Social Work with No Recourse to Public Fund Migrants: Obstacles and Strategies

Migrants with no recourse to public funds (NRPFs) are vulnerable to destitution due to the NRPF condition attached to their immigration status. In this quantitative study, fifty-five social workers in England completed an anonymous online survey identifying the obstacles faced in their practice with NRPF migrants and any strategies they developed to overcome these impediments. Informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework, the study identified four main obstacles when working with NRPF migrants: lack of resources to support NRPF migrants; lack of knowledge/skills; negative attitudes from colleagues and insufficient institutional support. Compared to their local authority counterparts, NHS social workers expressed lower levels of confidence in their knowledge and skill level, and received less specific training, organisational guidance and support in their work with NRPF migrants. A 4-fold typology of strategies used by social workers to overcome obstacles was devised from responses to an open-ended question. In addition to the need for more resourcing, the findings suggest a need for social work education and training on how to effectively support NRPF migrants using extant legislation and agencies, and suggest knowledge exchange to promote inter-agency collaboration. Social workers are well-placed to help alleviate some of the difficulties faced by migrants with no recourse to public funds (NRPFs) but are confronted with considerable obstacles. This study identifies those impediments and explores potential solutions. An anonymous online survey completed by fifty-five social workers across England identified four main obstacles when working with NRPF migrants: lack of resources to support NRPF migrants, lack of knowledge and skills, negative attitudes from some social work colleagues and insufficient support from the employing organisation. Four broad strategies used by social workers to overcome some of these obstacles were identified and are reported in the article. The findings suggest that a lack of resources to support NRPF migrants is a key barrier, however, social work training programmes and employing organisations could provide education and training on how to effectively support NRPF migrants using existing legislation and agencies, and organisations could explore knowledge exchange strategies to increase practitioners' knowledge, confidence and awareness of diverse strategies to support their work.