The migration of social workers to and from the UK

This is a large project exploring the drivers of social workers for immigrating to and from the UK and their experiences of doing so. The project involves seven MA Social Work students, each studying social workers’ immigration to the UK from one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, India, Romania, South Africa, the US and Zimbabwe. Another student is researching the immigration in the other direction: UK trained social workers immigrating to Australia.

The project explores the push and pull factors driving social workers to immigrate as well as their experiences of immigrating and integrating into new national and professional cultures. We are exploring the challenges social workers experience during their migration and the ways in which they are responding to them; How does the cultural model they have internalised in their home country – including a unique professional culture – impact on their integration in the country they have immigrated to? How do these factors impact their career progression and wellbeing?

More Information

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Dr. Yohai Hakak - Dr Yohai Hakak joined Brunel in September 2014 as a lecturer in social work. His practice experience as a social worker is in mental health where he worked with long-term service users. 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. Yohai's last manuscript titled Haredi Masculinities between the Yeshiva, the Army, Work and Politics: The Sage, the Warrior and the Entrepreneur was an ethnographic study of Jewish Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) young men in Israel. It was published by Brill in 2016. The outcomes of Yohai’s academic work included also several award-winning documentary films. Yohai is interested in supervising students in the following areas and in relation to social work: Migration Embodiment Religious minorities Masculine identities Mental health Risk and its perception Mixed couples

Related Research Group(s)

Embodiment in Academic and Professional Practice - Development of an enhanced awareness of bodies as sensors of crucial information about ourselves and our reality; Enhancing our performance as human beings, practitioners, researchers and educators.

Partnering with confidence

Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.

Project last modified 15/11/2022