Resources Database

An overview of global standards, current status of social work, legislation and policies that exist, financial needs and a declaration for next steps.

This paper reviews some of the challenges we can expect to face in the near future from conflict, extreme weather events, poverty and population growth and suggests that humanitarian response alone will be unable to sufficiently meet those challenges. It looks at the history of the "nexus" concept and presents ways in which this approach can strengthen and transform humanitarian child protection. 

Response and support services including services by social service workers for counseling, foster care and child protection, are among the main success factors in preventing and addressing all forms of violence against children, including sexual abuse, as this review shows.

The health and well-being of social workers are attracting attention from researchers, organisations and the profession itself. Mindfulness intervention studies across a multitude of groups have yielded positive effects, including the alleviation of mental health difficulties for numerous populations. However, the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions with social workers is yet to be determined.

Building child protection systems is a priority sub-theme in the Global Results Framework (GRF). This guidance has been produced by the Child Protection Systems Task Group and works to GRF indicators for this sub-theme. The guidance presents conceptual and practical guidance for strengthening national and sub-national child protection systems. This guidance is intended for Save the Children staff as well as partners working across development and humanitarian sectors, to understand and determine their role(s) in strengthening the child protection system in their context.

The findings in this report suggest that both coaching and mentoring have positive implications for social workers and the organisations within which they work. More research is needed to identify which models of coaching and mentoring are associated with the best outcomes for social workers, social work organisations and service users.

This evaluation explores the effectiveness of UNICEF Cambodia's reintegration and prevention programming, including efforts to reintegrate children from institutional care and into family-based care.

Safe Spaces for children, including Child Friendly Spaces (CFS), are interventions used by humanitarian agencies to increase children’s access to safe environments and promote their psychosocial well-being. Some Safe Spaces may focus on informal education or other needs related to children. However, all try to provide a child-centered place where children can come together to play, relax, express themselves, feel supported, and learn skills to deal with the challenges they face.

This article provides a children’s rights-based approach for social workers who are directly involved in social work with migrant children. Even though the scope of analysis was directed to the experience of Venezuelan migrant children, this research can serve as an important source to guide social workers involved with child migrants in different social and geographical backgrounds.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to better understand the factors and motivations that enabled the transition and retention of health workers, and these findings can be applied to social service workers and other allied workforces.

Through two projects designed by SOS Children's Villages, findings show that care leavers experience a range of emotions when leaving their place of care: a mix of happiness and expectations of freedom and independence along with feelings of loneliness, anxiety and, sometimes, fear. Care leavers have concerns about their protection, inadequate levels of support, the unsatisfactory manner in which support is offered, lack of access to services, and insufficient participation in decision-making.

This report is a compilation of assessments on best practices in family strengthening in middle-income countries in order to provide policy-makers, service providing organizations and child protection and child rights practitioners with a tool for program implementation.

One of UNHCR’s key priorities is to protect and promote the rights of all children falling under its mandate. In order to achieve this, UNHCR and its partners must support the strengthening or establishment of comprehensive child protection systems. A best interests determination (BID) describes the formal process, with strict safeguards, that UNHCR has established for decision-making.

UNHCR has updated its Guidelines on Assessing and Determining the Best Interests of the Child (Best Interests Procedure (BIP) Guidelines). The BIP Guidelines combine a conceptual framework of the best interests of the child with field-driven, operational guidance to provide one consolidated, practical frame of reference for staff and partners in the field. They are based on extensive consultation with UNHCR and partners, and replace the 2008 Guidelines on Determining the Best Interests of the Child and the accompanying Field Handbook. 

High quality supervision is one of the most important drivers in ensuring positive outcomes for people who use social are and children’s services. It also has a crucial role to play in the development, retention and motivation of the workforce. We also know that managers want us to do more to develop their contribution to delivering the very best services.

This resource provides a list of common Community Based Child Protection (CBCP) related terms and their definitions and is intended to show the evolving definitions around CBCP.

Learn from case studies from six organizations serving orphans and vulnerable children that transitioned their programs to family-based care.

As the field of violence prevention and response continues to grow, the long-term, multi-sectoral coordination model piloted in Tanzania is often cited as a model for impact, capacity-building, ownership and momentum.

Humanitarian crises present major threats to the wellbeing of children. These threats include risks of violence, abduction and abuse, emotional distress and the disruption of development. Humanitarian response efforts frequently address these threats through psychosocial programming. Systematic reviews have demonstrated the weak evidence-base regarding the impact of such interventions. This analysis assesses the impact of Child Friendly Spaces (CFS), one such commonly implemented intervention after humanitarian emergencies.