In 2015, the Better Care Network (BCN) and the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Alliance’) collaborated on a working paper entitled, The Role of Social Service Workforce Development in Care Reform, which looked at the implications of care reform on developing, strengthening and supporting the social service workforce and featured the latest developments, at the time, from three countries: Moldova, Rwanda and Indonesia. Reform progress has happened in those countries and many others since 2015. Following the development and release of the 2019 UNGA Resolution, the Alliance and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) began co-chairing a collaborative global Task Force under the Transforming Children’s Care Global Collaborative on the role of the social service workforce in children’s care and care reform. This diverse group, which 48 members of the Global Collaborative volunteered to join, co-developed a Thematic Brief targeted at policy makers in governments across the world (see Annex 6). The Thematic Brief focused on social service workforce policy and practice recommendations towards implementing the resolution. The level of interest in the topic and the country experiences and illustrative examples that came through in conversations were an impetus for making this the focus of the 2024 State of the Social Service Workforce Report, to enable a deeper dive into the issues highlighted and provide a global review of the care reform progress since the 2015 paper.
Purpose
This report aims to explore and highlight:
- the crucial role that the social service workforce plays in strengthening families, preventing separation, provision of alternative care, placement decision making and reforming care systems;
- how workforce strengthening is being considered within alternative care policy and legislation and care reform strategies (and more directly in transition away from residential care models), development of new community services, and child protection and care data and evidence; and
- conclusions and implications for planning, developing and supporting the social service workforce in their role to ensure family care for all children.
By featuring brief and illustrative country examples and profiles of social service workers, the report aims to bring to life how a well-planned, developed and supported social service workforce is integral to care reform efforts and protecting children without adequate parental care and strengthening families to provide safe and nurturing care.
With an eye to a broad audience of donors to family strengthening, alternative care and care reform, larger international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), UN agencies, civil society organizations (CSOs), social service workers and service providers, this report outlines the implications and suggestions for planning, developing and supporting the social service workforce concerned with family care for children based on the Alliance’s Social Service Workforce Strengthening Framework (Figure 1).