Enabling Social Workers to Work Abroad
“Facilitating the movement of social workers from one country to another is a contentious issue in view of the directed recruitment of social workers from some countries to others.1”
The UK has a staffing crisis in social work with 12% of social work posts vacant and wants 50,000 new workers in Social Care over the next 3 years. It is recruiting from abroad. The number of overseas social workers coming to the UK has quadrupled from 227 in 1990/91 to 1,175 in 2001/02. More than half of Zimbabwe’s qualified social workers now work in the UK. Rich countries steal the resources of poorer countries.
“However from an ethical point of view the migration of these social workers that wish to practice in another country should be enabled not blocked.2” In some countries like the Philippines, citizens who work abroad are called “heroes” as the money they send home makes up 10% of the G.N.P., earning more than 6 billion dollars in foreign currency p.a.
This paper describes research whose aim is to prepare those wishing to work in social work in the UK to make an informed decision before they leave their own country. It describes the outcomes of interviews with overseas social workers in the UK, identifies their reasons for wishing to work in the UK, the advantages and disadvantages they have experienced of social work in the UK rather than in their home country, the problems and needs they have identified in settling into the UK, and their views on what would have assisted them in the process of settling both to the country and to the work.
A proposed modular program is then outlined which would meet these needs and enable social workers to make an informed decision about and a successful transition to working abroad.
1 Third Revised Discussion Document :Global Quality in Standards for Social Work educationand Training. 2003,by V. Sewpaul.
2 Ibid