Editorial

In recent years, the significance of social support and care in our daily lives has become increasingly evident in promoting mental health and well-being. Social support, including emotional, informational, and practical assistance and care from family, friends, peers, and community networks, acts as a critical buffer against the challenges and difficulties of modern life. Previous studies have shown that individuals with strong social networks tend to exhibit less violence and aggression and have better mental health outcomes (Harandi et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2022), highlighting the crucial role of social connections in fostering resilience and psychological well-being.

Emergent trends in social support for social service users, such as low-income families, single parents, substance misusers, and social work practitioners, reflect innovative approaches to address their unique challenges and promote well-being across various domains of life. For instance, there is an increasing emphasis on holistic support systems that integrate financial assistance with access to education, healthcare, and community resources for low-income families. Additionally, there is a growing focus on community-based interventions and peer support groups, which leverage the power of shared experiences to foster empathy and mutual support.

Promoting social support and care requires a multifaceted approach that encompasses individual, community, and societal levels. At the policy level, there is a need for greater investment in intervention programmes that prioritise social support as a core component of social and health care. Despite the importance of a comprehensive approach to social support systems, there is still a dearth of literature addressing innovative social support for social service users and self-care for social workers.

The six articles featured in this issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development underline social support and care for problematic online gamblers, hospice care, family support for adults with childhood institutional care experiences, social support for new mothers, financial support for single-parent families, and social workers’ self-care.

Kim et al. (2024) explored the recovery of problematic online gamblers in South Korea. The findings indicated four forms of difficulties problematic gamblers faced in recovery: 1) prevalent conditions of online gambling, 2) the dilemma of access blocking, 3) anonymity’s role in enabling secret relapses, and 4) constant temptation from betting companies. They also identified four forms of recovery strategies: 1) access blocking, 2) transparent online access, 3) temptation blocking, and 4) traditional recovery strategies. In conclusion, the finding showed that problematic online gamblers’ difficulties and recovery strategies are different from those experienced by offline gamblers. Thus, social, professional, and spiritual supports are necessary for the recovery.

Li (2024) conducted an exploratory study to analyse patients’ needs for hospice care, challenges and ethical dilemmas faced by hospice care, and to seek strategies for helping terminal patients in China. Li’s study employed a qualitative approach with 58 older adults and 32 hospice staff, suggesting that the accessibility, availability, acceptability, and effectiveness of hospice care services should be improved from multiple dimensions, such as policy support, service supply, social atmosphere, and individual participation.

The sense of family belonging is a critical protective factor in promoting mental health and well-being. A study conducted by Pasli and Aslantürk (2024) assessed the sense of family belonging of 313 adults with institutional care experience in childhood. The findings indicated that the participants with childhood institutional care experience who are male, married, highly educated, and employed are more likely to report a sense of family belonging compared to their female, unmarried, less educated, and unemployed counterparts. Additionally, family belonging is significantly associated with factors including reason for being taken into institutional care, exposure to abuse and its type, people with whom they live after the institution, medical/psychiatric support status, and whether there is a person to provide support. Social service practitioners and policymakers working with adults with childhood institutional care experience should consider the importance of family belonging and related factors in institutional care, and social support for their health and well-being.

Further, social support for new mothers and single parents is pivotal for their economic and mental health well-being. He et al. (2024) developed and implemented a series of group social work interventions with pre-, post-, and three months follow-up tests for new mothers to evaluate the effectiveness of this practice pattern and maternal social support. A total of 84 new mothers in the intervention group and 38 in the comparison group completed the post-intervention assessment. This study reported a significant increase in total maternal social support in three dimensions (informational, emotional, and instrumental) immediately after the intervention. Informational and total social support increased significantly over time without group effects, thus contributing to social work practice by promoting post-partum women’s social support, especially for informational support.

Similarly, Lin and Lai (2024) examined the financial support differences between single-parent families and two-parent families with children using data from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure for the years 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2019 in Taiwan. This study indicates an increased financial gap between two-parent and single-parent families. Taiwan’s general redistributive policy has aimed to reduce poverty for all families, but it more favourably impacts single-parent families. The findings address the importance of policy implications to promote single-parent families’ financial independence and well-being.

In addition to the studies on support and services for service users, research on social workers’ emotional labour and their self-care is essential for their well-being.

Jian et al. (2024) conducted a scoping review to assess the effectiveness of self-care interventions to enhance social workers’ mental health and well-being in Mainland China. Among 2233 relevant studies retrieved, no study met the inclusion criteria, resulting in an ‘empty review’ (Bercier & Maynard, 2015). The current state of research calls for widespread dissemination and efforts in addressing and implementing self-care interventions for Chinese social workers to enhance their mental health and well-being.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jungup Lee

Dr. Jungup Lee is an Associate Professor of the Department of Social Work at the National University of Singapore and a Co-Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development. Her research interests lie in youth mental health, digital well-being, cyberbullying, online sexual harms, and human-computer interactions in social service and healthcare.