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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New Directions in Children’s Welfare

Sharon Pinkney, 2018

This book makes a distinctive contribution to reflections on what child-centred practice means in the complex area of child welfare.

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Prepare for Leaving Care Training Manual

SOS Children’s Villages International, 2018

This Training Manual seeks to raise awareness of the content of the Prepare for Leaving Care: Practice Guidance, build knowledge and skills to support young people through the process of leaving care and help trainees to understand and develop some of the tools which are helpful in the leaving care process.

The role of the social worker in adoption – ethics and human rights: An Enquiry

Professor Brid Featherstone, Professor Anna Gupta, Sue Mills - BASW, 2018

This report presents the findings of a UK national Enquiry into the role of the social worker in adoption with a focus on ethics and human rights.

Rwanda Violence Against Children and Youth Survey: Findings from a National Survey, 2015-2016

Rwanda Ministry of Health (MOH), 2018

This report presents findings from the national Violence Against Children Survey (VACS), administered in Rwanda from 2015-2016, and lays out recommendations for addressing and preventing violence against children based on those findings.

Doing Child-Protection Social Work with Parents: What Are the Barriers in Practice?

David Wilkins & Charlotte Whittaker - The British Journal of Social Work, 28 Dec 2017

For many social workers, participatory practice may seem an unachievable goal, particularly in the field of child protection. This paper discusses a significant programme of change in one London local authority, as part of which the authors undertook 110 observations of practice and provided more than eighty follow-up coaching sessions for workers.

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Foster parents exposed to political violence: The role of social support in addressing emotional and functional difficulties

Ohad Gilbar, Rami Benbenishty, Miriam Schiff, Rachel Dekel - Children and Youth Services Review, 24 Dec 2017

The first goal of this study was to describe posttraumatic symptoms (PTS) and problems in functioning among foster parents following their exposure to the war.

Listening to child protection workers in Saudi Arabia: Child protection workers speak of how they experienced the policies and programs introduced to protect children between 2010 and 2013

Nawaf Al Faryan, Margarita Frederico, Janelle Young - International Social Work, 21 Dec 2017

In this article, child protection managers and direct service workers in Saudi Arabia report their experiences in implementing new policies.

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Social Service Systems for Vulnerable Children and Families in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Establishing definitions and key components

Thomas M. Crea, Andrew D. Reynolds, Kelley McCreery Bunkers, Caroline M. Bishop - International Journal of Social Welfare, 21 Dec 2017

This study has reviewed existing literature on the definitions and components of social service systems and provides an analysis of data from key informants in the field of global social welfare.

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Competency Curriculum Intervention: Student Task Self-Efficacy and Attitudes in Child Welfare

Barbara Pierce, Taekyung Park - Advances in Social Work, 17 Dec 2017

This study evaluated a university-agency developed competency-based curriculum and field placement on child welfare for BSW and MSW students.

‘It’s So Complex!’: Understanding the Challenges of Child Protection Work as Experienced by Newly Graduated Professionals

Anne Jansen - The British Journal of Social Work, 07 Dec 2017

The present study is based on life mode interviews with social workers who started their careers in child protection services, focusing on their daily lives as newly graduated professionals.

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