Abstract: Through the case investigation of the women’s mutual savings fund project in Y Village of W County, Jiangxi Province, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the effect of anti-poverty practice in the developmental social work. The findings show that the developmental social work does play a unique role in the anti-poverty practice of Y Village of W County, and this role of poverty alleviation is not short-term, but sustainable. The experience of Y Village shows that, in order to achieve sustainable development, the poverty alleviation projects should be guided by self-development and self-enabling, pay attention to the cultivation and empowerment of farmers’ cooperative organizations and cooperative economic projects, and form an endogenous driving force for development. In addition, for the anti-poverty social work faced with various resource constraints, it is vital to strengthen the development of localized social worker teams, innovate the project operation modes, focus on projects, localization and participatory development, and reduce the costs of project operation and services. Besides, some deficiencies in the existing practice have been found, such as the neglection of the positioning of social work in the rural poverty alleviation and development system, the imperfection of governance mechanism in the community cooperative economy, and the shortage of providing direct services to the poverty households, etc., which are to be improved.

Key words: countryside; anti-poverty; developmental social work