Incorporating Spirituality into Social Work Practice with Migrants

Abstract

The world has become a more pluralistically, spiritual society due to globalisation and the influx of migrants to new countries. These changes beckon social workers, especially those who work with migrants, to incorporate spirituality into their practice. This paper proposes a spirituality-based social work framework that can help social work practice adapt to the varied backgrounds of migrants through self-awareness and non-judgement, empathy and trust, communication and interconnectedness, experience and compassion, and acceptance and new beginnings. The purpose of this framework is twofold: first, to help social workers understand spirituality for themselves, and second to help them use this to initiate a non-judgemental, collaborative and client-centred approach with their migrant clients.