The prospects of judicial social work for incapacitated older adults: Evidence on how Chinese social workers may contribute

Abstract

With the increasing aging of the Chinese population, the issue of safeguarding the welfare of older adults has emerged in social governance. Currently, the primary strategy to address this issue is the guardianship system, which is plagued with various challenges in judicial practice. Through two consecutive and contingent studies, for the first time, this research investigated the status quo of China's guardianship disputes involving older adult wards, analysed the missing role of social workers during the civil litigation process of these disputes, and identified the subtypes of disputes to which judicial social work could contribute. In the first study, 12 members of a district court of Shanghai who have dealt with such disputes were interviewed to explore the potential roles of social workers. Findings highlight the prospects of social workers serving as assessors and conveners during court hearings, supervisors and moderators after the court hearing, and facilitators and carers throughout the litigation process. In the second study, 16 cases of guardianship disputes involving incapacitated older adult wards were extracted from this court through systematic sampling and processed with crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis. Findings reveal the types of cases in which social workers should intervene. This article advocates for involving professionally trained social workers in China's civil court setting to safeguard incapacitated older adults' welfare further.