The council said it had an excellent response from Canada

Advertisements were placed in the Canadian national press last year and seven social workers have been recruited to work in Denbighshire.

The local authority had initially found it difficult to recruit experienced staff and decided to look abroad.

Douglas Bowen, a social worker for 31 years moved to Wales six months ago.

The 54-year-old said he left British Columbia in Canada to gain more experience as a social worker.

"I'd learnt a lot in Canada and I think Wales had an opportunity for me to learn about community social work," he said.

People think it's a high risk job and the pay's not kept pace with nurses or teachers Roberta Hayes, Denbighshire social services

"I was born in Wales, my family moved to Canada when I was very young and it was an opportunity to come back in a time of my life when I could meet with family and practice social work."

Mr Bowen, who has a son and daughter still living in Canada, has moved with his wife to the seaside town of Rhyl.

Social workers were recruited from Canada because the training and qualifications gained are similar to those in the UK.

"Many of the things are actually the same, many of the issues are the same for people - poverty, alcohol, family violence - they're not limited by boundaries or borders," said Mr Bowen.

"The differences have been primarily more around policy, around procedures, how things are done here.

"It has been a little difficult in terms of coming to another country, driving on the other side of the road and things like that....the people have made it wonderful for us," he added.

Staff shortage

Mr Bowen is one of seven Canadian social workers employed by Denbighshire County Council. There is also a social worker from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

After six months, Mr Bowen said he has settled into the role well and has been widely accepted by his clients.

Douglas Bowen said he has settled into his new role

Roberta Hayes, senior manager at Denbighshire social services admitted it was difficult to find experienced social workers, so they had started looking abroad.

"We had an excellent response from Canada, we had about 28 initially and then we interviewed about 20 people."

Ms Hayes said there was a problem with how social workers "are perceived nationally".

"There have been very sad cases in which there has been bad press and there have been mistakes made which makes the risks quite high for people coming into the job."