The Social Welfare Workforce Strengthening Conference: Investing in Those Who Care for Children, held in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010, is often recognized as the launch of a global movement to strengthen the social service workforce and to develop stronger, more effective social service systems. The conference, supported by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), brought together 18 country teams drawn from government, non-governmental organizations, professional associations and higher education institutions to share experiences of the challenges facing the social service workforce and to develop concrete action plans to address them at a national, regional and global level.
Officially launched in 2013, the idea for the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance was conceived at the conference to develop and share knowledge and facilitate ongoing support and dialogue for partners and institutions engaged in wider workforce strengthening, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The Alliance’s Social Service Workforce Strengthening Framework was developed and adopted at the conference to provide a multi-faceted range of strategies to enhance the planning, development and support of the social service workforce.
To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Alliance, this year’s State of the Social Service Workforce Report examines the evolution of social service workforce strengthening, since the 2010 conference, in the light of the three core pillars of the Social Service Workforce Strengthening Framework: planning, developing and supporting. It identifies significant progress and accomplishments that have been made to strengthen the social service workforce at the global level as well as in three specific countries: Romania, Uganda and Viet Nam. Based on evidence reviewed, the report then identifies remaining and emerging challenges in relation to strengthening the workforce and suggests future initiatives to address them.
