Social Service Workforce Training in the West and Central Africa Region

The focus of this study is to better understand how social workers and related professionals are trained and educated—both formally and informally—to engage in social work practice, especially as it is related to child protection, in the West and Central Africa region. The study defined the social service workforce broadly, including not only professional social workers but paraprofessionals such as NGO and CBO workers who through their daily work attempt to support vulnerable children and families. Research occurred in two phases, an initial phase from November through December 2013 when documents were collated from 13 countries across the region and phone interviews were conducted with relevant individuals. A second phase included field visits to five West African countries in January and February 2014—Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal—during which the research team conducted 42 semistructured interviews and 27 group discussions with 253 individuals.