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 effective child protection system is to establish a network of social work schools throughout 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 organizations (INGOs). To identify the knowledge, values and skills needed for the local context, 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 social work, a two-year diploma in social work and a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) degree. 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.