Social Service Workforce Strengthening

A strong social service workforce is critical to meeting the needs of children without adequate family care. From government policy-makers, local administrators, researchers and social workers, to educators, community workers and care providers, social service actors play a key role in protecting girls and boys and promoting their care.

The development of a skilled and well-supported social service workforce is particularly important as countries move toward reforming their care systems and work to reduce reliance on residential care, strengthen families, prevent separation and promote family and community-based alternative care options. This is a challenging undertaking that requires social service actors from national to community level who are competent and willing to make changes to the way they deliver care, and are able to establish and manage a new range of preventive and responsive care services to children and families.

Strengthening the social service workforce in any country is complex. It involves creating supportive legislation and policies; developing recruitment, selection, employment, supervision, support and registration procedures; establishing education and training programmes; improving working conditions, ensuring licensing and practice standards; recognizing the status of care professionals; and raising awareness to change mindsets on care.

All of this requires working with a wide range of actors involved in supporting children and families. Substantial allocation (or redirection) of financial resources is also required, to ensure that sufficient numbers of skilled social service workers are available to work directly with children and their families at the community level, as well as at a higher administrative level to oversee care services and regulations.

This section contains documentation of social service workforce development within the context of national care reform and child protection system strengthening, including guidance, lessons learned and training tools.

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Health prevention training for foster child care facility personnel

María E. Serra and Rose Mari Soria - Arch Argent Pediatr, 2019

In this article, the experience, difficulties and perspectives of the first health training program for foster child care facilities personnel in Argentina are presented.

Core Elements of Success in OVC Care: Self-Assessment Tool

Christian Alliance for Orphans, 2019

This self-review helps organizational and program leaders evaluate, learn, and report on their organization's overall health, open to any organization working with vulnerable children in international contexts.

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Culturally Responsive Social Work Practice in Uganda: A Review of Selected Innovative and Indigenous Models

Ronald Luwangula, Janestic M. Twikirize, Justus Twesigye and Stanley Kitimbo - Social Work Practice in Africa: Indigenous and Innovative Approaches, 2019

This chapter from Social Work Practice in Africa: Indigenous and Innovative Approaches showcases examples of home-grown indigenous and innovative models of social work practice in Uganda, including local models for addressing the HIV/AIDS orphan crisis in Rakai district.

Social Service Workforce Mapping Toolkit

Global Social Service Workforce Alliance, 2019

The purpose of this toolkit is to guide participatory, national level analyses of the social service workforce.

Ethnic matching: A two-state comparison of child welfare workers' attitudes

David Chenot, Amy D. Benton, Michelle Iglesias, Ioakim Boutakidis - Children and Youth Services Review, 08 Dec 2018

The purpose of this study is to explore child welfare workers' perspectives on ethnic matching in child welfare service delivery.

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The next chapter: a practical guide for individuals, families, communities, social workers, and organizations supporting indigenous youth aging-out of care

Mahikwa, Robert - University of Victoria, 07 Dec 2018

This research utilized Indigenous methodologies rooted in oral traditions, storytelling practices, and the Medicine Wheel teachings to examine how individuals, families, communities, social workers, and organizations can assist Indigenous youth who are aging-out of foster care and are transitioning into adulthood.

Nurturing Strangers: Strategies for Nonviolent Re-parenting of Children in Foster Care

Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon, 03 Dec 2018

Nurturing Strangers focuses on loving nonviolent re-parenting of children in foster care. This book is a jargon-free mix of narrative and real-life case studies, together with the theory and practice of nonviolence.

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Systematic review of staff training in residential childcare; and a grounded theory study of how residential childcare staff make sense of, and use, attachment theory in practice

Ailsa Morison - Edinburgh Research Archive, 30 Nov 2018

This thesis aimed to systematically review literature on the types, measurement and effectiveness of residential staff training, focussed upon psychosocial outcomes.

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Feeling the pressure to take sides: A survey of child protection workers' experiences about responding to allegations of child maltreatment within the context of child custody disputes Author links open overlay panel

Michael Saini, Tara Black, Elisabeth Godbout, Sevil Deljavan - Children and Youth Services Review, 22 Nov 2018

This paper reports on an exploratory cross-sectional online survey of child protection service providers from five child protection agencies that investigates the struggles faced by child protection workers when responding to complaints made by acrimonious ex-partners within the context of child custody disputes.

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Service providers as champions for non-violent childhoods: Service provision for children and parents to achieve an end to corporal punishment

Turid Heiberg, Annabel Egan, and Maria Corbett - Council of Baltic Sea States, 09 Nov 2018

This guidance report reviews the experience of and lessons learned from service provision in social welfare, child protection and childcare, health care, education and law enforcement. It presents methods, tools and service models that have proven effective in preventing and responding to corporal punishment.

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