37. Migration of social workers

Dr Yohai Hakak explores the experiences of social workers who migrate and provides an insight into why there is a crisis in the retention of social workers in the UK.

As an international profession, practitioners can take their qualification with them and practice in a different country. Migration between England and Australia is quite common, because of a shared heritage of social work, language and culture. However, migrating social workers have encountered some difficulties which indicate why there is a crisis in retaining experienced social workers in practice in the UK.

Dr Yohai Hakak has led a team exploring the experiences of social work migrants to and from many countries. This episode discusses a paper from this project focusing on the experiences of migration to and from Australia. More information about the project and other papers reporting findings can be found on the project website.

Dr Yohai Hakak is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Brunel University in London, where he is an educator, researcher and a documentary film maker. Yohai’s research interests are in the sociology of risk-perception, youth, religion, parenting, gender and mental health and the connection of these areas with social work.

The full text of the paper discussed in this episode can be accessed here:

Hakak, Y., Bosah, S., Amponsah, K. & Long Cheung, K. (2022) Social workers migrating between England and Australia: Linking social hierarchies, bureaucracy, trust and politeness, British Journal of Social Work, 52 (6), 3095–3113, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcab204

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