Resources Database

UNICEF’s operational framework aims to help develop programmes across the social ecological model and the mental health continuum of prevention, promotion and treatment to improve the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children, adolescents and their caregivers globally. The strategies and approaches included in the framework will help in accelerating actions for children’s, adolescents’ and caregivers’ mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in national and regional development strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed significant pressure on Bangladesh’s social and health systems. Concerned that the pandemic would impact negatively on the health system, the Government of Bangladesh took significant measures to control the spread of COVID-19. These measures included closing all schools and educational institutions, which resulted in over 42 million children without access to education, including children who were already out of school.

Social service workers play a crucial role in helping individuals, families and communities respond to and recover from emergencies. They also help individuals, families and communities build their resilience to withstand future shocks. Yet, they remain largely unrecognized and undervalued. The Global Social Service Workforce Alliance's '2022 State of the Social Service Workforce Report' showcases the important and distinct roles of social service workers across the emergency management cycle and calls for greater recognition of their critical contribution.

The article outlines some drawbacks of research training for social workers in Ukraine. To improve it, one should consider the main characteristics of such training in West European countries, given that they are exemplary in terms of social security. With the help of differential and comparative-typological analysis, the article singles out methodical aspects which social work training in Ukraine lacks and, therefore, suggests relevant recommendations for enhancing research activities of future social workers.

Climate change is a crisis in our midst. This scoping review examines practices to transition away from fossil fuels in the social work literature, to inform social work engagement in climate mitigation and in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 13 (Climate Action).

The readiness of newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) for practice appears to be a growing area of research, however, there is little focus on the professional identities of NQSWs, and a lack of relevant literature on the readiness of NQSWs within a South African context. Global research indicates that NQSWs are being prepared in some skills and competencies, however, that they do lack skills and competencies in other regards.

Child protection is the prevention of, and response to, exploitation, abuse, neglect, harmful practices and violence against children, including adolescents. The UNICEF approach in Goal Area 3 (child protection) is guided by human rights principles, norms and standards that are embedded in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its three Optional Protocols. It seeks to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Over the last few years, Social Work Scotland’s members have been reporting increasing concerns that social work workloads have become unmanageable, and that social workers in local authorities and health and social care partnerships are struggling under the weight of their caseloads. This led them to ask: can our workforce realistically work with people in the way that they’re trained to do, and in line with the aims of Scotland’s legislation and policy? How much work is too much for social workers? Where’s the line?

Putting Children and Young People at the Heart of Care Reform is an introductory manual aimed at practitioners. The manual provides a comprehensive overview of how to meaningfully engage children and young people in care reform. It covers the legal and theoretic framework, the basics in how to engage with children and young people, how to be inclusive and practical ways to engage children and young people in monitoring and evaluation.

Terre des hommes has created guidance on how to keep children safe as a volunteer responding to the Ukraine emergency. Volunteers are strongly encouraged to follow this guidance. It is currently available in English, Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian and Hungarian and can be downloaded below.

An independent review of the needs, experiences and outcomes of the children supported by social care in the United Kingdom. The review launched in March 2021. It prioritised hearing the voices of children, young people and adults that have received the help or support of a social worker, or who have been looked after.

This Learning Report is part of a series of thematic reports documenting the COVID 4P Log survey findings from service providers and policymakers from 22 countries and five continents. The project presented in this report drew upon key findings from the COVID 4P Log project pertaining to children’s 1 participation to engage young people in discussions about the meaning and implications of those findings.

The COVID 4P Log questions and these findings have been analysed and co-authored by a collaborative, intergenerational partnership of adults and young people.

This Learning Report is part of a series of thematic reports documenting the COVID 4P Log survey findings from service providers and policymakers from 22 countries and five continents. The project presented in this report drew upon key findings from the COVID 4P Log project pertaining to children’s 1 participation to engage young people in discussions about the meaning and implications of those findings.

The COVID 4P Log questions and these findings have been analysed and co-authored by a collaborative, intergenerational partnership of adults and young people.

Social workers contributed significantly to the promotion of public and community health during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Based on a quasi-scoping review of articles on social work practice during that outbreak, this reflective article elucidates how social workers contributed in three chronological stages.

Social work practice in a global context requires an understanding of the cross-cultural nature of practice settings in local communities and globally. One step to developing this understanding of the internationalisation of social work education, including the student internship, is to incorporate supervision by local practitioners and educators.

This new ILO-UNICEF report provides a rigorous review of what the latest research says about the power of social protection to combat child labour. Providing families with direct assistance to help them weather crises can help reduce negative coping strategies like child labour and child marriage.

Understanding the needs of your child is complicated. Understanding the varied needs of a population of children with whom you have no direct contact is the near impossible challenge policy makers, government planners and donors face when making policy or selecting interventions to fund and implement. They cannot unpack children’s individual needs and so must predict what is most important for a given population and which services to prioritise.

Financing quality social services will require increased public investment and greater mobilization of both domestic and international resources in the post-COVID era. Currently, low- and middle-income countries invest, on average, just one third of their total government expenditure in social spending on education, health and social protection. However, the fiscal space to enhance social spending remains constrained in many parts of the world. Given the scale of the challenge facing many countries, a renewed focus on financing social spending is needed to address widening inequalities.

Social protection is increasingly being used in Eastern and Southern Africa to address economic and social vulnerability.Many governments in the region are also engaged in care reform to prevent family separation, support families to care for children well and provide quality alternative care.There are many overlaps in the goals, interventions and target groups of care reform and social protection programmes. The same frontline workers are also often engaged in these two streams of work.

This Learning Channel has been developed to highlight those Child Protection courses most closely aligned to different components of UNICEF’s Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030. This list of courses is meant to support the learning and capacity development of our Child Protection workforce, as well as that of our partners.