Disasters And Local Practice Of Social Work: An Advantage Perspective Analysis

On May12,2008, a devastating earthquake occurred in Wenchuan County inthe northern Sichuan Province of China. It registered8.0on the Richter scale with an11-degree quake intensity. It was the most expensive, pervasive, and damagingearthquake ever in China, and causing extensive damage to the residents’ property andmental. The government immediately took part in the relief work at the moment，butits rescue system had a lot defect, such as sole succor subject, simple salvation,behindhand concept and short-lived effect. At this time, the boom of social workhighlights the importance of non-government commonweal organizations. The socialwork has become an important part of rescue team because of professional serviceand concept.The “dimensional question” dominates the practice model of traditional socialwork, it regards service objects as disability help seeker. It aims at solving currentissues for clients but failing to explore the potential and develop sustainable. However,the emergence of the "strengths perspective" has broken this dilemma. The strengthsperspective focuses on developing the client’s resilience ability, problem andchallenges responding ability. Meanwhile, it also pays attention to developcommunity resources, train community leaders, and inspire the community resident toindependently deal with their affairs.This study is based on Datong community, Wenchuan. It investigates the modeand the feature of social service about how the community interposes the disasterservice. It also observed the role of social workers played in disaster social work.Besides, this paper gets through interview and field-survey on branding projects.Lastly，this paper also analyzes some difficulties in social work organizationsinterposed in disaster areas. For example, social work hasn’t been brought in thenational disaster relief system, so their work is lack of social identity. Service effectneed to be improved and the team of professional tutor and social workers still need tobe enlarged. We need government, colleges and NGOs get together to learn theadvanced experiences of developed countries. Taking advantage of “strengthperspective”would make better contribution to the community and residents.