Webinar Fosters Knowledge-Sharing to Strengthen the Social Services Workforce
More than 75 participants from 15 countries participated in a webinar on July 14 to explore how lessons learned from the global effort to strengthen human resources for health (HRH) can benefit social services workforce development.
The social services workforce includes a variety of governmental and nongovernmental workers who provide services such as care for orphans and vulnerable children, child protection to address abuse and neglect, and family support in the context of HIV/AIDS and other challenging circumstances.
The first in a planned series, the webinar represented collaboration among CapacityPlus, USAID, other US government agencies, the Integrated Family Health Program (Ethiopia), and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Ad Hoc Working Group. CapacityPlus’s Jim McCaffery discussed progress, challenges, and lessons learned from HRH strengthening during one of four presentations, and participants contributed questions via instant messaging.
The idea for the webinar stemmed from the Social Welfare Workforce Strengthening Conference held in Cape Town, South Africa, last November. Conference participants expressed a high degree of interest in harvesting appropriate lessons from workforce strengthening initiatives in the health sector. While there are differences between the health and social services workforces, there are also important similarities. This creates the opportunity for those involved in social services workforce strengthening to save time and money by selectively taking advantage of what has already been learned and developed and leveraging HRH strategies, tools, and resources for the social services context.
This webinar focused on questions like the following:
- How do we think that social services workforce strengthening could or does fit into the larger health workforce strengthening agenda? Where might it not fit?
- What advocacy initiatives aimed at HRH strengthening might best be adapted and applied to social services workforce strengthening?
- Are there any HRH tools or resources that show particular promise for use or adaptation in the social services strengthening sphere?
- How has the health sector been able to engage other sectors within different country contexts to take health workforce needs and contributions seriously?
The webinar’s instant messaging function proved highly popular, and as the seminar progressed, participants began communicating with each other, answering and commenting on one another’s questions. The instant feedback was quite positive—as a participant from Zambia’s Department of Social Welfare put it: “The webinar was worthwhile and very educative. We hope as a team to learn more from the remaining series.”
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Photo by Trevor Snapp. (Social workers’ office at Esquintla Hospital in Guatemala)
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