Social Worker / Probation Officer

What a Social Worker / Probation Officer does daily

• Child protection investigation and assessment — receiving reports of child abuse; neglect; and children at risk; conducting home visits and family assessments; assessing the safety and welfare of the child; deciding whether the child can remain safely in the family home or requires removal to a place of safety; preparing written assessment reports for the Family Court or Magistrates' Court; coordinating with Sri Lanka Police; hospitals; and teachers who are mandated reporters of child abuse; in Sri Lanka the child protection function is among the most demanding and emotionally challenging in social work because the consequences of under-response (leaving a child in a dangerous situation) and over-response (removing a child unnecessarily from their family) are both severe
• Juvenile justice and youth probation — supervising young offenders (persons under 18) who are placed on probation by the Magistrates' Court or Family Court instead of being committed to a remand home or approved school; conducting home visits; school liaison; family support; writing progress reports to Court; advocating for education and rehabilitation programmes; the juvenile justice probation officer is working at the interface between the criminal justice system and the child welfare system — managing the tension between accountability for offending and the best interests of the young person
• Adult probation supervision — supervising adults convicted of offences and placed on probation orders by the Courts; conducting regular home visits and Office supervision meetings; assessing risk of reoffending; monitoring compliance with probation conditions; providing counselling and referral to rehabilitation services; writing breach reports to Court when conditions are violated; the adult probation officer is working in a community-based alternatives to imprisonment model that has been shown internationally to reduce reoffending compared with custodial sentences
• Residential care management — managing or working in DPCC residential care facilities (children's homes; remand homes; approved schools; elder care homes; homes for disabled persons); planning and delivering the daily programme of activities; educational and vocational training; individual casework with residents; preparing residents for discharge and community reintegration; the quality of residential care directly determines the developmental and rehabilitation outcomes for the children and adults who live in these facilities
• Foster care recruitment; training and support — identifying and assessing prospective foster carers; providing training to approved foster families; matching children in care with appropriate foster families; supervising foster placements through regular home visits; supporting foster carers through the challenges of caring for children with difficult histories; in Sri Lanka the foster care system is significantly underdeveloped relative to the institutional care system; building a more robust foster care network is a priority for DPCC
• Family counselling and therapeutic interventions — providing counselling to individuals and families experiencing domestic violence; parenting difficulties; relationship breakdown; mental health issues; substance abuse; grief and loss; the social worker conducting therapeutic counselling must be trained in evidence-based approaches (cognitive behavioural; systemic; trauma-informed) — the qualification and practice standards for counselling within social work vary across the sector in Sri Lanka
• Social welfare benefit assessment and referral — assessing individuals and families for eligibility for Sri Lanka's social protection programmes: Aswasuma (formerly Samurdhi) social assistance; disability benefits; elderly allowance; the Suraksha insurance scheme; connecting clients with entitlements they are not accessing; advocating with benefit agencies on behalf of clients; the welfare rights function of social work ensures that those entitled to state support actually receive it
• Court reports and expert assessments — preparing Social Inquiry Reports (SIRs) for Courts considering whether to impose a probation order; Welfare Reports for Family Court in custody and care proceedings; Adoption Home Study Reports for children who are candidates for domestic adoption; these court reports must be factually accurate; professionally objective; and analytically sound because they directly influence judicial decisions that determine the futures of children and families
• Community development and social empowerment — working with communities (village-level; Grama Niladhari division level) to address social problems collectively: community-based child protection committees; village elder welfare programmes; disability awareness; women's empowerment groups; the community development dimension of social work builds the local capacity to address social problems without requiring professional social worker intervention for every case
• Disaster relief and emergency social welfare — Sri Lanka's recurrent floods; landslides; and other disasters create acute welfare crises requiring social work response: identifying families who have lost everything; connecting them with emergency relief; supporting children who have been separated from families; managing the psychosocial impact of disaster on affected communities; the DPCC social workers at district level are first responders for the social welfare dimension of national disasters