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Family support worker skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.,

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical family support worker skills. We ranked the top skills for family support workers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 19.6% of family support worker resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a family support worker needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 family support worker skills for your resume and career

2. Foster Care

Here's how family support workers use foster care:

Developed and implemented individualized service plans involving the application of casework methods in Foster Care and Adoptions.
Monitored foster care homes and developed a professional relationship with children and families to assist in reintegration.

3. Family Support

Family support refers to assistance provided or offered to a family with a child, adult, or elderly person living in their home with a disability. However, family support may also be offered to families experiencing domestic issues, such as abusive parents or poor living conditions. Individual family support plans may be developed in order to help a family better understand how to reach a healthy family status.

Here's how family support workers use family support:

Organized family support through home visits and developed family partnership agreements to assist each family in accomplishing their goals.
Maintained database of documentation including home visitation records, immunizations and growth records, and individual family support plans.

4. Community Resources

Community resources are a set of resources that are used in the day to day life of people which improves their lifestyle in some way. People, sites or houses, and population assistance can come under the services offered by community resources.

Here's how family support workers use community resources:

Identified community resources that assist families and build working relationship with these agencies/organizations and other formal and informal providers of support.
Coordinate case management with community resources including but not limited to Department of Children and Families and Department of Developmental Disabilities.

5. Family Services

Family services often refers to a division of family support that helps a family better understand how to be successful. This may include recommendations for self-care, such as physical or emotional health, or other financial support systems for families in poorer households, which may include a welfare plan or other form of government assistance.

Here's how family support workers use family services:

Worked in collaboration with all staff and treatment team members* Received monthly clinical supervision from Family Services Clinical Supervisor.
Developed and implemented an Individual Family Service Plan to help guide families toward self-sufficiency and goal accomplishments.

6. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how family support workers use mental health:

Managed a Residential Placement Caseload including discharge planning of children and adolescents from psychiatric hospitals and other mental health facilities.
Coordinate, monitor and ensure mental health service delivery in order to enhance educational performance.

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7. Crisis Intervention

Here's how family support workers use crisis intervention:

Assisted families with newborns to age 5 with crisis intervention and established trusting relationships preventing child abuse using non-judgmental nurturing interventions.
Performed home visits and crisis interventions, conducted protective capacity assessments, established safety plans, and initiated court interventions.

8. Support Services

Support services are services that support the organization internally and are usually non-revenue generating. Examples include, IT, admin, HR, etc.

Here's how family support workers use support services:

Provided coordinated services to include education, supervised visitation, resource referral and support services to parents and children.
Provided in-home and community based support services for nine mentally ill children/adolescents and their families.

9. Behavior Management

Here's how family support workers use behavior management:

Provided case management, supportive counseling, behavior management and parenting skills to clients through in-home family preservation services.
Facilitated family education including parenting skills, independent living skills, and anger, household and behavior management.

10. Protective Services

Protective services are services offered to vulnerable individuals or legal representatives to protect them against potential abuse, violence, or negligence. Protective services are offered to ensure that an individual's safety stays intact and they don't fall victim to crime or exploitation. Such services include, social casework, stated appointed witness protection, home care, legal assistance, day-care etc.

Here's how family support workers use protective services:

Developed and implemented individualized service plans involving the applications of casework methods and basic service level caseloads of Child Protective Services.
Conduct support and follow up activities related to Child Protective Services Investigations, Permanency and/or In-Home Case Management activities.

11. Child Development

Here's how family support workers use child development:

Conducted intensive in-home educational programs, teaching families positive parenting, early child development, and crisis invention.
Performed in-home visitation services to expectant and new parents including parenting skills training and child development education.

12. Child Protective

Here's how family support workers use child protective:

Maintained pleasant working relationships with Child Protective Case Workers and Supervisors.
Conduct Child welfare and child protective service investigation when necessary.

13. Child Safety

Here's how family support workers use child safety:

Monitor and document parent-child interaction while educating families on a vast spectrum from child safety to family function and breast-feeding information.
Provide quality professional support in alignment with State laws and regulations ensuring child safety and positive outcomes.

14. Child Care

Child care means the care, supervision, or guidance of a child by a person other than the child's parent, guardian, or custodian for periods of less than 24 hours. Childcare could be either center-based such as a daycare or a nursery or home-based care such as nannies or family daycare.

Here's how family support workers use child care:

Act as a Judge on Pre-Termination General Assistance program, Child Care II, III programs, and Tax Intercept claims.
Meet with clients daily to provide child care information and complete intake interviews; determine childcare provider and related financial assistance.

15. Substance Abuse

Here's how family support workers use substance abuse:

Field investigations on allegations of child abuse/neglect and family problems on adults, children, and substance abusers/mentally ill chemical Abuser.
Supported family relationships that experience child-parent/guardian separation, post-substance abuse, providing services information and parental guidance.

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What skills help Family Support Workers find jobs?

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What skills stand out on family support worker resumes?

Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Chairperson, Director of the Performance Management Laboratory, University of Kansas

In my experience, employers appreciate real-world experience where students/recent graduates can apply the knowledge they learned in their courses to actual work settings. Thus, graduates who have had service-learning practicum courses, internships, or other relevant experiences have resumes that tend to stand out to future employers.

What soft skills should all family support workers possess?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

The "change theory" used in social work practice follows several steps, including engaging, assessing, planning, intervening, evaluating, terminating, and following up. Soft skills are most likely to occur in engagement, intervention, and termination. Social workers are trained to "start wherever the client is," understanding that clients can be individuals, families, groups, communities, or organizations. Social workers are trained to respect the client as the expert in their needs, honor self-determination, use a strengths-based approach, and respect difference while using inclusion. The training turns into soft skills such as being empathetic, warm, genuine, and respectful. Social workers also develop skills in knowing when to listen and when to nudge the client toward action. Social workers are trained to intervene and, when change is completed, to terminate. Helping clients know when to end services also requires soft skills of talking about hard topics, seeing a brighter future and setting goals, recognizing when change is happening, and saying goodbye respectfully.

What hard/technical skills are most important for family support workers?

Dr. Dianna Cooper

Associate Professor, Campbellsville University

Hard or technical skills are most likely to occur in the stages of assessing, planning, intervening, and evaluating change theory. Social workers are trained to gather lots of information and then analyze strengths and needs. Social workers present their assessments to clients and work together to create goals and the steps that reach goals when executed. The process involves using the client's vision of what "better" looks like. Social workers then use evidence-based techniques to move the client toward the goal and define measures to know when the goal is met. The technical skills used in this process include analyzing many types of information repeatedly, knowing what resources exist and how to refer, knowing how to design effective goals and steps to achieve goals, researching current evidence-based practices, defining and measuring progress, and setting limits and timeframes.

What family support worker skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Lillian Wichinsky Ph.D.

Associate Dean, University of Nevada - Reno

The need for social workers with expertise in mental health care, school-based social work, health and substance misuse are particularly important. Sixty percent of mental health care in the US is provided by social workers and the need is growing.

What type of skills will young family support workers need?

Samantha Fletcher Ph.D.

Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers, New York State

The core skills of social work do not change over time. These skills include empathy, active listening, critical thinking, assessment, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, policy analysis, and adaptability. Social workers also need to evaluate the organizations they work in to assess for oppressive practices and policies. One of the profession's core values is social justice, which directs social workers to "pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). As a profession, social workers aim to dismantle racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, and religiously biased systems and structures.

What technical skills for a family support worker stand out to employers?

Dr. Chantrelle Varnado-Johnson

Assistant Professor & Coordinator of School Counseling Program, Nicholls State University

In addition, recent graduates will need to be familiarized with using telehealth platforms due to more remote learning needs. Plus, recent graduates will need to familiarize themselves with their basic facilitative skills to establish rapport quickly to have brief sessions. Also, I would recommend students receive competency-based credentials and become licensed in at least one additional state. Lastly, I would recommend students familiarize themselves with crisis intervention and trauma counseling.

In sum, graduates have to be aware of how their roles may shift due to job displacement, furloughs, and restructuring. Due to new challenges presented in the COVID-19 pandemic, graduates have to be prepared to address the possibility of being faced with high caseloads, secondary traumatization, role conflict/ambiguity, and tension in the workplace. As a precautionary measure, neophytes should adopt a holistic self-care regimen and professional network to ameliorate the mental health condition.

Do you want to know more?

List of family support worker skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a family support worker resume and required skills for a family support worker to have include:

Social Work
Foster Care
Family Support
Community Resources
Family Services
Mental Health
Crisis Intervention
Support Services
Behavior Management
Protective Services
Child Development
Child Protective
Child Safety
Child Care
Substance Abuse
Independent Living

Permanency
Law Enforcement
Medical Appointments
Anger Management
Court Reports
Community Agencies
Community Services
Trusting Relationships
Health Education
Parent-Child Interaction
CPS
Parent Education
Child Welfare
Court Proceedings
Court Hearings
Family Assessments

DCF
Early Intervention
Foster Children
at-Risk
Parent-Child Relationships
Court Orders
Medical Care
Domestic Violence
Emotional Support
One Support
Social Service Agencies
IEP
Court System
Financial Assistance
In-Home Services

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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