Migration of Professional Social Workers: Reflections on Challenges and Strategies for Education

Challenges facing international social workers: English managers’ perceptions

“…Two factors give applicants an advantage in the job market -proficiency in the relevant language; and the actual or presumed similarities between the education received 'abroad' and that available in the receiving country, for example, see Hussein et al (2010); Walsh et al (2009) andPullen Sansfacon et al (2012a) re nationality of international recruits in England, Ireland and Canada respectively. However, in the case of England, issues in relation to language proficiency might arise owing to a tightening of national immigration policies, which have recently favoured labour mobility between European Union countries rather than internationally.…”

Revisiting the Esoteric Question: Can Non-Social Workers Manage and Supervise Social Workers?

“…This was, for example, explicitly stated in the Retention and Recruitment Strategy document of the Department of Social Development (2006:33): "There is a perceived unresponsiveness and decline in the productivity and quality of services rendered by social workers." This type of comment has detrimental consequences for social workers' professional identity and professional wellbeing, often leaving social workers feeling helpless and alienated from their professional roles (Pullen-Sansfaçon, Spolander & Engelbrecht, 2012). The irony, however, is that this "blame game" is seldom corrected by policy makers or politicians, as the causes for service omissions are in turn ascribed to inadequate training by academic institutions of social workers and/or inadequate trained supervisors and managers, resulting in the introduction of a plethora of norms, standards, frameworks and checklists to uplift service quality -thus a vicious circle generating managerial tenets once again.…”

The Challenges Experienced by Zimbabwean Social Workers Practising in Gauteng Townships

“…This study has shown that interpretation happens through different lenses, which may manifest in a range of challenges that confront transnational social workers (Bartley et al, 2012;Pullen-Sansfacon et al, 2012b).…”

“…In the light of this, South Africa has been able to absorb social workers from other countries, especially from Zimbabwe. Other countries such as New Zealand, Canada, the UK and Australia have also been actively recruiting social workers to fill shortages that cannot be met internally (Bartley et al, 2012;Pullen-Sansfacon et al, 2012b). Tinarwo (2011) conducted a study on Zimbabwean social workers in the UK.…”