THE ROLE OF SOCIAL WORKERS AND CHALLENGES THEY FACE IN AN INSTITUTIONAL CARE: THE CASE OF SOS CHILDREN’S VILLAGES, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Social Workers play a tremendous role in the lives of vulnerable children and youth in an institutional care. Children’s development, especially the development of children who come from the weak parts of society, will ultimately have a wider effect on the well-being of the entire nation. However, the status of social workers and the profession itself has received little attention and recognition in most parts of the world to this day. Therefore, this research paper aimed at examining the role that social workers play in the specific institutional care, SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia in provision of service to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and the challenges they face within the institution. Further, the research paper hopes to put forth recommendations for the management for addressing those challenges with the aim of creating a positive environment for vulnerable children that allows them to reach their full potential. Methodology employed to conduct the study was qualitative where, in-depth interviews with 5 social workers, 5 SOS mothers and 4 key informants in four selected SOS Children's Villages were conducted. The research findings suggest that social workers play a crucial role within SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia and within the lives of vulnerable children and youth. The various challenges of the social workers and measures that had been taken by the management were carefully analyzed. The challenges can be described as follows: (1) Social workers suffer from heavy workloads, and emotional burden/distress (2) Due to the limited number of staff but high number of beneficiaries, the scope of responsibilities for social worker is in proportionally high. (3) While social workers hope to positively impact children and their healthy development, there are certain constraints in meeting the needs of the children that are beyond the social worker’s control. (4) Social worker’s

in SOS Children’s Villages believe that there is lack of recognition of their work by the management. (5) The SOS mothers and the key informants stressed that there is a huge demand for improving teamwork and collaboration with the different the stakeholders within and outside of the institution. The above mentioned findings and many more have been thoroughly discussed in chapter four.