CapacityPlus Contributes to Social Welfare Workforce Conference in South Africa

CapacityPlus’s James McCaffery played an active role in the Social Welfare Workforce Strengthening Conference, held on November 15-18 in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference’s theme was “Investing in those who care for children.”

McCaffery helped to finalize the social welfare workforce strengthening framework and to lead a plenary session in which it was presented. Later he facilitated a side session to solicit participant feedback that will lead to qualitative improvements to the framework. He also led a skills lab on the workforce development aspect of the framework, and served as liaison for the Zimbabwe country team throughout the conference, helping to develop an action plan.

“It was an extremely useful conference, the first of its kind,” McCaffery noted, “and there was much energy from the 150 or so participants, including 18 country teams. While the country teams varied in size and make-up, they were generally quite diverse and this was a real strength, with some combination of government, nongovernmental organizations, UNICEF, and US Government participation.”

In addition, McCaffery met with teams from countries that have expressed interest in working with CapacityPlus in the area of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and social welfare workforce strengthening.

Photo by Trevor Snapp. (Social workers' office at Esquintla Hospital in Guatemala)