Professionalism Of Social Work Stations From The Perspective Of Embeddedness

Since the reform and opening up,with the gradual advancement of the omnipotent statist model towards the realization of the goal of modernizing the national governance system and governance capacity,the social space in Chinese society that is coerced by state power has gradually been released.With the transfer of social space and the increasing diversification of people’s service needs,social work has received national attention and continued to develop due to its natural fit with the goals of national governance and its unique values ??and working methods.In this context,social work stations are gradually promoted nationwide as a new attempt to innovate grassroots governance methods,improve governance capabilities,and meet the needs of grassroots public services.Jiangxi Province has followed the pace and started the construction of township social work stations.Vigorously building and developing social work stations has already become a consensus.However,with the rapid development of township social work stations,the construction and use of social work stations also encountered many difficulties.First and foremost is the limited functioning of the social work station caused by the non-peer-to-peer interaction with the administrative system.It is mainly reflected in practice that some social work stations undertake too many administrative tasks and their professional functions are weakened.The submerged professionalism,which is the lifeline of social work,may result in the deprivation of the uniqueness of social work services,thus becoming administrative vassals.Therefore,analyzing and clarifying the inter-embedded state of the two parties plays a crucial role in promoting the transformation of social work stations and the delivery of public services.Based on embedded theory and resource dependence theory,this paper selects social work station X in Jiangxi Province as a case study object,and discusses the interaction process between the social work station and the administrative system under the two-way embedded state of the social work station and the administrative system through interviews and participatory observation methods.And the resulting weakening of social work station functions.The study found that the social work station X and its corresponding administrative system are indeed a two-way embedded relationship.Input and administrative downlink realize the de-embedding of the social work station.In this process,the two obviously form a non-equivalent two-way embedded relationship,which makes the social work station X in the dilemma of weakening professionalism in practice.This article calls it Weak professionalism of social work stations.Through the analysis,it is found that the administrative system makes the social worker stand in a state of weakened professionalism at the three levels of normative,scientific and effective by regulating the use of resources,affecting the structure of employees of the social work station,and compressing the service time.The poor standardization of social work stations is reflected in the lack of complete and specific policy norms as the institutional guarantee for the operation and development of social work stations;the low scientificity is reflected in the lack of theoretical support for practitioners’ professional services;the lack of effectiveness is reflected in the fact that social work professional services are used by tools in practice.The tendency to change is obvious,whether individual cases,groups or community services are obviously insufficient,the service goals and value orientations of social work have deviates,and they have become tools for social work stations to survive and the administrative system to perform political achievements.Finally,the process of resource exchange between the two parties is analyzed through the resource dependence theory,and it is found that the reason for the formation of non-equivalent embedding is that the resources given to the social work station by the administrative system are the key resources for the survival and development of the social work station,and the substitutability is weak.The services delivered by the system are not the key resources of the administrative system and have strong substitutes,and the administrative system has the absolute right to speak on the allocation of resources.Based on the above,this paper believes that it is more successful for social work to actively seek to be embedded in the administrative system and brings great opportunities for the development of social work.The promotion of social work nationwide is the best proof.However,it is inevitable for the two to run in and collide in the interactive process of embedding and de-embedding,which also brings great challenges to the development of social work stations.Therefore,seeking the healthy development of the social work station and the positive interaction between the two requires the joint efforts of both parties.From the perspective of the social work station,facing the administrative system’s control of key resources,it is necessary to relax the pattern and actively coordinate while expanding the funds obtained.At the same time,we should pay attention to the training of the social work station’s own professionalism and the professional value of social work,and improve the irreplaceability of resources such as services.As far as the administrative system is concerned,on the one hand,it is necessary to improve and perfect relevant policies and systems,and on the other hand,it is necessary to continuously release the space for rights,reduce the administrative control and administrative downturn of the social work station,release the service space and time of the social work station,and introduce professional third parties.The evaluation realizes the rational management of the key resources for the development of social work stations,and the benign supervision of social work stations to promote the professional development of social work stations and the positive interaction between the two.