Guidelines to Strengthen the Social Service Workforce for Child Protection

The Guidelines to Strengthen the Social Service Workforce for Child Protection 2019 (the Guidelines), developed in consultation with UNICEF Headquarters and regional offices and the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance (GSSWA), are informed by evidence of ‘what works’ and lessons learned in the field. They are designed to accelerate UNICEF regional and country offices’ programming on social service workforce strengthening and support work to better plan, develop and support the social services workforce with national and regional partners. 

The Guidelines outline recommended strategies and interventions to strengthen the social service workforce to strengthen child protection systems by:

• increasing the understanding of the role and function of the social service workforce within the child protection system;
• increasing the understanding of the composition of the workforce and the key actors that constitute the workforce;
• recommending evidence-based strategies and interventions for strengthening the social service workforce in the short, medium and long term;
• highlighting the specific role that UNICEF can play in strengthening the social service workforce at the regional and national levels; and
• strengthening country-level, regional and global monitoring for measuring progress on strengthening the social service workforce, and its impact on child protection prevention and response services.