Social work in China in the past 30 years has been characterized by several points：focusing on education，a growing emphasis on practice and an immature scientific foundation. After this exploration road，the building and development of basic theory of social work will move toward a new perspective for the construction of social work science and theory.

This article aims to explain：Firstly，it discuss the meaningfulness of building basic theory of social work. It also points out that the lack of basic theory of social work is unfavourable for the construction and development of China’s social work science，practice and education，which are the three pillars for social work profession.Thus，we need to fill this gap as soon as possible；Secondly，it introduces seven foundations of social work theory；It emphasizes on the reflection to the standardization and methods of social work intervention；Thirdly，it generally analyzes the types and approaches of social work theory in western countries. By introducing basic theory of social work，it lays a foundation for the construction and development basic theory of social work in China.