Projet soutenu par:

Le Vice-rectorat aux partenariats communautaire et internationaux de l'Université de Montréal

L'Observatoire des Profilages

La chaire de recherche du Canada sur les enfants transgenres et leurs familles

L'École de travail social de l'Université de Montréal

L’identité professionnelle des travailleurs sociaux est un aspect essentiel à la pratique éthique en travail social. Cette identité professionnelle se développe généralement à travers un processus qui s’actualise durant la formation initiale, mais aussi à travers différentes expériences telles la supervision, et les interactions avec d'autres professionnels. Par contre, les changements rapides dans l’organisation des services sont reconnus comme ayant une influence forte sur le développement de l’identité professionnelle des travailleurs sociaux.  On y note ainsi une érosion importante de l’identité professionnelle en travail social.  Développer l’identité professionnelle chez les travailleurs sociaux dans un contexte de changement pose donc un défi particulier. Le but de la recherche est d’explorer l’expérience des praticiens ayant obtenu un diplôme de premier cycle en travail social, à l’égard du développement de leur identité professionnelle et de leurs défis à travers le passage de la formation initiale au marché de l’emploi. Les objectifs de la recherche sont donc : 1) De mieux comprendre le processus de formation de l’identité professionnelle durant la formation initiale de l’intervenant; 2) D’explorer les changements qui se font ressentir à la suite du passage de la formation initiale à l’entrée sur le marché de l’emploi en lien avec leur identité professionnelle; 3) De mieux saisir l’influence de l’identité professionnelle des travailleurs sociaux sur leur pratique et; 4) De cerner les contraintes à son développement.

Mobility of workers worldwide is an increasingly important phenomenon and social workers are part of this global trend. However, while a few studies are beginning to grasp some of the challenges and benefits of employing social care workers trained internationally, no one has investigated the experiences of qualified social workers who migrate for professional reasons, nor their professional adaptation processes to new cultural and organisational contexts. Because social work education and practice varies depending on local contexts and cultures, expectations for global standards cannot be the sole means for ensuring uniformity in practice across countries. This research aims to explore the experiences of social workers who have migrated to Canada with regard to their processes of professional adaptation to their new social work contexts. The research questions are: "What are the experiences of migrant social workers who practice social work in a country different to which they undertook their education?”, “What changes, with regard to their professional identity, are they going through?” “How do these affect their perceptions of social work practice and their interventions?”and “How do stakeholders perceive their contribution to social care services?” The lack of research on the international mobility of social workers and their professional identity justifies the use of Grounded theory (GT) as the methodology for the project. The project draws from three concepts which together form the conceptual framework: The first, symbolic interactionism, is the lens through which researchers probe how meaning and perceptions are negotiated and transformed through interactions with others. The second, professional acculturation, brings a cultural, social and political subjective focus on the processes of adaptation experienced by international migrants in different work contexts.  Finally, the third concept draws from professional identity to inform how native perspectives shape social work interventions abroad and how they change during processes of adaptation.  Together, these concepts provide a well designed foundation to capture both the adaptation processes of migrant social workers as transactional and the variations in the social workers’ perspectives about their social work roles and interventions. In line with GT, in excess of 60 one-to-one, semi-structured interviews will be undertaken with migrant social workers. The participants will be selected through purposive and theoretical sampling and data collection will end at theoretical saturation. Attention to negative cases will be given throughout the process of theoretical sampling. The data will be collected at 3 Canadian cities, Halifax (n≥20), Montreal (n≥20) and Calgary (n≥20).The sites’ demographic and economic features highlight major differences in the context of professional migration and thus provides rich ground for data collection. Following transcription of the interviews, coding and analysis will be undertaken following standard GT process. Data will be analysed locally before being compared with the other sites through team coding techniques. In order to maximise the impact of the research on service delivery and gain an understanding of stakeholders’ perception of migrant social workers’ contributions to service delivery, a day-long Knowledge Exchange Forum (KEF) will also be undertaken in the 3 cities with a wide range of stakeholders, including the provincial social work regulators, our research partners.  These KEF will also help influence policy development across Canada. Dissemination activities will also include 4 publications in scholarly journals and presentations at national and international conferences