Topics

Social Services

The social service workforce includes a wide range of workers, from government-employed social workers to trained community case workers, who play a key role in connecting vulnerable children and families to services—including health services—and work hand in hand with health workers to achieve a world in which everyone, everywhere, has the health care they need to thrive.

Our experience in strengthening the social service workforce includes improving leadership, planning, and development at national, district and provincial levels, disseminating national norms and standards for child protection, workforce development and other social welfare-related interventions, and supporting implementation of workforce information systems.

Our key approaches include:

  • Applying a systems-strengthening lens to assessment, intervention design and implementation
  • Building capacity at all levels to better manage and train social service workers and improve service delivery to vulnerable children and families
  • Generating evidence for effective orphans and vulnerable children and at-risk youth programming through research, evaluation, and sharing of promising practices
  • Empowering leaders in government, training institutions, professional associations, and social service workers through technology and tools for continuing education and decision making

Selected Achievements

In South Sudan, played a key technical and on-the-ground leadership role in HIV-sensitive case management and SSW strengthening under the 4Children project
Provided technical assistance for the qualitative portion of a National OVC Situational Analysis alongside the Government of Botswana and USAID under the CRS-led 4Children project
Provided critical support to the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance —a platform for information exchange, development of tools and resources, and advocacy—as its host and fiscal sponsor under the global CapacityPlus project
Helped to refine a framework for planning, developing, and supporting SSW, now being used by global and national partners
Led the Tanzania Human Resource Capacity Project and trained and advocated for a new cadre of community workers, para-social workers (PSW), to engage most vulnerable children (MVC) and connect them with health and social services