Supporting migrant recruitment and retention in the intellectual disability workforce

Lead organisation:

Hohepa Hawke’s Bay

In Aotearoa New Zealand there are an estimated 33,000 people working in the aged-care and disability support workforce. There are approximately 7,000 migrant workers in the wider disability and aged-care sector. Approximately 2500 of these migrant workers are engaged in intellectual disability support.

Migrant workers play an increasingly important role in the delivery of care and support services. Migrants face significant challenges in adapting to their new country and the complex work and cultural environment of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

This project aims to produce resources for the guidance of employers to recruit and retain candidates well suited to the disability support sector, ensuring they are well prepared for employment in the context of Aotearoa/New Zealand and able to hit the ground running.

This is a three-year project, co-funded by Hohepa Hawke’s Bay and the Workforce Futures Fund | Tahua Rāngaimahi Anamata. The project will review, research and curate current disability sector knowledge and further develop best practice and tools for migrant recruitment and retention. This is expected to have flow on benefits for domestic workers throughout aged-care and disability support services in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The four workstreams of this project are:

• Source country recruitment and candidate selection

• Induction and settlement

• Inservice training and development

• Retention strategies. 

While this project specifically focuses on those migrants working in intellectual disability settings, the resources and learnings from the project are directly relevant to those working in the wider aged-care and disability support sectors.