In 2023, social work has made significant progress in institutionalization, and is facing new opportunities and challenges. Social work academics have been actively responding to the needs of the national strategy and have accumulated a large number of research results around the localization of social work theories, development of disciplines, institutionalization, assisting in rural revitalization, promoting the “Five-elements Linkage in Community”, caring for old and young, developing medical social workers, data and evidence, and education. In order to further promote the high-quality development of social work, academics need to actively promote the construction of the three major systems of social work and strengthen the production of knowledge for practice; promote the digital transformation of social work to cope with the new challenges of the digital society; and make efforts to build a pattern of high-quality development of social work education and cultivate high-quality social work professionals.

Research on the post-traumatic growth of stigmatized groups has been limited by investigating only on single influencing factors, lacking a systematic theoretical framework. This has hindered the development of evidence-based health social work interventions in this area. To address this gap, we conducted a scoping review based on the social determinants of health theory. We identified 114 high-quality papers from databases such as Knowledge and Web of Science. Our findings revealed five categories of influences that affect post-traumatic growth in stigmatized groups, namely socio-cultural background, family and neighborhood community environment, access to resources, nature of the traumatic event, and personality traits and cognitive processes. The framework of psychosocial determinants of post-traumatic growth of stigmatized groups, developed in this study, can provide a foundation for theoretical research and practice in the field of health social work.

With the restoration and development of medical social work in mainland China, stakeholders including healthcare professionals, patients, and their families have developed certain shared expectations regarding the roles of medical social workers, which facilitated the foundation for cross-professional collaboration. However, medical social workers continue to encounter challenges within interdisciplinary teams, mainly due to a lack of consensus on their roles, along with a lack of external support and intrinsic professional development in role practices. The present study consists of a questionnaire survey in Shanghai, Hubei and Guangdong in 2023 (the first step) and an analysis of annual reports of six hospitals in a city in 2022 (the second step). It is found that the practice development of cross-professional collaboration in medical social work requires overcoming both extrinsic obstacles and intrinsic deficiencies. The professional development of medical social work itself is regarded as the cornerstone of cross-professional collaboration, and the endogenous path to break through the bottleneck involves the production of institutionalized knowledge and the independent development of clinical technology.

With the increasing incidence of gynecologic cancer, a growing number of survivors are confronting the challenges of post-treatment life as cancer survivors. This study delves into the shifts in the life trajectories of gynecologic cancer survivors, especially in terms of marital and reproductive decisions. Employing qualitative research methods, the study spanned from November 2022 to June 2023, recruiting respondents through online purposive and snowball sampling. Data were gathered via online semi-structured in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that gynecologic cancer, as a major life event, places dual pressures on survivors’ marriage and parenting decisions: health challenges and social role expectations. Notably, unmarried or childless young survivors faced crucial decisions during critical life stages, intensifying the nexus between illness and choices regarding marriage and parenting, profoundly altering their life trajectories. Nevertheless, gynecological cancer survivors exhibited remarkable autonomy in navigating marital and reproductive decisions. They redefine these choices, prioritizing individual physical and psychological needs over societal conventions. In this context, gynecologic cancer survivors’ active coping not only reflects their autonomy in marriage and parenthood decision-making, but is also key to reshaping their biography. The study emphasizes the necessity for comprehensive, long-term support services in health social work. These services are crucial in alleviating the tension between illness and marital choices, aiding survivors in negotiating the complexities of medical and marital decision-making.

Retention intention is an important factor affecting the stability of medical social work personnel. Based on the data of the 2019 China Social Work Dynamic Survey (CSWLS), we investigated the retention intention of 216 medical social workers in China to explore the influence of job autonomy and job support of the medical system on retention intention. The study found that job autonomy and job support of the medical system have a significant positive impact on the retention intention of medical social workers. Additionally, the job support of the medical system has a complete mediating effect on the relationship between job autonomy and retention intention of medical social workers. It is suggested to enhance the willingness of medical social workers to stay on the job, enhance the stability of medical social workers, and promote the sustainable development of medical social work from two aspects: clarifying the division of responsibilities of medical social workers, enhancing professional autonomy, strengthening cross-professional and interdisciplinary cooperation and communication, and building a close support network of medical team.

Common prosperity, as an important issue and goal in the new development stage, plays a decisive role in promoting economic and social development and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The connotation of common prosperity is the improvement of the overall living standards of the entire population and comprehensive common development of the entire region. To achieve common prosperity, we need to give full play to the regulating role of the three distribution mechanisms. The third distribution is a distribution mode dominated by social forces, in which social work, as a component of social forces, plays a great role. The internal logic of social work to help realize the third distribution is that it has the historical homology, value compatibility, belief commonality and function matching with the third distribution mechanism. Based on this, social work can contribute to the third distribution by helping individuals to change their difficulties, empowering community building and governance, promoting social collective culture, and leveraging functions of professionals, so as to promote high-quality and efficient co-construction and sharing of development results.

This paper takes a social work organization in city A in Hainan province as an example to explore how social workers as emotional workers, create a positive work experience by dividing boundaries. The study found that social workers often use the strategy of “deep performance” to break down boundaries and establish intimate relationships with clients to construct professional identity. In the field of social work organizations, social workers unite to form an emotional community, and adpot a clear boundary approach to deal with excessive administrative intervention. In their interactions with local government and their agencies, social workers perform surface performances to maintain the balance of their work within blurred boundaries. This paper argues that “emotional labor” should be incorporated into the boundary production strategy of social organizations and attention should be paid to the emotional strategies and their deep logic when social organizations cross different boundaries.

Based an empirical case in Hainan Province, this study explores the application and effectiveness of the multi-sided platform governance model in public health emergencies. Using EFA and PCA, a quantitative evaluation and ranking for the governance effectiveness of the multi-sided platform model in controlling the epidemic in 18 cities and counties in Hainan Province is conducted, based on an index evaluation system of four dimensions: information communication efficiency, resource integration capability, collaborative action capability, and actual governance outcomes. With MRA, the study selects social participation as the dependent variable and analyzes the effects of multiple common factors on epidemic prevention and control, such as economic support, social mobilization support, medical assistance support, and information technology support. The research shows that the multi-sided platform model has significant advantages in dealing with public health emergencies, as it can enhance information sharing, improve resource allocation efficiency in the public domain, achieve refined and intelligent social governance, stimulate innovation, and enhance public service levels.

This field investigation has revealed that although vulnerable children are guaranteed certain welfare rights, there are still such as insufficient basic living security for scattered children in need, limited policy coverage for medical assistance, uneven development of rehabilitation support, and unbalanced support for educational assistance. The primary obstacle to realizing the welfare rights of urban children in distress is the poverty of welfare rights, which is manifested in the low degree of realization of welfare rights, the obstruction of the implementation of welfare policies, and the lack of stable legal protection of welfare rights. To address the poverty of welfare rights, a social security system should be established from the perspective of “poverty alleviation” based on the principle of equal value and the goal of meeting children’s needs. The division of labor and cooperation of multiple welfare supply entities should be based on the realization of children’s welfare rights. Furthermore, it also calls for an evaluation standard that effectively guarantees the realization of the welfare rights of vulnerable children through a universal welfare system.