This document summarizes the challenges that internationally educated social workers face when immigrating to Canada, including navigating complex immigration policies, having their foreign credentials recognized, obtaining a social work license, and finding work. It discusses the barriers they encounter in these areas, such as unclear requirements, lengthy processing times, and a lack of Canadian experience. As a result of these barriers, many internationally educated social workers struggle financially and emotionally, and end up working in non-social work jobs at first. The document calls for Canadian systems and structures to better support the adjustments of immigrant social workers.

1. Theme 2: Immigration, Credential
Recognition, Licensure,
and Finding Work
Knowledge Exchange Forum
November 2014

2. Canada’s complicated welcome
• the ideal multicultural mosaic
• comfortable standard of living
• health care
• natural beauty
• aging population
• some encouraging federal government initiatives
…and yet, the experiences of 66 social workers educated
outside Canada suggest a slightly different story…

3. Many internationally educated social workers
encounter significant challenges before starting to
practice in Canada as a result of barriers
experienced with:
immigration policies
+
recognition of foreign credentials
+
social work licensure
+
finding work

4. Navigating Policies: Immigration
• Not clear + time consuming + not user friendly
My experience has been is if you come into Canada… then you
need to put your helmet on and fasten your seatbelt….It’s not
for the faint heart, the process, and you gotta stick with it.
(England - 1)
The process of immigration is extremely difficult. The
Department of Immigration has a website and an email
address. They do not have a phone number, so you can’t call
anyone and ask questions. Everything you need to know you
need to find out off the Internet. And when you email a
question to them it may be several days before you get a
response. And then it says, ‘look at the website’. (Australia-1)

5. • Circular in process: needing a job offer to get
residency and needing residency to get a job
offer
[I saw] through immigration their skilled
worker program, I thought I can go through
that. But then, I need a job first to get to the
program. But without the work permit no-one
would hire me. (Germany)

6. Navigating Policies: Recognition of
Foreign Credentials
• Inconsistent criteria + lengthy time delays + costly
It took four months. Four months and they wanted an
original of all my degrees and certificates….For God’s
sake I went for four months before my family could eat.
(Liberia)
I remember feeling disgusted that I’d paid … in excess of
three hundred dollars for a one page letter which was
really quite unclear in the message or what it was
actually saying to me. (England - 2)

7. Immigrants need to:
navigate bureaucracy of the foreign credential
recognition body (often with little guidance other than
website text)
+
produce various documents from countries of origin
+
pay fees
+
often face additional barriers with language, culture, &
transportation

8. Some migrant social workers may decide not pursue
credential recognition:
I know for a fact that a lot of immigrants, permanent
residents, who come here, who have a social work
degree, do not apply for social work jobs. Because
they’re scared they have to go through the
association. (Netherlands)
….which further complicates adaptation, given
credential recognition is an important step in the
process of “rebuilding a professional identity” in a new
context (Cardu, 2007: 433).

9. • There was variation among participants to
receive confirmation that their credentials
were recognized: less than six months to 4
years; one year was most common
• While possible to pursue social work
credential recognition in Canada prior to
migration, very few participants pursued that
option

10. Navigating Policies:
Social Work Licensure
• Cumbersome + lengthy + mixed messages
• Self advocacy required
I started to learn how things work in North America,
so I started bucking a lot, and being resistant. And
one things that I learn is that in [province], specific
thing to [province], it doesn’t matter what you know.
It matters who you know. So I started pushing,
asking the right questions, and pushing the right way
and eventually I got to be a candidate. (Netherlands)

11. • For some participants the concept of being
part of a regulated profession is entirely new,
given that in many countries social work is not
a regulated profession:
The thing that initially surprised me was the
[provincial social work regulators]. I find it
different…we are obligated to be affiliated with a
provincial regulator…. In France, there is no
regulator for the profession, you are not required to
be in a professional association…that is a difference.
Here you do not have a choice. (France)

12. • Within the grapevine of newcomer social
workers, participants heard of variability in
the requirements to obtain the license to
practice:
… social workers from the Philippines that I did work
with, they were either asked to earn credit hours [in
a practicum], some credit hours in class, or both. In
my case, I wasn’t asked or required by the
[regulatory body]. (Philipines)

13. • For some, there was a resigned acceptance of the
process:
I’m a qualified social worker with a degree in social
work and I had to meet with them, was a
requirement to meet with them for registration….I
had a phone call from the Registrar in the week
afterwards to let me know that … they were
impressed by what I had to say and that they liked
me. I found that amusing. But I just kind of put it to
bed and thought well, this is how they do in
[province]. You’ve just gotta do it. (England-1)

14. Intersection of credential recognition
& licensure
Frustration that assessment of foreign qualifications and
licensure is unnecessarily a two-step process:
I spoke with the [provincial body], who said to … have [the
degrees] accredited by the Canadian association. So I did
that…. When I then applied to register with the [provincial
body], they said ‘oh we need the transcripts and everything’
and I said ‘you know it was really kind of just a bit messy
trying to get them from England, could you not get them from
the Canadian [Association]?’ and they said ‘we have no
connection with them’. And I was like ‘hang on, you just told
me I couldn’t register with you until I was approved by the
Canadian [body]… so surely you have, like, one call you could
make!’ (England-3)

15. While Canadian social workers may know the
history of this division between national and
provincial jurisdiction, immigrant social workers
do not, and experience it as cumbersome,
overly complicated and lacking coherence:
I submitted all the requirements with the Canadian
Association of Social Workers and they basically
approved and accredited me. Yet, they said that if I
wish to work in a province, I would have to apply
again to the [provincial regulator]. (Israel)

16. Navigating Socio-Cultural Dynamics:
Finding work
• Finding work = “lucky” + “fortunate” to not
face overt discrimination in the job search &
hiring process
• Not finding work = “depressed”, “frustrated”,
“discouraged”, “anxious” & “unsettled”

17. Finding Work
• explicit & implicit requirements
• subtle interactions & interpretations
How do I put forth my skills and tell ‘hey I’m available; I'm
available to volunteer; I’m available to give my resources
to you’. How do I do that? That is the biggest block I
have. (India)
…you end up in this vicious circle of, you don’t have a
local experience, right? And you cannot get any
experience here because you don’t have a working
experience here. Well how can I get it if I don’t have a
chance? (Ukraine)

18. Challenges and barriers reported:
• discrimination
• language related issues
• lack of familiarity with Canadian human resources strategies
and practices
• competition for jobs with domestically educated social
workers
• having foreign credentials
• lacking Canadian work experience
• other “invisible barriers” - reasons for not being hired that
remained unknown to the migrant social workers.
I have applied for numerous jobs…some interviews I went to and
I was sure I would be taken and I wasn’t taken. And I really don’t
know why. (Liberia).

19. • Participants reported a perception that potential
employers do not invite them for job interviews
due to issues of
– stereotyping
– prejudice
– discrimination
• Participants perceived they had received clouded
messages about their employability as a social
worker in the Canadian context.
The message that was sent was a subliminal message
that we want to have you; we want foreigners [but then]
they do not even give you the opportunity to interview.
(Spain)

20. • Securing a social work job = economic
imperative + facilitating overall adaptation to
the new country
• Stress and disappointment experienced with
employment delay can result in personal
problems, such as feelings of inadequacy and
hopelessness

21. Working outside social work
• Many worked outside social work, including:
– corrections, tourism, retail, food services,
agriculture, construction, cleaning, childcare,
home health care and human services
• Some non-social work jobs eventually led to
social work positions, once the migrant social
workers had acquired Canadian work
experience.

22. Working outside social work
Initially it was a non-social work post, it was a home-
visitor…and then now I have a social work post within
the adoption program there. (England)
• Wide range of reaction to accepting non-social
work jobs, varying from realization of positive
benefits (such as acculturation and the
development of greater language proficiency in
one of Canada’s national languages) to
disappointment and disillusionment.

23. Conclusions
• Canada’s welcome is not as simple as it seems
• Migrant social workers’ experiences are shaped by
multi-dimensional factors related to personal, cultural,
and structural constraints at the micro-, meso-, and
macro- levels
• Adjustments and adaptations must not only be
expected of individuals but of Canadian systems and
structures:
– complexities of socio-cultural dynamics (racism,
discrimination, xenophobia)
– credential recognition
– licensure processes

24. Question for discussion
• What are ways that barriers in the credential recognition
process can be removed?
• What are ways that barriers in the licensure process can be
removed?
– Are credential recognition & licensure experiences as barriers
for HR and agencies hiring?
• To what extent do the requirements of credential
recognition and licensure align with the requirements you
have for the social workers you hire?
• How well prepared do you find the internationally educated
social workers that you hire? (readiness to practice in the
new context)
• Do you have specific training/orientation in your workplace
for internationally educated social workers?