| 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. |
