Social Work Support For Mentally Handicapped Young People’s Family Caregivers

There is no effective treatment for mental retardation which is almost alife-long condition. This means that retarded people need constant andlong-term care. The total number of retarded people in China has reached13million, including a large proportion of adolescents, which is one fifth of all theretarded and handicapped people. The caregivers of mentally retardedadolescents are confronted with all kinds of pressures and difficulties. However,the welfare security policy in China is still developing, which is unable toprovide sufficient support for the family with retarded people.This paper starting from the perspective of social support network. Byadopting a qualitative method and interviewing19families with retardedadolescents in Street G, District Y, Guangzhou, the researcher was able to gainthe information concerning their life conditions and their ways of using socialsupport to cope with a variety of pressure and difficulties encountered. Sixfamilies were carefully selected and professional social service was provided toexamine the existing social supporting network and explore the socialintervention and support for those mentally handicapped young people andtheir family. Some suggestions concerning the service policy will be putforward after the practical attempt to construct an effective social supportnetwork.Research shows that the caregivers of the retarded adolescents have theneed to relieve their pressure and to deal with their emotional problems. They need to be respected. They also need support in learning teaching methods,nursing skills and obtaining information, resources and professional service.This paper will explore the official social support, must official social support,unofficial social support and professional social support obtained by thecaregivers to cope with a variety of needs and difficulties, as well as analyzethe imbalance between the need of the caregivers and the social supportnetwork. With reference to the domestic and foreign policies and serviceexperiences, several suggestions will be given according to the practical needsof the caregivers of the retarded adolescents. The policies of special educationneed improving. The investment in health care and rehabilitation traininginstitution is still insufficient. A system that provides the financial, professionalsupport and multivariate job mutual participation model for the families withretarded people should be established. Innovative forms of social serviceshould be created with constant supervision to construct a proper social supportnetwork for the families in need.