Orienting Live-in Caregivers
Employing interviews with prospective, current, and former Live-In/Caregiver Program (L/CP) workers in the Philippines and Canada and participant observation of pre-departure orientation seminars (PDOS), we garnered information about the learning needs of these workers throughout their trajectory from temporary foreign worker to permanent resident and solicited recommendations about best practices for these programs. In this process, we uncovered tremendous gaps in the information that was supposed to be delivered in the mandatory PDOS programs and what was retained by all three sets of informants. Irregularities in the delivery of PDOS in terms of content and facilitation as well as the timing of mandatory PDOS contribute to these lacunae. In contrast, participants who enrolled in the voluntary Canada Orientation Abroad (COA) program offered in the Philippines through the International Organization for Migration, were generally pleased with the information they received. Recently, however, the Government of Canada has decided that CP workers no longer qualify for this program.
Orientation is a process and the learning needs of migrants change with their trajectory from prospective migrant to temporary foreign worker to permanent resident and citizen. Moreover, as informants appear to be obtaining information about the L/CP often from relatives, both sending and receiving governments have an obligation to ensure that prospective, current, and former L/CP workers have access to accurate, clear, and up-to-date information.
The Government of Canada has recently (mid 2015) decided that CP workers no longer qualify for this program.
