The year 2024 marks a critical juncture for the development and transformation of social work in China. The Party and the state have set forth new requirements and expectations for the high-quality development of social work. The academic community has actively embraced its contemporary mission by focusing on key areas such as the construction of an independent knowledge system for Chinese social work, Party-led society work and institutions and mechanisms building, as well as the development of social work organizations and talent cultivation. These efforts aim to explore new directions for the high-quality development of both the discipline and the profession. Grounded in the realities of Chinese social work practice, scholars have conducted research based on interventions in grassroots governance, medical and health services, elderly and child welfare programs, and philanthropic sectors, thereby achieving practice-oriented knowledge production. To further advance the high-quality development of social work, it is imperative to continue building an independent knowledge system, strengthen interdisciplinary research integrating digital intelligence technologies with social work, and effectively articulate the “Chinese stories” of social work on the international stage.

As social work continues to develop in China, particularly with the establishment of the Society Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, macro social work is increasingly demonstrating its significant value. Macro social work emphasizes a holistic perspective and intervention in social issues, focusing on social structural problems and adopting a comprehensive approach that aligns with the professional advancement of social work and the social transformation in this country. Based on the in-depth analysis of local context, it is evident that county-level social work serves as a crucial pathway for macro social work in China, and plays a vital role in the overall development of China’s social work in the new stage. Guided by the theory of macro social work, county-level social work needs to insist on principles that including being goal-oriented, guided by planning, integrated with specific characteristics, focused on promoting practice, and enhancing capabilities. It is also crucial to establish a system mechanism to foster the high-quality development of social work in China.

With the comprehensive promotion of China’s rural revitalization strategy, rural endogenous motivation has become the key to the implementation of this strategy, especially with the rapid rollout of social work stations in mountainous counties, those increasingly “hollowing out” remote villages are facing dual vulnerability in population and region. In this way, the tapping of endogenous power in remote villages has become an urgent challenge for rural revitalization. Although the western new endogenous development model has noted the necessity of combining endogenous and exogenous factors, it does not provide a clear explanation of how to combine the two. Therefore, it is necessary to study the production process of endogenous power in remote villages assisted by social work stations in mountainous counties, in order to find out the practical path and theoretical basis of rural revitalization. Through a one-year case study of social work stations in two townships in County D of Quanzhou City, it is found that remote villages face the dual vulnerability of the population and the region at the same time, and that their endogenous power production relies on the construction of “population-region” double-layer internal and external promotion mechanism. That is, the introduction of social forces in the process of assisting disadvantaged people to enhance mutual internal and external promotion, thereby revitalizing regional resources and expanding the mechanism of internal and external mutual reinforcement of people at the regional level. This shows that the production of endogenous power needs to go beyond the philosophical perspective of internal/external dichotomy, and consider human beings as the subject of action with self-consciousness and capable of driving internal/external mutual reinforcement, so as to produce sustainable endogenous power.

This study explores the dual orientations of social work research. The technical approach emphasizes the professionalism and autonomous authority of social work, while the artistic approach highlights the fluidity of knowledge, reflexivity, and the context-specific manifestation of professionalism. As Chinese social work transitions from localization to a stage of local self-awareness, it is crucial to delve deeper into the core aspects of localization. Positioning “ethical practice” at the forefront of research, with an emphasis on the ethical spirit behind practitioners, may serve as a new point of growth in this process. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Cang County, this study examines county-level social work organizations and their actors, revealing key manifestations of ethical practice: relational organizational ecology, localized project operations, and on-the-ground service delivery. Furthermore, it explores the structuring of the ethical spirit underlying these practices. As these ethical practices become institutionalized, they help shape the organizational ecology, preserving certain professional traits and generating a “switchman effect” that influences the trajectory of professional development.

Social work, as a vital tool for the Party and the government to achieve social governance, is particularly significant in the development of county-level regions. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research and interpretation on the development of social work in county regions. This study examines the development of social work within the context of county-level governance. From a leadership attention perspective, this research constructs an analytical framework centered on the interaction between the subjects and objects of leadership attention. Through an exhaustive analysis of the development of social work in City T spanning over a decade, this research discovers that the concentration of leadership attention can expedite the transformation of social worker cohorts from instrumental associations founded on rational calculation to communal affiliations based on professional emotional recognition. At the theoretical stratum, this research advocates the incorporation of the perspectives of leadership attention and professional communities when dissecting the development of social work and the exploration of the interactive shaping mechanism between them. At the practical tier, this research proffers that the development of social work ought to heed the distribution of leadership attention by county governments and, via the apportionment of policy support and financial resources, construct professional communities within the county to foster the in-depth advancement of social work.

The positive role of evidence-based social work in promoting the effectiveness of social work, facilitating the professionalization of social work, and bridging the gap between theory and practice makes it a possible strategy for achieving “good practice” in social work. However, evidence-based social work, which emerged in Western societies, has both value and limitations in Chinese practice. This paper discusses the development of evidence-based social work in China by sorting out and analyzing the value and limitations of evidence-based social work in the exploration of local practice in China, and discusses the development of evidence-based social work in China from the perspective of the Western experience of developing evidence-based social work education, building an evidence review system, creating an evidence repository, and establishing a system for the dissemination of evidence, as well as from the perspective of the construction of a local knowledge system in the context of Chinese practice. The development of evidence-based social work in China should not only focus on learning from the experience of institutionalizing and building evidence in Western evidence-based social work, reflecting its scientific nature, but also focus on programmatic research that is consistent with China’s social construction and social governance, reflecting the intrinsic characteristics of evidence-based social work in China.

Human capital has a significant impact on the turnover intention of social workers. Educational human capital has a significant direct positive impact, skilled human capital has a significant direct negative impact, while the impact of healthy human capital is not significant, indicating that there are type differences in the impact of human capital. Both educational human capital and skill human capital indirectly affect the turnover intention of social workers through the mediation of job satisfaction, indicating the complexity of the impact path of human capital. There is a certain degree of intergenerational difference in the impact of educational human capital and skill human capital on the turnover intention of social workers, indicating that the impact of human capital is intergenerational. It is necessary to take relevant measures based on the specific mechanisms and effects of human capital on the turnover intention of social workers, in order to reduce their turnover intention.

Using structured interviews, this study learns the underlying causes of emotional neglect among families of ten rural left-behind children in W village of Linzhou city, Henan Province. The results reveal that left-behind children’s family emotional deficits are manifested in four aspects: repressed emotions, behavioral problems, incorrect perceptions and poor social skills. Based on the social ecosystem theory and utilizing the Satir model of family therapy and interaction, the research team has carried out three phases of group work in seven sessions to remodel the family emotions of left-behind children. Results suggest that group work has a significant catalytic effect on improving left-behind children’s family emotions. Interventions on both the left-behind children and their environmental systems can help to alleviate the negative impact of parental absence. In addition, fostering effective family communication can promote healthier parent-child relationship.

With the rapid development of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, urban communities in China are facing the dual dilemma of lagging governance model and low governance efficiency. The community ’s “intelligent governance” model has become an effective way to solve these dilemmas by integrating advanced digital technology and intelligent management methods to achieve efficient and accurate governance of community affairs. Through government guidance, market assistance and social participation, the community of Jiunanhai County in Guangzhou has built a system of intelligent security, intelligent fire protection and intelligent medical care, and realized the intelligent transformation of old communities. Based on the concept, mechanism and mode of “intelligent governance” in the community of Jiunanhai County, this paper constructs a theoretical model of multi-governance, and puts forward that strengthening scientific and technological support, promoting multi-governance and ensuring residents’ dominance are the practical paths to realize “intelligent governance” in the community.

Based on the 2020 Chinese Family Panel Survey (CFPS) data, latent class analysis is used to identify the types of inter-generational support in urban and rural families, and OLS regression is used to analyze the impacts of inter-generational support types on the depression of urban and rural adolescents. It is found that: there is a significant difference in the depression levels between urban and rural adolescents, the depression level of rural adolescents is higher than that of urban adolescents, especially reflecting in hard work, happiness, joy and sadness factors; there is no significant difference in the depression levels between rural left-behind adolescents and non-left-behind adolescents; there are two types of inter-generational support in urban and rural families, named as “alienation and weak function” (35.17%) and “intimity and strong function” (64.83%); there is no significant difference in the types of inter-generational support between urban and rural teenagers, rural left-behind adolescents and non-left-behind adolescents; the types of inter-generational support only have a significant impact on the depression of rural adolescents, inter-generational support of “alienation and weak function” has an inhibitory effect, while inter-generational support of “intimity and strong function” has an enhancement effect, especially reflecting in low mood and hard life factors; there is obvious difference in the impacts of inter-generational support types on the depression between rural left-behind adolescents and non-left-behind adolescents, inter-generational support of “alienation and weak function” has an inhibitory effect on the depression of rural left-behind adolescents, while inter-generational support of “intimity and strong function” has an inhibitory effect on the depression of rural non-left-behind adolescents, especially reflecting in low mood, hard work and sadness factors.