AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE CHALLENGES FACE BY SOCIAL WORKERS WORKING WITH TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Transnational marriages have been on the rise globally, particularly in the East and Southeast Asia regions. Singapore has one of the highest proportions of transnational marriages within the region and this has resulted in new wrinkles in the ways the society has to respond to the unique challenges and needs of this population. The current literature has focused substantially on the experiences of foreign spouses and transnational families. Little attention is given to the experiences of social workers considering the saliency of this profession in advocating and brokering for services for this population. This study aimed to explore the challenges that social workers face when working with transnational families and the strategies employed in overcoming these challenges. In addition, recommendations for possible measures that can be implemented to better support social workers in this regard was also examined. The findings suggest that systemic barriers and language barriers are the main challenges that social workers encounter, and to overcome these challenges, social workers turn to their colleagues and supervisors for support. The findings also reflected the importance of strengthening relationships between the social service sector and stakeholders in ensuring a more effective and seamless service delivery for the families. Based on the findings, implications for social work practice and policy are also discussed in this paper. The first recommendation is based on the systemic barriers that social workers experience by calling the statutory agencies to adopt a social lens to view the family circumstances and work more closely with the social workers so that appropriate advocacy work can be implemented. The second recommendation focuses on the quality iii and nature of supervision given its importance in supporting social workers in their work with transnational families with attention given to both case and clinical aspects. The third recommendation seeks to highlight the importance of rapport building with the foreign spouses through the provision of practical support as a means to build rapport and trust with them. This is so because a trusting and supportive work relationship has proven to be useful and essential as articulated by the social workers in the study. The final recommendation seeks to reduce the impact of language barriers on the intervention process by encouraging social workers to acquire a new language by tapping on their client's language proficiency in their native language.