Group Work In Mutual Support Network Building For The Empty Nest Elderly

With the change of the age structure of China's population,pension issues have gradually become prominent and attracted social attention,which have not only become the focus of academic research,but also received extensive attention from the government and the society.Among them,as a vulnerable group among the elderly,the quality of life,physical and mental health of empty-nesters are important issues for the development of our country and society.On the one hand,With the gradual shrinking of the family population,empty-nesters cannot rely on the traditional family to provide for the aged,and their life is faced with a series of problems,such as lack of daily care,relatively closed life,insufficient social interaction,and lack of emotional and spiritual comfort.On the other hand,although China has formulated relevant policies to improve the elderly care service level,the security level is relatively low,and there is a lack of consideration for the particularity of empty nesters.Based on the above background,this study takes the empty-nest elderly people in W community of Binzhou city as the research object.Based on the literature research and the previous data collection,the following research questions are proposed:under the premise of the predicament faced by the elderly empty-nesters,can the building of mutual support network effectively respond to their needs?How to build the mutual support network by group work interventions?Based on the theory of social support network,the writer interview 10 empty nesters in W community before social work intervention,to assess the pension needs of empty-nesters and the role of social support network.Based on the analysis of interview results,it is found that the needs of most empty nesters are mainly focused on spiritual comfort,and there are problems such as lack of communication with their children,insufficient social communication,low self-identification,and emptiness of the spiritual world.In terms of formal support,the support subjects pay insufficient attention to the spiritual comfort of empty nest elderly.In the aspect of informal support,the empty nest elderly rely too much on their children for spiritual comfort,and the neighbors,peers and other groups do not play their due role.In order to improve the social support network for the empty nest elderly and make up for the deficiencies of the existing support network,this paper attempts to solve the difficulties faced by the empty nest elderly and meet their old-age needs starting from the building of mutual support network in the social support network.From the perspective of building mutual support network,this study has fully practiced the six-section group activities composed of eight empty nesters by using the intervention method of group work,thus realizing the final building of mutual support network for empty nesters in W community and the operation of long-term mechanism.Analyzing the effect of intervention,it is found that the building of mutual support network has improved their mutual support consciousness and ability,expanded their social communication and satisfied their spiritual comfort.At the same time,the mutual help between team members also made up for their lack of daily care.On the building of mutual support network,the intervention method of group work is effective and advantageous on the whole,but there are also certain limitations,which are mainly manifested in the single intervention method of group work and difficulties in the evaluation of intervention effect.