Counselors who volunteer services overseas help youth, families

Jo DiFillipo, PhD, loves to bathe herself in different cultures. She?s spent a year traveling in Italy, and another year teaching English in China. And now DiFillipo is diving into yet another civilization. In late November, the South Carolina psychologist will begin a two-year Peace Corps stint in Lesotho, Africa, where she?ll train teachers to instruct children with special learning needs and set up programs for those youth.

'Now that I?m retired, I really didn?t want to just settle down, to stay put,' DiFillipo says. 'To give two years of my life to a good cause is worth it.'

DiFillipo is among several mental health professionals and students who have decided to take their altruism beyond U.S. soil and into the Third World. They?re joining the Peace Corps and other international humanitarian groups to help spread their psychological knowledge into volatile or impoverished cultures.

The Peace Corps is especially ideal for retirees and recent graduates, who don?t have career commitments and can devote two years to work overseas, says Felisa Neuringer of the Peace Corps recruiting office in Washington, D.C.

Ethan Cooper, a Virginia resident with a bachelor?s degree in psychology and a master?s degree in school counseling, is traveling as a Peace Corps volunteer to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. He expects to be running an urban youth development project. He?ll be helping adolescents lead better lives, stay away from drugs and protect themselves from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Other Peace Corps endeavors that call for volunteers with psychology backgrounds include maternal/child health education, nutrition programs and training for teachers in Third World countries.

Humanitarian groups are also being created to accommodate professional volunteers who can?t commit to extended work overseas. A New Rochelle, N.Y., organization called Cross-Cultural Solutions, Inc., for example, arranges for professionals to go to India for three weeks to help local people obtain better health, education and other essential needs.

Margaret Rubin, a New Jersey counselor who works with inner-city youth, signed up for a three-week stint in the program, and in the summer of 1997 traveled to New Delhi. She conducted workshops for local social workers on family-systems therapy, in which treatment focuses on easing an individual?s problems by addressing the entire family?s needs. And she went into some of the poorest communities to conduct assessments of families with children who have disabilities. She focused on helping the entire family become more self-sufficient, by developing their job skills, teaching them how to obtain necessary health services and earning better incomes.

And she was moved by the quality of family and community life in an environment that could easily keep people fighting for scarce resources. Food is sparse. Electricity is rationed. Heated water is almost nonexistent. Diseases such as polio?virtually eradicated in the Western world?remain a real threat. But commitment to family is strong.

Rubin was so moved by her experience that she has joined the staff of Cross-Cultural Solutions on a part-time basis, helping to promote the program to other professionals. She?s helping the organization expand its program into Ghana, and she?d like to eventually see the program operate domestically, particularly in Native American communities.

For more information, contact the Peace Corps Recruitment Office, 1400 Wilson Blvd., Suite 400, Arlington, VA 22209, (703) 235-9191, fax: (703) 235-9189, World Wide Web site: www.peacecorps.gov., or Cross-Cultural Solutions Inc., 47 Potter Ave., New Rochelle, NY, 10801, (800) 380-4777, fax: (914) 632-8494, e-mail; web site: www.crosscultural solutions.org.

?Scott Sleek