Career family
Social Care, Counselling & Community Development
Supporting individuals, families and communities through difficult times, and working to improve their lives.
- Mainly Helping & Teaching
- Also Leading & Enterprising
- Also Investigating & Solving
What the work involves
A closer look.
Roles involve listening, assessing needs, connecting people with services and running programmes. Work can be emotionally demanding and often happens in communities, not offices.
Typical roles
- Social worker
- Counsellor
- Psychologist (with further training)
- Community development officer
- NGO programme officer
- Monitoring and evaluation officer
- Youth worker
Entry routes in Nigeria
- Arts or Social Science subjects at SSCE help
- Degrees in social work, psychology, sociology, guidance and counselling or community development
- Postgraduate training and supervised practice for counselling and clinical psychology
- Volunteering with community organisations and NGOs
Requirements change. Always verify with the official body, JAMB or the institution.
Skills that matter
- Listening without judging
- Empathy with boundaries
- Writing reports and case notes
- Working with communities
- Planning and evaluating programmes
By life stage
Where you could start.
Secondary school
Often-linked SSCE stream: Arts. Check with your school.
Undergraduate
Social work, psychology, sociology, guidance and counselling, community development. Internships: NGOs, hospitals, social welfare offices.
Fresh graduate
Programme assistant, case worker, community mobiliser, research or M&E assistant.
Young professional
People move in from teaching, health and research, often bringing specialist knowledge to development programmes.
Vocational routes, entrepreneurship, public service and further study are all valid paths. We don’t show salaries or employment rates without a dated, verified source.
Ask a practitioner
Questions to ask.
Use these in a 15–20 minute conversation with someone who works in this family.
- What does a normal week look like for you?
- What do you enjoy most about the work, and what is hardest?
- How did you get into this field? Were there other routes you could have taken?
- Which subjects, courses or qualifications really matter, and which matter less than people think?
- What skills do you use every day that school didn’t teach you?
- What do people misunderstand about your job?
- If you were starting today, what would you do first?
- Who else should I talk to?
Test it
Ways to check if it suits you
Informational conversation
Talk to one person who does the work, using the questions on this page.
Job description review
Read three real adverts for roles in this family and list the requirements that keep coming up.
Small project
Try a small piece of the work yourself, then reflect on whether you enjoyed it.
Short course
Take a free or low-cost introductory course to test your interest before committing.
Job shadow or workplace visit
Spend a few hours watching the work happen. CPI arranges visits for participants.
Mentor conversation
Discuss what you have found with a mentor or coach.
Official qualification research
Check requirements with the professional body, JAMB, the institution or the employer directly.
Related
You might also explore.
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ExploreScience & Research
Asking questions about the natural world and testing answers carefully, in labs, the field, universities, industry and government.
ExploreWant to know if this fits you?
Take the self-assessment, then use your roadmap to test this direction.