Social Work Intervention In Relieving The Loneliness Of Empty Nesters

As the population ages,the number of urban empty-nesters is increasing and their mental health problems have attracted more and more attention.Guided by social support theory,this paper examines empty nesters in Beijing's community N,and implements group social work methods to lesson their perception of loneliness.After interviewing,we learned that the spiritual support of empty nesters in N community still needs to be improved.Using the adaptation of the UCLA scale and social support rating scale survey of 50 empty-nesters,the sample showed higher degree,aging,and mostly in medium alone state,and low degree of making use of social support.Interviewing with 30 empty-nesters revealed that the reasons for the lack of informal support included the weakening of family pension function,insufficient attention paid by children to the spiritual comfort for empty-nesters,and little interaction between neighbors.The reasons for the defects of formal support are insufficient attention paid by N community on the spiritual aspect of empty nesters and unsmooth communication channels between N community workers and empty nesters.Empty-nesters' low utilization of social support is mainly due to their lack of communication opportunities with the outside world,low utilization awareness of social support and negative life concepts.This study adopts the group work method to build up a communication platform for empty-nesters' peer groups,which promoted their self-identity,improved the sense of mutual assistance and the use of social support and gradually to repair the the supporting network from community,neighborhood and family.This research concluded: firstly,it is necessary to improve empty-nesters' awareness of social support utilization;Secondly,the social support network for empty-nesters need to be considered comprehensively.The innovations of this study include the combination of group activities and out-of-group practices,and the improvement of measurement tools.The overall duration of this study is limited in scope when examined in contrast to the long-term evolution and nature of loneliness.Additional research will be necessary to determine the *long-term* efficacy of social support theory for this demographic.