An Analysis Of The Social Work Embedded Civil Administration Work

Today, traditional service model of civil administration work can no longer deal with the increasingly acute social contradictions in China. With the rise and development of specialized social work, civil administration departments begin to recognize the important role of social work in solving social problems and upgrading social services. Specialized social work in China is a kind of development that is embedded, subject to social work’s potential for growth provided by society transformation and reform, and its own capacity. Against this backdrop, a development path for specialized social work to be embedded in civil administration work is the need not only for social work growth but also civil administration work transformation.The civil administration department in N district has made beneficial exploration in developing social work, such as expanding range of services, introducing innovations to service model, and integrating service resources. Accordingly, the department has accumulated plenty of experience in terms of the development of social work and the transformation of civil administration work. Based on embeddedness theory and through case study, this research analyzed the path of social work to be embedded in civil administration work, and explored how specialized social work develop in the context of traditional administrative social work and affect the transformation of civil administration work with values and means of social work.The research revealed that social work is functionally weak-embedded in civil administration work; conversely, administrative practices in civil administration work are embedded in social work. The main experience of embedding of social work in civil administration includes establishing partnerships, integrating social service resources and encouraging public participation. The embedding of specialized social work plays an important role in the process of social services development and social administration innovation in N district. However, problems and contradictions also emerged in the course of practice. It is necessary for civil administration work and social work to learn from and adjust to each other, jointly exploring a developmental pattern beneficial to both sides.