Peer Emotional Support Intervention For Left-behind Children In Resettlement Sites

In order to smoothly carry out the task of poverty alleviation,the government has implemented a relocation policy for poverty alleviation in areas with fragile ecological environment,poor living conditions and underdeveloped economic development.Since the country launched the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" in 2015,the country has completed the relocation of more than 9.6 million poor people.The follow-up support work for the relocation of poverty alleviation and relocation after 2019 mainly focuses on improving the supporting facilities in the resettlement area,carrying out industrial cultivation,carrying out employment assistance,and carrying out community governance,etc.,and insufficient attention is paid to the psychological and emotional needs of the resettlers in the resettlement area.Scholars’ research mostly focuses on the impact of relocation on the lifestyle and psychological conditions of immigrants.The destruction of the original social support network leads to immigrants’ maladaptation to the new environment and more problems in their new life.However,the left-behind children in the resettlement sites face the problem of insufficient emotional support due to the immature physical and mental development,the change of the external environment,the lack of family supervision and the lack of social support.Providing emotional support for left-behind children in resettlement sites to meet their needs for communication and companionship has an important impact on their physical and mental health.The main source of children’s emotional support is their parents,but since most of the parents in resettlement sites go out to work,there are fewer ways for them to get emotional support from their parents.Peer groups can provide supplementary emotional support when the left-behind children in the resettlement site face insufficient family emotional support.At the same time,communication with peer groups can promote the physical and mental development of children,and help left-behind children in immigration resettlement learn to obtain emotional support through peer groups,which has practical value.Based on the summer growth camp project of "Caring for the Left-behind,Growing Together" at resettlement site B,this article understands the true needs of left-behind children in resettlement sites through semi-structured interviews and field observations,and conducts peer group emotional support group activities.The purpose of the group activity is to meet the emotional needs of the left-behind children in the resettlement site for communication and companionship through the emotional support of the peer group,and to help them better adapt to the life of the resettlement site.It mainly carried out six group activities for in-depth understanding of emotional needs,cognition of the role of peer group emotional support,construction of peer group network,in-depth communication and interaction of peer group network members,peer group companion support,and peer group emotional support function enhancement.Through group activities,help group members to establish a peer group emotional support network,group members learn how to build friendship with others,and are willing to communicate with peer groups.However,because different group members are familiar with each other at different levels,the group members have different feelings about getting emotional support.For group members who are more introverted,social workers should encourage them to obtain emotional support from their peers during group activities.Based on this project,it is proposed that professional forces should actively intervene in care services for left-behind children in resettlement points and establish multi-level care services for left-behind children in resettlement points.