Post job

Explore jobs

Find specific jobs

Explore careers

Explore professions

Best companies

Explore companies

OverviewJobsResume

Skills

EducationDemographicsJob DescriptionHow To HireBest CompaniesJob OutlookComparePart Time jobsEntry Level jobsFull Time jobs
zippia ai icon

Automatically apply for jobs with Zippi

Upload your resume to get started.

Family worker skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
3 min read
Quoted experts
Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.,
Dr. Dianna Cooper
Family worker example skills
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical family worker skills. We ranked the top skills for family workers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 21.9% of family worker resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a family worker needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 family worker skills for your resume and career

1. Social Work

Here's how family workers use social work:
  • Provided direct clinical social work services and case management to adolescent-parents who have experienced complex trauma.
  • Assisted professional social worker supervisors with the placement and supervision of children requiring foster homes.

2. Foster Care

Here's how family workers use foster care:
  • Completed licensing requirements for families interested in providing foster care.
  • Worked with children in foster care, providing counseling, mentoring, advocacy, behavior management, transportation, and referrals.

3. 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 workers use child care:
  • Review and approve applications to ensure that all pertinent family information are included in accordance with the Head Start/Child Care Performance Standards
  • Attended monthly family workers meetings to share information and give progress on what events the child care was preparing for.

4. Crisis Intervention

Here's how family workers use crisis intervention:
  • Provided case management services to families and linked families and emergency assistance and crisis intervention as needed.
  • Demonstrate proper knowledge of intake and discharge policy and procedure, shift documentation and crisis intervention procedure.

5. 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 workers use community resources:
  • Worked within Head Start Performance Standards to connect families, community resources, facilitate family centered planning and establish collaborative partnerships.
  • Served as an advocate for participants and potential participants as required by linking and/or referring families to appropriate community resources.

6. Substance Abuse

Here's how family workers use substance abuse:
  • Home Visitation with DCF collaboration Working with Families with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Challenges PATIENT CARE ASSOCIATE ~ P.C.A.
  • Conducted family, individual and substance abuse groups for Adolescents whom were Wayne County Children's Services n adjudicated youth.

Choose from 10+ customizable family worker resume templates

Build a professional family worker resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your family worker resume.

7. Child Development

Here's how family workers use child development:
  • Formulated individualized lesson's plan to enhance various areas of child development.
  • Facilitated and supported child developmental education and/or prenatal groups with parents.

8. Intake Assessments

Here's how family workers use intake assessments:
  • Participated in intake assessments, treatment planning conferences, administrative case reviews, and court hearings.
  • Performed intake assessments for potential families, mothers pregnant, or with baby 0-3 months.

9. 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 workers use support services:
  • Network and collaborate with center administrator, intervention support specialist, support services associate, teachers, specialists and other agencies.
  • Provided intensive case management, counseling, advocacy, and support services to families and individuals, including home visits.

10. Risk Factors

Here's how family workers use risk factors:
  • Perform safety assessments to determine risk factors for child removal or temporary placement for protection.
  • Gathered information to correlate risk factors associated with abusive and neglectful parenting.

11. Child Abuse

When a child who is under 18 is mistreated by an adult, it is considered child abuse. There are many forms of intentional harm and mistreatment for example physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, medical abuse, and neglect in providing adequate basic life necessities.

Here's how family workers use child abuse:
  • Prepare and submit reports as needed* Report concerns about suspected child abuse to Family Service Coordinator
  • Report all suspected child abuse to Assistant Program Administrator/Family Services and/or Program Administrator/Head Start.

12. Mental Health Issues

Here's how family workers use mental health issues:
  • Be sensitive to any medical and/or mental health issues present to provide compassionate and quality care.
  • Work with families dealing with mental health issues and advocate for treatment for parents and children.

13. DHS

DHS (Department of Homeland Security) refers to the department that handles the USA's immigration enforcement.

Here's how family workers use dhs:
  • Worked closely with DHS and CPS authorities to resolve case concerns.
  • Reported case progress to DHS and completes CPS complaints as needed.

14. Social Service Agencies

Here's how family workers use social service agencies:
  • Assist families in connecting to the appropriate social service agencies to ensure needed services are met.
  • Serve as a liaison between various social service agencies.

15. 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 workers use family services:
  • Developed and implement an Individual Family Service Plan with each family participating in intensive services.
  • Conducted intakes and evaluations for family services and classroom placement.
top-skills

What skills help Family Workers find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on family worker resumes?

Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D.Dr. Florence DiGennaro Reed Ph.D. LinkedIn profile

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 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 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 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 workers need?

Samantha Fletcher Ph.D.Samantha Fletcher Ph.D. LinkedIn profile

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.
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about family worker

List of family worker skills to add to your resume

Family worker skills

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

  • Social Work
  • Foster Care
  • Child Care
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Community Resources
  • Substance Abuse
  • Child Development
  • Intake Assessments
  • Support Services
  • Risk Factors
  • Child Abuse
  • Mental Health Issues
  • DHS
  • Social Service Agencies
  • Family Services
  • Family Assessments
  • Community Agencies
  • Community Services
  • Community Events
  • Crisis Situations
  • Community Outreach
  • Family Development
  • Partnership Agreements
  • Parent Participation
  • Domestic Violence
  • Parent Education
  • Parent Involvement
  • DCF
  • Financial Assistance
  • Family Strengths
  • Child Protective
  • IEP
  • Foster Children
  • Pregnant Women
  • Risk Families
  • Court Hearings
  • Parent Support
  • CPS
  • Provide Emotional Support
  • Court Reports
  • Law Enforcement
  • Anger Management
  • Direct Services
  • Medical Care
  • Local Agencies
  • Early Intervention
  • Referral Services
  • Home Management
  • Assess Family
  • Family Reunification

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
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

Browse community and social services jobs