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Developing the Child Protection Workforce: Collaborative Development of Somalia’s Certificate, Diploma and Bachelor Degrees in Social Work

Abstract

Due to decades of conflict and instability, mechanisms for child protection in Somalia are limited. One key activity of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’s (UNICEF) strategy to address structural gaps in capacity to implement an effec- tive child protection system is to establish a network of social work schools through- out Somalia. To this end, UNICEF brought together experts in social work curriculum development in Islamic countries, social work faculty and administrators from six Somali universities, government social work staff and ministers, and staff from non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and international non-governmental organiza- tions (INGOs). To identify the knowledge, values and skills needed for the local con- text, interviews and focus groups were conducted in Hargeisa and Mogadishu with many of the stakeholders noted above. These stakeholders also came together for two, four-day gatherings to design and approve the curricula developed by two social work curriculum development experts. The final result was a one-year certificate in so- cial work, a two-year diploma in social work and a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) de- gree. This article describes the highly participatory and collaborative process used to create social work curricula that would meet workforce development needs for child protection in Somalia.

Keywords

Child protection Islam workforce development social work education Somalia

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