This article explores the interactions between disabled forced migrants with care needs and professionals and the restrictive legal, policy and practice context that health and social care professionals have to confront, based on the findings of a qualitative study with 45 participants in the SouthEast of England. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 forced migrants who had diverse impairments and chronic illnesses (8 women and 7 men), 13 family caregivers and 17 support workers and strategic professionals working in social care and the third sector in Slough, Reading and London. The legal status of forced migrants significantly affects their entitlements to health and social care provision, resulting in prolonged periods of destitution for many families. National asylum support policies, difficult working relationships with UK Border Agency, higher eligibility thresholds and reduced social care budgets of local authorities were identified as significant barriers in responding to the support needs of disabled forced migrants and family caregivers. In this context, social workers experienced considerable ethical dilemmas. The research raises profound questions about the potential and limitations of health and social care policies, provision, and practice as means of protection and support in fulfilling the human rights of forced migrants with care needs.

This chapter discusses the situation of migrants with disability and chronic illness and their access to health, social care and welfare support in settlement countries. The links between disability and migration have been generally neglected in the literature to date; often disability is only referred to as a potential outcome of migration because of the association between poverty, poor health, housing and employment conditions amongst migrants. This chapter provides an overview of key conceptual understandings of disability and chronic illness and the policy context. The links between migration, disability, chronic illness and care support are complex, due to shortfalls in existing knowledge and the lack of policy engagement with asylum seekers and refugees with disability and chronic illness, despite their often high care needs. The chapter pays particular attention to the situation of asylum seekers with disability or chronic illness who often have limited entitlements to health, social care and welfare support, drawing on our empirical research on disability, HIV and caring relations among asylum-seeking and refugee families in the UK. Such families face major barriers in accessing appropriate health, social care and welfare support. The unmet care needs of disabled asylum-seekers also impact on informal family carers, including children and young adults, whose substantial caring responsibilities, combined with their restricted entitlements to support, affect their wellbeing, education and transitions into adulthood.

Tilgangur rannsóknarinnar var að kanna hvernig innflytjendafjölskyldur sem eigafötluð börn takast á við daglegt líf hér á landi, samskipti þeirra við nærsamfélagið ogþjónustukerfin sem ætlað er að styðja fjölskyldur fatlaðra barna. Rannsóknarsniðiðvar eigindlegt og byggðist á viðtölum við foreldra og þátttökuathugunum á heimilumþeirra. Tólf innflytjendafjölskyldur tóku þátt í rannsókninni. Þær höfðu dvalið áÍslandi allt frá 18 mánuðum til 20 ára og áttu samtals 16 fötluð börn. Reynsla fólksinsvar margþætt og breytileg en staða margra fjölskyldna var erfið, þær stóðu einar oghöfðu lítið stuðningsnet. Þótt samanburðurinn við upprunalandið væri hugsanlegahagstæður gat reynst erfitt að takast á við og samþætta viðfangsefni daglegs lífs.Óvissa í húsnæðismálum, atvinnumálum og fjármálum mótaði líf margra. Tungumálakunnátta,tryggur fjárhagur, öruggt húsnæði og viðeigandi stuðningur réðmestu um það hvernig fjölskyldunum farnaðist í nýju landi. Mikilvægt er að hugaað samskiptum og upplýsingagjöf í þjónustu við innflytjendafjölskyldur með fötluðbörn og hafa menningarhæfni að leiðarljósi.

Disability studies and migrant studies have largely operated on different tracks. Despite the growing diversity within Icelandic society, little is known about the lives of migrant families with disabled children living there. Inspired by critical disability studies, migrant studies and Bourdieu's concepts of capital and field, we focused on the daily experiences of three migrant mothers of disabled children and their encounters with the Icelandic service system. The migrant women's experiences reflected their diverse positions and needs in terms of their participation and possibilities to use their resources to build upon and apply their social and cultural capital. Initially, all three intended to stay temporarily in Iceland, but the intersection of the birth of their disabled children, their possibilities for balancing work and care, as well as their experiences with the service system, ultimately affected their decision to stay or leave. The paper concludes with a call for a more nuanced understanding of the intersection between disability and migration in family lives.

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