Group Work Research On The Construction Of Mutual Aid Network For The Elderly Living Alone In Rural Areas

In recent years,driven by the urbanization process,a large number of young and middle-aged labor in rural China have been competing to move to the cities,due to various factors,many elderly people have to live alone and become "left-behind" elderly people living alone in rural areas.The problem of old-age care for the elderly living alone in rural areas has become a major problem that cannot be ignored,and mutual assistance for the elderly is a useful way to solve the problem.How to achieve mutual assistance for the elderly living alone in rural areas? The key lies in the construction of a mutual aid pension network.Therefore,it is of great significance to study the construction of mutual aid pension network for the elderly living alone in rural areas.Taking Q Village in Dingxi City as an example,this paper takes the young elderly living alone as the research object,takes the social support theory and activity theory as the guide,and uses the interview method,questionnaire method and group social work method to explore the construction of the mutual aid elderly network for the young elderly living alone in rural areas.It is found that the young elderly living alone in Q village face some life problems,mainly unstable economic resources,lack of children’s companionship,loneliness,and small and single social communication scope,which are due to the limitation of resources in rural areas,insufficient mental support of children and biased cognitive concepts.In addition,when the needs of the elderly living alone were assessed,it was found that their needs were specifically manifested in three aspects: material life security,spiritual comfort and social communication.According to the previous investigation of the actual situation of the young elderly living alone,the "Helping the Elderly,Happy Sunset" mutual aid support group was established in Q Village,focusing on cultivating the mutual aid awareness of group members,establishing a mutual aid network and consolidating the mutual aid system,and carried out six group activities in the form of games,sharing stories,watching videos,etc.Through the activities,it was found that group social work had a significant effect on the construction of mutual aid network for the young elderly living alone,which was mainly reflected in the improvement of the interpersonal skills of the group members(8 young elderly people living alone),the expansion of the scope of interpersonal communication and the strengthening of mutual aid awareness.Of course,there are still shortcomings in this study,mainly because the continuity of the mutual aid network of the elderly living alone is difficult to guarantee,which needs to be continued to be studied and resolved.