Study On The Hidden Brain Drain Of In-service Social Workers From The Perspective Of Social Roles

It has long been the goal of China’s social work profession to build a well-structured and well-qualified team of social work professionals,and the problem of brain drain has long been an obstacle to this goal.The current research suggests that social work brain drain is essentially a state of inability to fulfil role obligations,and that this role state exists before the actual brain drain,i.e.the act of leaving,and also has a significant impact on the effectiveness of social work services,but receives relatively less attention than the phenomenon of social work brain drain judged by actual leaving.However,in the interests of the clients,it is equally important to address the brain drain of these social workers,and to prevent the occurrence of actual turnover at a lower cost.Based on the social role theory,which provides a specific analysis of role status in terms of social role obligations and role rights,this research focuses on the role obligations and role rights of social workers and follows a case study approach to investigate and analyse the hidden social work brain drain problem.The investigation process mainly used semi-structured interviews to collect the information needed for the study,and to analyse the role states of social workers in the multiple role interactions between the government and agencies,agencies and social workers,and social workers and clients,from which the main causes of the hidden talent drain in social work were identified.This is essentially a conflict between the ideal role,the perceived role and the actual content of the role,and proposes countermeasures to address the problem by concretizing role supervision,institutionalizing role rights and interests and guiding role mobility.