Child Protection & Social Welfare

In many countries around the world, the early childhood workforce often experiences poor recognition for their work which translates to lower wages and qualifications, fewer opportunities for career development and inadequate professional development, in comparison with other professionals working to support older children and adults.

Recently, the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative conducted key informant interviews in 15 countries to understand country priorities and challenges, as well as promising approaches to supporting the early childhood workforce. The recruitment and retention of staff and volunteers as well as working conditions were among the major challenges surfaced in those conversations.

The webinar will address the following questions pertaining to the theme:

• What working conditions do members of the early childhood workforce face?
• To what extent are challenging working conditions a barrier in recruiting and retaining the early childhood workforce?
• To what extent do working conditions influence the quality of service delivery?
• What efforts have been taken in different countries to improve the working conditions of various categories of early childhood workers?

- How do countries design and implement such efforts in the face of resource constraints?

- What factors can support the introduction of policies to improve working conditions?

- What challenges are encountered in introducing these policies?

This discussion aims to cover different country contexts, and will refer to various categories of professionals and paraprofessionals from different sectors.

This webinar is intended for policymakers and program implementers interested in learning more about the working conditions that members of the early childhood workforce face as well as approaches that have been used to improve them.

Access the recording via the YouTube link below. You may also resources from the webinar, such as reccomended readings from the panel and the webinar slides, here.

Call to Action on the Social Service Workforce Strengthening in the Europe and Central Asia Region, developed by Oxford Policy Management and UNICEF Europe and Central Asia, seeks to ensure that functions, competencies and qualifications across the social service workforce are aligned so there will no longer be unqualified professionals in roles requiring professional competencies and there will be a range of personnel deployed across a range of services with the right qualifications for the competencies and responsibilities of their position.

The governments of the region are called upon to act upon the following:

1. Agreeing to a common set of definitions of the social service and allied workforces in the ECA region
2. Effective long-term planning of the social service workforce and aligning functions, processes, competencies and qualifications
3. Developing the competencies of the social service workforce
4. Supporting the social service workforce

The Global Advocacy Toolkit for the Social Service Workforce from the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance focuses on creating a common narrative to advocate for social service workers. The toolkit was developed through a series of interviews with experts in the field, as well as through desk research.

This toolkit includes four sections:

• The importance of strengthening the social service workforce
• Advocacy – What works when talking to policy and decision-makers?
• Global and regional opportunities
• How do I create a context-specific advocacy outreach plan?

Developed with insight from global experts, the toolkit can be considered a resource for outreach in many settings. The Global Advocacy Toolkit was specifically designed to help the workforce in different settings and allow for localization as needed. It provides tools and tips helpful for developing and implementing an advocacy plan, including how to set up objectives, choose the audience, decide and elaborate the main messages, select the advocacy tools, develop a press release, accompanied by useful examples.   

Together, UNICEF ECARO and ISSA have developed a set of Resource Modules for Home Visitors: Supporting Families for Nurturing Care, intended to better equip home visitors with the latest knowledge and tools to support and engage with the families of young children.

Drawing upon the most recent scientific evidence, the modules have been developed through a consultative process involving international and regional experts, national trainers and home visiting professionals. They can be delivered through various training methods and adapted to train other service providers.

These modules empower home visitors to take a strengths-based approach that promotes nurturing relationships between the caregiver and child as well as contributing to risk reduction by supporting and referring families to other services when necessary. 

The modules are accompanied by several supporting tools. They provide ample opportunity for the learner to be actively engaged in reflection and deliver guidance on the knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices required for home visitors in their “new and enriched role”. These tools can support home visitors to work in partnership with families, to support parents and caregivers, and empower them to provide the best possible environment for their young children.

The Vision for Specialised Child Protection Services in the Republic of Moldova lays out a common vision on the system of child protection services and includes a variety of specialized services needed in order to form an integrated and coherent system to meet the complex needs of children victims and witnesses of child abuse and neglect.

• This document looks at the core areas within child protection systems:
• policies and standards;
• programmes, services and implementers;
• coordination and oversight;
• resourcing; and
• social norms.

In addition, key monitoring actions are proposed in order to increase the accountability of all those with responsibility for the safety and care of children.

The Child protection workforce strategy 2017-2020 recognizes the difficulties that can be encountered by child protection practitioners and the vital role practitioners play in working with children and families.
In recognition of the fact that a strong workforce must be supported in order to protect children, Victorian Government focused on five major priorities:

• attracting and recruiting the best people;
• building a professional identity for the workforce that recognizes child protection as a valued; profession of the highest integrity and competence;
• growing and developing our people;
• engaging and retaining our people;
• the wellbeing of our workforce – our goal is to ensure immediate and responsive mental health; support and to develop innovative approaches to the health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce.

The three-year strategy aims to deliver these outcomes.

The role of social work in international child protection: best practices in stakeholder cooperation focuses on the intersection of law, policy implementation, and social work in child protection, specifically child protection involving children who are separated by an international border from their families.

In addition to providing an overview of the role of social work in child protection this paper also presents several key strategies for building cooperation and collaboration between social workers and legal and judicial partners.

Authors, Julie Gilbert Rosicky of the University of Oregon and Felicity Sackville Northcott of Johns Hopkins University, offer detailed recommendations for mutually supportive and sustainable international social work and legal cooperation.  

In the United States, cross-sector core competencies for the prenatal through 3-year-old field are currently being broadened to encompass competencies needed for working with children 3-5 years old. The charge of this report was to: 

1. Identify core competencies needed by the P-3 workforce in Los Angeles County;
2. Develop training approaches to support development of these competencies; and
3. Create and field test strategies in selected Los Angeles communities for integrating the core competencies in professional development systems and developing strategies to sustain their use.

This report captures core competencies agreed upon by the workgroup tasked with this report, as well as recommendations regarding the prenatal through three-year-old workforce.

In debates about child care and early education, the voices of providers are often missing. Voices of child care providers: an exploratory study on the impact of policy changes document findings from a study on child care provider perspectives on how regulation and policy changes impact their work.

Researchers used interviews and focus groups with home-based providers and center-based administrators in New York, United States counties. Several themes emerged, including:

• the undervaluation of child care providers;
• challenges faced by providers and the parents of the children they serve;
• regulatory disconnect; and
• discretionary implementation of laws and regulations.

Findings from the study suggest that, excluding input from providers when creating policy, may have unforeseen and even harmful results.

This Core Competency Framework has been developed for all disciplines, professions and staff groups undertaking a clinical role within NHS Scotland. The twin aims of the framework are
(1) to describe the key areas of child protection work that are common and core across all disciplines, professions and staff groups with a clinical role, and (2) to describe the recommended core knowledge and understanding necessary to support these areas of work. Although this framework will be most appropriate for those with an identified role in relation to protecting children, the information it contains will be of interest to anyone who needs to know how to recognise and respond to concerns about children, in the course of their other, more regular duties.