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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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.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work, 1st Edition

Edited by Stephen A. Webb, 2019

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work brings together the world’s leading scholars in the field to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the subject.

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An exploration of social worker relationships, roles and the wellbeing of children in long-term care

Cartwright, Mim - University of Bristol, 2019

This study explores the social work role with children in long-term care, focusing on how relationships between children and social workers can support wellbeing.

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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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“We're giving you the sack” - Social Workers’ Perspectives of Intervening in Affluent Families When There are Concerns about Child Neglect

Claudia Bernard - The British Journal of Social Work, 01 Nov 2018

Using the findings from a qualitative study, this paper explores social workers’ experiences of intervening in affluent families in the UK when there are child protection concerns.

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