Help Others Help Themselves Or Help Each Other

The concept of helping people in China's social work has been built up by the consensus concept of "helping people to help themselves",and even people who have some understanding of social work can express the basic meaning of "helping people to help themselves".However,the idea that originated from the Western cultural context and the logic of social operation in this lifetime has not been accepted by the local people when it was transplanted into the practice field of social work in China,which has caused confusion and obstacles for the local social workers to carry out the service of helping people,forcing us to re-examine the tension between the concept of helping people and self-help in social work and the local practice situation.The existing research has made a meaningful discussion on the concept of social work from the perspective of methodology and practice paradigm.It mainly focuses on the manifestation of the concept of helping people in social work,that is,how to play the function of helping people to effectively respond to social needs.Unfortunately,these studies are not sensitive to the reflective perspective of social work practice.Therefore,based on the micro perspective of social work practice,this paper explores the dilemma of social work practice "helping people to help themselves" and the choice and reconstruction of the concept of helping people on this basis,in order to build the concept of social work helping people in line with China's social and historical and cultural texture.The research object of this paper is the first-line social workers who have practical experience.Through in-depth interview,it presents their practical perception and Reflection on social work.On this basis,it puts forward "mutual assistance" as the practical concept and operation mode of social work in China to respond to the localization of social work in China.It is found that social workers can not practice the concept of "helping others and self-help" in the local practice scenario.The institutional environment,institutional orientation,and the dilemma of specialization have jointly shaped the dilemma of "helping people" but not "self-help".The concept of "mutual assistance" is gestated in the more ancient Chinese historical and cultural context and practical logic.The concept of "mutual aid" has two basic aspects: on theone hand,to establish a mutual aid community as a direct carrier connecting the individual(family)and social environment,to integrate multiple subjects and multiple relationships within the community,so as to respond to the individual's social problems in the "social structure" and stimulate the individual's(family's)ability to respond to the social environment;on the other hand,by building the social workers' own ability,we can To stimulate the professional enthusiasm of social workers,so that they can find the value of social workers.