History of social work

1. History of the Social Work
Profession
Western context

2. The Various Approaches that
Evolved
• Organised and Scientific Charity
• Clinical Social Work
• Ecological Social Work
• Radical Social Work
• Feminist Social Work
• Anti Oppressive Practice
• Decolonizing SW

3. The Beginnings
B.C.
• Babylonia – King Hamurabi’s code of justice
• In Israel, the Jewish people are told that God expects them to
help the poor and disadvantaged.
• 500: Philanthropy, from the Greek word for “acts of love for
mankind,” is institutionalized in the Greek city-states. Citizens
are encouraged to donate money, which is used for the public
good. Parks are built, and food, clothing, and others goods are
kept in public facilities to be used for those in need.

4. • A.D.
313: Christianity is legalized by the Roman Emperor Constantine.
The more affluent converts can donate funds openly, and the
Church is able to use these funds to care for the poor.

5. • 650: The followers of the Prophet Muhammad are told they
have an obligation to the poor and that paying a zakat
(“purification”) tax to care for the poor is one of the Five
Pillars (obligatory duties) of Islam.
• 1084: Almshouses for the poor and handicapped, similar to
the hospitals in France, are established in Canterbury, England

6. • 1100: The Roman Church issues the Decretum, a compilation
of its canon law, which includes an elaborate discussion of the
theory and practice of charity. It states that the rich have a
legal and moral obligation to support the poor.
• 1348: The social system of feudalism begins to break down,
partly because of bubonic plague, which kills nearly one-third
of the population of Europe. Without the protection of the
barons and lords, the serfs and peasants are at the mercy of
economic and military threats.

7. Statutes - Laws
• 1531: England’s first statute dealing with poor relief is
issued. It empowers local justices to license certain
people (the aged and handicapped) to beg in their own
neighborhoods, and to give harsh punishment to any
unlicensed beggars. To implement this law, the justices
had to develop criteria and procedures for deciding
which person to license. Thus, each applicant had to be
evaluated by representatives of the justices.

8. • 1536: The Henrician Poor Law, also known
as the Act for the Punishment of Sturdy
Vagabonds and Beggars, is established. The
government of Henry VIII classifies different
types of poor and establishes procedures for
collecting voluntary donations and disbursing
these funds to the poor. The law requires that
these procedures be carried out at the local
rather than the national level. It also
acknowledges that the state rather than the
Church or volunteers must play some role in
caring for the poor.

9. • 1572: England can no longer depend on
voluntary contributions to care for its poor.
A national tax, the Parish Poor Rate, is
levied to cover these costs. This is
accompanied by a register of persons
needing relief. It also recognizes that not
all able-bodied poor people are lazy.
Funds left over from poor relief are used to
create jobs for the able bodied.

10. • 1601: The Elizabethan Poor Law is established.
Built on the experiments of the earlier Henrician
Poor Law (1536) and the Parish Poor Rate (1572),
this legislation becomes the major codification of
dealing with the poor in colonial America. The Poor
Law keeps the administration of poor relief at the
local level, taxes people in each parish to pay for
their own poor, establishes apprentice programs
for poor children, develops workhouses for
dependent people, and deals harshly and
punitively with able-bodied poor people.

11. Movements and Contributions
• 1845: As a result of the social movement led by
Dorothea Dix, the first state asylum for the mentally ill is
established in Trenton, New Jersey. Soon her efforts
convince many other states to build mental hospitals.
• 1848: Feminists from throughout the United States
convene at Seneca Falls, New York to declare the foal of
equal rights for women and to establish the philosophy
and objectives of the women’s movement, including
suffrage, equal opportunities in education and jobs, and
legal rights.

12. Dorothea Dix- 1802 - 1887

13. • Dorothea Dix - Teacher
• Author of children’s books
• Humanitarian
• Went to East Cambridge jail to teach
women who were incarcerated.

14. Octavia Hill (1838 – 1912)
"Where a man persistently refuses to exert himself,
external help is worse than useless."

15. Octavia Hill 1838 - 1912 - ‘Back to the Future’
• Social Reformer
• Forerunner of Housing, Community Health, and Social Work
professions.
• Environmental Campaigner and founder of the National Trust
• Real joined up thinking
• The person was the focus
• Outcomes for the person were the
objectives

16. Charity Organization Societies
• 1869: In London the first Charity Organization Society is
established. Formally named the “Society for Organising
Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity,” the society
works to coordinate efforts at fundraising and to disburse
funds in a systematic fashion. Volunteers are recruited to
befriend applicants for assistance, make individual
assessments of the reasons for their poverty, and help
correct those reasons.

17. • 1874: Members of private charity organizations, religious
agencies, and public officials from several northeastern
states begin meetings to discuss their mutual concerns.
These meetings lead to the establishment of the National
Conference of Charities and Corrections (later named
the National Conference on Social Welfare).
• 1877: Using the London organization s his model, the
Reverend S. Humphreys Gurteen establishes America’s
first Charity Organization Society (COS) in Buffalo, New
York. Volunteer workers dispense advice rather than
money to the poor and information about them to
philanthropists and private relief agencies.

18. Settlement Houses
• 1889: In Chicago, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr
open Hull house, which becomes one of the most
influential social settlement houses in the United States.
• 1890: The Consumer’s League is established in England
and, later, in the United States. Its purpose is to fight for
better conditions in the work environment and safer
products for the public.

19. Beginnings of Social Work
Education
• 1894: Amos G. Warner’s American Charities-the first
U.S. social welfare textbook is published.
• 1898: The first school for social workers is established.
The New York School of Philanthropy (later to become
the Columbia University School of Social Work) grows
out of a series of summer workshops and training
programs for volunteers and friendly visitors and offers a
one-year educational program. Faculty member and
COS administrator Mary E. Richmond publishes Friendly
Visiting Among the Poor.

20. • End of 19th
Century – 3 parallel Institutional developments
• Development of Social Sciences as Academic
Disciplinarians
• National Conference on charities and corrections
• Establishment of privately sponsored women’s colleges
• 1897 – At the National conference on Charities and
Corrections, Mary Richmond made a plea for a training
school in philanthropy

21. 1898 - New York COS established the first School of
Social Work
‘Summer School of Philanthropic Work’
Began as a six weeks summer school
Later on called the Columbia University of Social Work.
1899 - First full scale school of social work called Institute for
Social
Work Training, Amsterdam
- Turn of the century- shift from charity – welfare
Friendly visitors – social workers
Philanthropy – social work
1910 – Professional social work, programmes were firmly
established in several European and North American
Countries

22. • 1911: Great Britain passes the National Insurance Act,
which organizes a health and compensation program
paid for by contributions from workers, employers, and
the public.
• Several organizations whose purpose is to improve
social conditions for black Americans living in cities
merge, to become the National Urban League.
• 1912: The U.S. Children’s Bureau is created, headed by
social worker and former Hull House resident Julia
Lathrop.
• 1913: The U.S. Department of Labor is created, primarily
to promote the welfare of American workers; the U.S.
Department of Commerce is established.

23. • 1915: In an address to the National Conference on
Social Welfare, Abraham Flexner declares that social
work has not yet qualified as a profession, especially
because its members do not have a great deal if
individual responsibility and because it still lacks a
written body of knowledge and educationally
communicable techniques.
• Abraham Flexner – (1866-1959) – American Educator –
published a critical assessment of the state of the
American Educational System

24. • 1917: Mary Richmond publishes Social Diagnosis. Social
workers use her book as a primary text and as an
answer to Flexner.
• The first organization for social workers is established.
The National Social Workers Exchange exists primarily
to process applicants for social work jobs. Later the
group becomes the American Association of Social
Workers (AASW).

25. • Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts,
establishes the first training program for psychiatric
social workers.
• 1919: The 17 schools of social work that exist in the
United States and Canada form the Association of
Training Schools for Professional Social Work to develop
uniform standards of training and professional education.
This group is later renamed the American Association of
Schools of Social Work (AASSW), eventually becoming
the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE0.
• Social workers employed in schools organize as the
National Association of Visiting Teachers.

26. • The Charity Organization Societies (COS) become
oriented increasingly toward helping families. Many local
societies change their names to Family Welfare Agency.
The National Alliance for Organizing Charity is renamed
the American Assocaition for Organizing Family Social
Work. By 1946 this organization is known as the Family
Service America (FSA) in 1983.
• 1920 The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) is
formed. The National Conference of Catholic Charities is
established. The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S
Constitution gives women the right to vote.

27. • 1923: Clara Kaiser begins teaching the first social work
course in social group work at Western Reserve
University in Cleveland.
• The Tufts Report on social work education is completed
(Education and Training for Social Work, by James H.
Tufts), formally delineating the components necessary to
provide adequate education for social workers. The
report recommends training students in bringing about
improvements in society as well as in individuals.

28. • 1935: The U.S. Social Security Act is signed into law. It
includes a workers’ retirement insurance program and
coverage for dependent survivors and disabled workers.
The act also establishes a federal welfare program that
helps states pay for and administer programs in Old Age
Assistance, Aid to the Blind, Aid to Dependent Children,
and General Assistance for needy people who do not
qualify for other forms of help.

29. • 1939: The Lane Report (The Field of Community
Organization, by Robert P. Lane) presents a systematic
and comprehensive description of the roles, activities,
and methods in the field of community organization. The
work built on previous studies by Eduard C. Lindeman in
his 1921 book, The Community, and Jesse F. Steiner’s
1930 book, Community Organization.
• 1940: Mary Parker Follett’s posthumous book Dynamic
Administration is published; it becomes an influence in
the field of social welfare administration.

30. • 1942: The Beveridge Report is issued in Great Britain,
recommending an integrated social security system that
attempts to ensure cradle-to-grave economic protections
for its citizens. Many of the report’s recommendations go
into effect after World War II.

31. • In social casework, the so-called “diagnostic” and
“functional” schools begin to merge and lose their
separate identities.
• The functional school had been oriented toward a highly
focused, goal-oriented approach to casework
intervention. The diagnostic school had been influenced
by Freudian theory, but adherents of this approach
develop more of a psychosocial orientation in the 1950s.

32. ECOLOGICAL SOCIAL WORK
HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF ORIGIN
• Till 1960s clinical paradigm continued to dominate
the profession
• Post 1960s – focus on social justice issues
• Western ideologies – criticised on account of
being linear and atomistic
• Since 1970s – systems model of
conceptualisation
• Move towards an ecological orientation to practice
that was integrated, holistic, synthesis oriented

33. Radical Social Work
• Critical theory and post structuralist orientations
• Particularly in the neoliberal scenario the
profession has taken differential shapes – faced
with various structural and institutional
challenges coupled cumulatively with western
ideas, philosophies and practices.