International Social Work, Ahead of Print.
This study explores improvements in psychological resilience among rural left-behind children in China through social services provided by social organisations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with leaders and social workers from 15 social organisations. The results revealed that left-behind children’s academic adaptation improved significantly. However, there were cases of failure to enhance physiological and psychological adaptation. This study provides guidelines for policymakers to formulate targeted support policies, for social organisations to assess their service quality and for service providers to change their role to collaborators, thereby jointly helping rural left-behind children improve their psychological resilience.