Study On Elderly Group Work In Nursing Homes From The Perspective Of Group Dynamics

With the fast expanding tendency of China's aging population, the elderly population has growing rapidly and became an increasingly large group. At the same time, the intensification of empty-nested phenomenon has weaken family support for the elderly, a growing number of elderly people have to count on institution support,and many of them choosing nursing homes. However, current residential care services are limited to meet the basic physiological needs of the elderly, there is still an imbalance between their services and the higher level of spiritual needs of the elderly,which endanger the life quality of those elderly. So, some institutions began to introduce social work to improve their level of service, and “W” nursing home is one of them. The elderly people in nursing homes have their unique characteristics in psychological, physiological and social relations, compared with those who live with family and community, which made the social work in nursing homes different from the general social work for the elderly, and it is more complex and difficult.This study studies on a long-term chorus group in “W”, and conducted its group work practice and relative research from the perspective of Group Dynamics Theory.The study adopted the methods of participant observation, questionnaires research and interviews to collected its information. By changing the activity design and controlling the dynamic factors, the group dynamic operation mode of the old chorus group is changed, which made a communication-lacking, interaction-lacking, member-losing and even dying interests studying group turned into a self-determination and cohesive chorus team. The practice has also made certain achievements in the professionalism improving of group work and meet the higher demand of its members, which played a greater value out of the group work method.The complex dynamic changes are the basis of group work, and this study is aimed to explore the dynamic factors and operation mechanism of this process. The results show that: firstly, institutional will change the lifestyles of the elderly, and bring them special psychological feelings and demands, which requires unique group work skills.Secondly, responsing to different levels of demand will make the group work practice adifferent level of effect. Thirdly, this study analyses the group dynamics in group work of nursing homes, including the sources of group dynamics, the stages of group dynamics development, positive and negative impacts of group dynamics in group work,main factors affecting group dynamics and so on. And at last, it also puts forward some suggestions on the ways of communication and interaction, site setting and activity and prop designing in group work of nursing homes, based on the practical experience.Hoping this study can help to improve the quality of group work in nursing homes, play out greater value of group work, make up for the inadequacy of the services in nursing homes, and conduct better services for the elderly in nursing homes.