Transition to adulthood: experiences of service providers working with immigrant disabled adolescents and young adults in Norway

Abstract

The demographic landscape of Norway is diversifying. These changes present challenges for frontline professionals working with immigrant parents raising children with disabilities. This article explored service providers’ perspectives on the challenges they face in delivering services to immigrant adolescents and young adults with disabilities aged 16–25. The study generated qualitative data from seven informants from different state institutions using semi-structured interviews. Our findings showed that service providers encountered personal and organisational challenges, including communicating and collaborating with immigrant parents. Service agencies experienced underfunding, making them unable to cope with growing demands. Additionally, service providers experienced inter-agency cooperation and collaboration difficulties such as a lack of information sharing, even when they served the same clients. Increasing funding, staff training, and strengthening formal and informal communication with immigrant parents of children with disabilities can provide opportunities to improve service delivery.

Point of interest

• The Norwegian service apparatuses were designed to serve a homogenous population. Adjusting to a diversifying working environment by service providers was necessary to enhance service delivery.

• Service providers considered low participation by immigrant parents of disabled children in school activities had negative impacts on home-school partnership. They thought some immigrant parents were uninterested in the academic life of their children.

• Service providers faced communication challenges in service delivery because of language and cultural barriers. The use of untrained cultural brokers and translators was unhelpful in bridging the cultural and communication gaps.

• Service providers experience work pressure because of insufficient resources and a lack of cooperation and information sharing between agencies. The authors observed that agencies did not coordinate their activities.

• The study shows a need for in-service training on multiculturalism for professionals working with immigrant parents raising disabled children.

Keywords:

• Transition to adulthood
• disabled immigrants
• adolescents and young adults
• challenges
• service providers
• immigrant parents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.