Child Frontiers and the Alliance have worked extensively to enhance social service worker capacity at a local and national level.  While social service workers receive a theoretical understanding of why growing up in a family is vital for child wellbeing, a true understanding of life in care or of the experiences and perspectives of vulnerable children, and of their parents or other family members caring for them, is often missing.

 

To bridge this gap, we are undertaking a project funded by the Martin James Foundation  working with local NGOs — Miracle Foundation in India https://miraclefoundationindia.in/ , Child’s i Foundation https://childsifoundation.org/ and the Ugandan Care Leavers Network https://www.uganda-care-leavers.org , and ABTH and PROVIDENS in Brazil.  We will utilise creative and engaging methods to consult with children, caregivers, and care leavers about their experiences with social service workers. The views and feedback gathered will be used to design tools to train social services workers, as well as advocacy tools to raise awareness of the crucial role that social service workers play in supporting governments to reform care systems.

 

A critical aspect of this project is the direct involvement of care leavers as facilitators and consultants. Their expertise has been invaluable in guiding culturally appropriate methodologies and establishing trust with participants. Our approach prioritizes creating a comfortable, trust-based environment for participants. We ensure participants understand how the findings will be used anonymously. Careful consideration is given to research venues, room layouts, and facilitation techniques to ensure all voices are heard. Participants are encouraged to describe their experiences of social service workers who have made positive contributions to their lives, as well as when social workers should have been there to offer support but were not. Participants also reflect on the characteristics of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ social workers.

 

As part of this project, we developed and field tested a toolkit of interactive exercises to stimulate meaningful discussions, including:

 

1. "Helping Hands": Participants draw their hand and list people who have helped them on each finger, sparking conversations about social service workers' roles.

 

2. Scenario Exercise: We present a story about a child in residential care, adapting details to each country context. Participants discuss the role of social service workers to provide help at different stages.

 

3. "Bodymap" or "Good Social Service Worker/Bad Social Service Worker": These visual exercises encourage participants to identify characteristics of effective and ineffective social workers

​

​

​

​​

​

​

​

​

​

At the end of each session, we film brief interviews with willing participants, ensuring faces are blurred for anonymity. This approach, introduced after building rapport, has yielded powerful insights into what makes a good social service worker, including:

 

"They should not think for us... be good listeners, give advice, but not make decisions for us..."

 

"Be realistic and transparent. If they don't know, say they are not sure rather than make empty promises."

 

"Instead of meeting orphanage heads, give us private one-on-one time with the social worker."

 

"Be available, accessible, and willing to listen."

 

Insights gathered through this project will inform the development of training tools for social service workers, ensuring future training is grounded in the real experiences and needs of those they serve.

 

This Alliance-commissioned project underscores a vital lesson: to strengthen social services effectively, we must partner with those who have firsthand experience of the care system. Their voices and expertise are essential in shifting policies and workforce practices away from a reliance on residential care and towards family and community-based solutions.