PSYCHOLOGIST Norma Brown Aarons believes her work at Arnett Gardens is bearing fruit just two months into her tenure.

Brown Aarons had just conducted another session with some members of the team as they prepare for the crucial encounter against Club Atletico Pantoja today.

“I am very pleased and the authorities at Arnett Gardens have seen the improvement since my involvement with the team,” she noted.

“My role is the psychologist. I have started two months now, and since I have started it has shown how progessive and how important it is to the players on the field and off the field, individually and as a group,” she added.

“They have expressed themselves and like normal people they have their challenges. Once there is someone to listen to them, to motivate them, boost their self-esteem, you will get results which are showing,” said Brown Aarons.

Brown Aarons, a former Miss Jamaica contestant in 1968, grew up in Jones Town, Kingston, before migrating to Canada, then the United States of America.

She dabbled in nursing, bookkeeping, then worked as a secretary before qualifying as a psychologist and social worker at the then Audrey Cohen School for Human Services and Education at the Metropolitan College of New York.

Subsequently she worked with Air Jamaica, then became a social worker in New York City, before joining the US Army then later becoming a federal officer.

Now a lay magistrate, Brown Aarons sits on the bench every Wednesday at the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court, a job she says she enjoys because of the counselling aspect involved.

With that wealth of experience, she knows what it takes to get the best out of people and was asked to assist at Arnett Gardens, which she gladly accepted.

She could not contain her happiness after watching Michealos Martin notch three goals in Arnett’s 8-4 win over SV Notch of Suriname.

“He has been with the team for a while through different seasons and he wasn’t shining, and since I have been here I listen to him, motivate him, speak to him about his self-esteem, he has improved and [is] excelling beautifully,” said a doting Brown Aarons.

“In the beginning they were a little withdrawn. My first individual session with them, they were kind of hesitant, but the second session they accepted it because of what I have said to them and my own empathy with them as a person, and shared some personal experiences with them that they could realise within themselves that they are not the only one with issues,” she revealed.

“These players have to first accept themselves as champions and go out there with the mindset to win. It will benefit not only their clubs and communities, but the country. It’s also something that they can take with them throughout life,” said Brown Aarons.

— Howard Walker