International Conference in Collaboration with UNCW, USA.

A three day virtual international conference was organised by the Department of Social Work in Collaboration with the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), USA, from the 18th to the 20th of March, 2021. The conference was titled- 'A Virtual Conference on Cross National Perspectives on Social Work in the time of COVID-19'. The conference was held via Zoom. Day 1 began at 5:00 PM, IST. Rev. Fr. Dr. Victor Lobo SJ, the Principal, was the guest of Honour. Dr. Fr. G. Augustine Lourdu, Assistant Professor & PG coordinator, was the convenor of the joint conference, representing the Department of Social Work, SJC.  

The inaugural and keynote address was given by Dr. Charlie Hardy and Dr. Arthur Frankl from UNCW. There were two panels on day 1. The first one was a plenary session where experts from India and the US spoke about the impact of covid 19 on the people as well as on social work as a profession. Panel 2 included paper presentations. Both students and faculty members from both sides presented papers related to the topic. This was followed by breakout rooms. A total of 8 breakout rooms were created to facilitate interaction between the experts and presenters with the participants. Day 2 began at 7:00 AM, IST. It began with poster presentations on the topic followed by paper presentations and discussions in panel 2. There were breakout rooms at the end of the session as well. Day 3 began at 5 PM, IST. There were presenters from both the academic circles as well practitioners in the field for this session. Dr. Alan Godfrey laid out the concluding remarks and the day ended with breakout rooms wherein students asked several insightful questions to the speakers which generated meaningful discussions related to the pandemic and the role of social workers in the current scenario. 

The conference ended at 8:30 PM. There were numerous positive feedbacks by the participants. On the whole, despite the pandemic raging havoc, the conference went on as planned and was a big success.