Research On Family Difficulties And Social Work Intervention Strategies Of Mentally Retarded Children From The Perspective Of Social Support Theory

With the development of China’s economy and the advancement of people’s livelihood,people’s yearning for a better life has become a reality.However,there are still such a group of people,whose lives are still facing multiple difficulties,and they are in urgent need of social support.As a vulnerable group,families of mentally retarded children have also attracted the attention of the academic community in recent years.Most scholars focus on the individual research of mentally retarded children or caregivers of mentally retarded children’s families,and less on the whole family of mentally retarded children.This study is based on the internship organized by Jinan x,taking the social support theory as the theoretical perspective,and based on the analysis of the original literature,taking families of mentally retarded children as the research object,studies the following questions:what are the difficulties of families of mentally retarded children at present?What causes the family plight of mentally retarded children?Strategies of social work intervention in family social support of mentally retarded children?Research has found that families with intellectual disabilities face many difficulties in rehabilitation,including a lack of community rehabilitation,difficulties in accessing rehabilitation services,and difficulties in ensuring rehabilitation outcomes;In terms of education,it mainly faces difficulties such as poor effectiveness of special education and difficulties in participating in integrated education;The main economic difficulties include a decrease in income sources,an increase in expenditure and consumption,limited access to government subsidies,and difficulties in obtaining policy information;In terms of physiology and psychology,families of intellectually disabled children also face many problems;In terms of social participation,families with intellectual disabilities are highly "invisible" and have a strong demand for a friendly environment.From the perspective of social support theory,the reason for the difficulties faced by families with intellectual disabilities is due to insufficient formal and informal support from the family.If there is strong social support,families with intellectual disabilities can face challenges and solve difficulties with a more positive attitude.In terms of formal support,it is mainly reflected in the incomplete government support system,insufficient social support,limited social organization resources,the need to improve the level of rehabilitation institutions,and the need to strengthen school education support;In terms of informal support,the main reasons are weak family support functions,limited support from peer groups,and lack of neighborhood support.The author attempts to propose social work intervention strategies for families of intellectually disabled children from two aspects:formal social support and informal social support.From the perspective of formal social support.social workers can play a role at the following levels:better implementation of policies at the government level,revitalization of communities at the community level,acquisition of more resources for social organizations at the social organization level,reduction of institutional strengthening at the rehabilitation institution level,and strengthening of school admission guarantees at the school level to enhance family social support;From the perspective of informal social support,social workers can play a role in promoting the restoration of family functions at the family level,expanding the scope of peer groups at the peer group level,and mobilizing more neighborhood participation from the neighborhood level to strengthen informal social support.