Resources Database

This document is intended to explore strategies to protect orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) who were made so by HIV from abuse, exploitation, violence, and neglect. It draws from lessons learned by OVC program managers, designers, and policy developers—particularly those associated with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEFPAR).

Developed in coordination with seven U.S. Government departments and agencies — the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor, and State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Peace Corps— the goal of the U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity is to achieve a world in which all children grow up within protective family care and free from deprivation, exploitation, and danger.

This synthesis discussion paper is part of a study commissioned by UNICEF to document the evolution of national responses for children affected by HIV and AIDS (CABA) and the lessons learned in addressing the challenges to scaling up services for them.

This document, a draft awaiting publication, provides an overview of the social service workforce (SSW) in Africa.  The first section describes the need for a strong SSW, defines the workforce broadly, and describes the functions that it provides. The next section examines the current status of the workforce, including stock and distribution. It also includes performance data (to the extent it exists) and provides examples of workforce-strengthening initiatives underway to strengthen certain cadres in select countries.

Save the Children Federation Inc was recently awarded a five-year Zambia Orphans and Vulnerable Children System Strengthening (ZOVSS) Project funded by USAID through PEPFAR.

Oxford Policy Management and Jimat Development Consultants were engaged by the Ministry of Labour and Social Services (MoLSS) to carry out a Capacity and Institutional Assessment of the Ministry’s Department of Social Services (DSS). The purpose of the assignment is to assess the Department’s human resources and institutional capacity, identify gaps in its ability to carry out its statutory mandate of child care and protection, and draft recommendations for action.

This UNICEF paper is designed to pinpoint the main activities and tasks that should be undertaken by social work professionals within the overall juvenile justice framework. To do so, the paper first briefly reviews experience of social work in the Central and Eastern European/Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) region since it is against this background that the realization of the potential of social work in conjunction with the justice system will have to be set.

This document presents results from an assessment that was conducted in 2013 to better understand the current status of the public sector social service workforce in Ethiopia.  The assessment process entailed gathering basic information from six selected regions, documenting common social services being provided, estimating level of social work professional skills and knowledge in public sector workers, determining the social service sector’s capacity to respond to stated social protection needs, and suggesting ways to address workforce gaps.

This report outlines the global context that ESAR is operating in with respect to child protection, highlights the programming that has been undertaken to date on child protection systems, outlines lessons learned from the support being provided by Maestral International to map and assess child protection systems in ESAR, and proposes the way forward for the region (that should inform global efforts on systems that are occurring outside of ESAR as well).

This report is on the mapping and assessment of the child protection system that was undertaken by the Government of Malawi. UNICEF and the other United Nations agencies are committed to supporting the Government of Malawi in achieving its goals stated in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II (2012-16) of operationalizing the national child protection system to protect children from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. This report constitutes the foundations upon which the Malawi child protection system will be strengthened.

The objective of this child protection systems mapping and analysis is to provide stakeholders with a descriptive profile of their existing system, and an initial assessment of its contextual appropriateness and relevance to the populations being served. The study aims to present the evidence base required to build a common understanding among national stakeholders of the components and nature of their child protection system and to identify opportunities and challenges for systems strengthening.

This document reports on how the social development approach is being used by individual schools of social work in southern and east Africa. This research project aimed to contribute to knowledge development in this field through primary empirical research. This document reports on the objectives of the project, the conceptual and theoretical framework, the methodology, the results of the study, and conclusions drawn by the researchers.

The purpose of the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) is to build the capacity of the nation’s child welfare workforce and improve outcomes for children and families. The NCWWI focuses on activities that support the development of child welfare leaders in public, private, and tribal child welfare systems. The NCWWI recognizes that child welfare leaders are change agents, and must possess certain competencies in order to do their jobs effectively and lead child welfare agencies into the future.

The purpose of this tool kit is to enable emerging child welfare leaders to learn how to liveleadership through multiple activities that link to the child welfare leadership competencies detailed in the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute’s (NCWWI) Leadership Competency Model.

The Leadership Academy for Middle Managers (LAMM) seeks to develop leadership skills for sustainable systems change to improve outcomes for children, youth, and families. Funded by the Children’s Bureau and part of the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), the LAMM facilitates leadership development of child welfare middle managers across the country who work in public and tribal child welfare systems and in private agencies that provide services traditionally provided by state child welfare agencies.

The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), through a cooperative agreement with the Children’s Bureau, developed a series of programs that supports the development of child welfare leaders with the goal of building the capacity of the nation’s child welfare workforce to promote positive change and improve outcomes for children, youth, and families. The Leadership Academy for Middle Managers (LAMM) is one of those programs.

This document provides coordinators, stakeholders and implementers with a process, methodology, and tools for assessing government human resource capacity to lead and manage an effective implementation of the NPA.

This manual, Supervising Child Protective Services Caseworkers, provides the foundation for effective supervisory practice in child protective services (CPS). It describes the roles and responsibilities of the CPS supervisor, and it provides practice-oriented advice on how to carry out supervisory responsibilities effectively. Best practices and critical issues in supervisory practice are underscored throughout.

The purpose of this training and series of workbooks is to increase child and family service agencies’ effectiveness in developing and retaining their staff by applying information from research and best retention practices to their work. The foundation for this material is the important mission of child and family service to provide safety, permanence and well being for children, within a context of family-centered practice.