Conceptions of social workers on helping relationship in Mainland China

Abstract

The helping relationship is considered to be the core of social work practice. Relationship building is one of the inextricable processes in the entire field of social work helping that may highly influence the outcome of an intervention. Therefore, it has often called much attention from academia and practitioners who want to examine its nature and the skills involved. Social work as a newly developed profession in Mainland China, has generally adopted Western social work knowledge and skills and applied them in the local context. Many disparities were identified in the conceptual understanding of the 'relationship'. Local knowledge and practice wisdom pertaining to the helping relationship were rarely found. This study aimed to identify the views of the local social workers on the helping relationship through examining its nature and attributes, the contextual and cultural factors affecting the helping relationship. Qualitative research using in-depth interviews was adopted for the study. Eight social workers from Guangzhou were invited to share their views. It was found that they had similar understandings of the helping relationship with its time-bounded and goal-oriented nature. However, the relationship was more like companionship than a professional relationship. The significant attributes were characterized by providing tangible outcome etc. Various contextual forces apart from the agency and setting differences were unexpectedly found. Apart from this, the influence of Chinese culture inevitably influenced the people’s orientation towards the helping relationship. These forces sometimes facilitate the helping process but usually create barriers for the social workers. These findings draw attention to understanding the social work profession in Mainland China in systemic perspective. It also calls for the need to indigenize the social work knowledge and practice including the redefinition of the helping relationship with the sensitivity of local Chinese culture. It is recommended that the culturally-sensitive as well as contextually-appropriate practice should be adopted.