Strengthening the social service workforce to protect children
Prevention and elimination of the social and economic vulnerabilities of children and their families
More than 25,000 children with disabilities are in different forms of residential care. More than half of children experience violent discipline at home. Many children are left behind by parents migrating abroad for labour.
A strong social service workforce promotes children’s physical and psychological well-being by connecting them and their families with critical social services – like health care, education and social protection – and by challenging harmful norms that violate a child’s rights. However, this social service workforce is still in a nascent stage.
We have supported the development of social work since 2005, with a focus on strengthening child protection and family welfare. Our advocacy has resulted in the development of a draft Law on Social Work in early 2022.
We introduced case management as a minimum standard for social service delivery and capacity building for more than 1,000 child protection and social protection professionals.
One of the key milestones in our work has been the opening of a social work department at the National University of Uzbekistan in 2017. Currently, we are assisting the National Agency for Social Protection in developing social work competencies in community social workers, district and regional personnel.
A specific focus of capacity-building has centered on ensuring the provision of community-based gender-sensitive and age-appropriate reintegration assistance to more than 400 women and children repatriated from conflict zones in Iraq and Syria. This assistance included in-depth needs assessments, psychosocial support and legal information and assistance to obtain key documents, and referral to essential social services, including housing, health care, and education.
In Uzbekistan, we work closely with the Government, in particular the National Agency for Social Protection, academia, and non-governmental institutions to develop and support the social service workforce, with a key focus on social workers and psychologists.
We assist in improving policy, legislation, regulatory frameworks and promoting greater investments in human resources to strengthen the workforce. This includes:
- help train social service workers focusing on recruiting, training and retraining workers;
- investing in quality management;
- and promoting career development.