POCs for Toolkit: ncalvert@usaid.gov
BACKGROUND
To recognize Social Work month in March (with March 19 as the commemorative day), the Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity (APCCA) team would like to highlight the critical role that the social services workforce plays in the protection and care of children and families in communities. To achieve a world in which all children thrive within protective, loving families, free from deprivation, violence, and family separation, we must have effective, well-resourced social service and child-protection systems. And, at the heart of those systems is a strong social service workforce.
The APCCA team is particularly interested in receiving stories about the impact of social work on children around the world, personal profiles of social workers, and other features that help humanize and bring the field to life.
KEY MESSAGES/FACTS
- Every year, World Social Work Day is celebrated across the world on the third Tuesday of March, and events are organized throughout the month of March. The day is an opportunity for social workers and others in the social service sector to celebrate their achievements as well as to raise awareness and support for the important role that social workers play in the lives of children, families and communities facing adversity. The day calls attention to the need for further planning, development and support to the profession and social service sector.
- The next World Social Work Day takes place on March 19, 2024. The theme is “Buen Vivir: Shared Future for Transformative Change,” which emphasizes the need for social workers to adopt innovative, community-led approaches that are grounded in indigenous wisdom and harmonious coexistence with nature.
- For more info and the full description of the Global Agenda Theme 4 by the International Federation of Social Workers, visit https://www.ifsw.org/global-agenda-theme-4-buen-vivir-shared-future-for-transformative-change/.
- The USG Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity Strategy, or APCCA, is the U.S. government’s interagency commitment to investing in the development, care, dignity, and safety of the world’s most vulnerable children and their families.
- APCCA recognizes the integral role of the social service workforce in supporting vulnerable families and ensuring protection and care for children.
- A professional, trained social service workforce plays a central role in supporting children and families in communities by helping them to overcome poverty and social marginalization, by assessing and managing risks, preventing and responding to violence, abuse, neglect, and family separation, and by ensuring children and families receive essential social services.
- The social service workforce helps people at the individual level and they also promote social justice, reduce discrimination, and challenge and change harmful behaviors and social norms.
- Strengthening the social service workforce in health facilities and schools and across humanitarian and development contexts increases the reach, protection, and positive outcomes for children and their families.
DATE: The month of March 2024; March 19, 2024
