| With the development of China’s market economy and the acceleration of the urbanisation process,more young people are moving to big cities one after another,resulting in the emergence of a group of elderly people,namely the "old drifters",who usually choose to move away from their hometown where they have lived for many years after retirement and come to a strange city to join their children and inter-generational parenting.However,due to the weakening of their own psychological perceptions and their inability to adapt to the pace of life in big cities,as well as their children’s busy work and neglect,they may feel lonely,lost and helpless to a certain extent.The "old drifters" are far from their previous social support network and face the dilemma of indifferent interpersonal relationships in a relatively unfamiliar new environment,which inevitably leads to loneliness and helplessness.If not addressed in a timely manner,family stability and social harmony will inevitably be affected in the long run.With the adjustment of China’s birth planning policy,especially after the opening of the third child policy,the size of the "old drifters" group will gradually grow,and the current situation of the "old drifters" living in big cities is widely concerned by society.The current situation of the "old drifters" in big cities has received widespread attention from the society,and the interpersonal difficulties they face have become an important topic of concern and research in the social work field.During my visit to the T community,I found that many of the "old drifters" often felt lonely,indifferent,dull or even meaningless,and had a sense of interpersonal alienation.Through the preliminary interviews,I have learnt that the "old drifters" themselves are aware of the distance between themselves and others and their environment,and that some of them want to connect with society,but they just do not know how to make friends and integrate into their environment as soon as possible.Therefore,this paper places the ’elderly drifters’ in a community context and conducts a social work group intervention by forming a support group for seven ’elderly drifters’ who have a high level of interpersonal alienation.This study is based on the perspective of social support theory,combined with the professional practice of social work,through group work to provide expressive and instrumental support for the "old drifters",as well as formal support from the community and informal support from family members and peer groups,aiming to provide formal and informal support for the "old drifters"."The aim is to build a social support network that combines formal and informal support for the ’old drifters’,so as to effectively reduce their sense of alienation.In this group work,a pre-test and a post-test were used to compare and analyse the changes in the group members.The seven questions of the General Alienation Scale containing the interpersonal alienation section were used to measure the interpersonal alienation level of the group members before and after the group intervention,while the interview records of the author and her family members,the group members themselves,neighbours and community workers were used as supporting information to analyse the changes in the " old drifters The study concludes that the author’s interviews with her family,the group members themselves,neighbours and community workers were used as supporting information to analyse the changes in the "old drifters" and the effectiveness of the group work intervention.The study concludes that the social support theory approach to group work is effective in addressing the interpersonal alienation of the "old drifters".Through this group work,peer networks were established for the group members,and their interpersonal relationships were enhanced,while at the same time connecting them with their families and the community to a certain extent,thus effectively reducing their interpersonal alienation. |
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