“Unaccompanied social workers, unaccompanied families”: qualitative research on Italian professionals’ feelings and emotions on working with African refugee families

The study explores the experiences of five Italian social workers working in secondary reception centres with African refugee families in an attempt to deepen the feelings experienced in working with refugee families as well as their representations of African parenthood. A semi-structured interview was developed and analysed according to the principles of the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The findings suggested that the work with the refugee families, compared to that with single refugees, might configure a higher at-risk area for mental health, due to the copious individual, relational, collective, social dimensions, and cultural issues to take into consideration, returning the idea that professionals working with refugee families seem to feel ‘unaccompanied’ and ‘emotionally loaded’. The results also deepen, from the social workers’ gaze, composite representations of African parenthood, evidencing the importance played by the cultural differences in reading and interpreting the foreigner parenting practices. Clinical implications will be discussed.