A Brief History of Social Work and Social Welfare

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A Brief History of Social Work and Social Welfare
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Introduction

• The antecedents of social work can be found in
  all the major religions of the world
• Judaism (dates back almost 6,000 years)Tsedakah
  (the ladder of charity)
• Confusianism Mencius I.B.5 (see next)
• Islam In 650, followers of Muhammad informed of
  obligation to support the poor through zakat, or
  purification tax.
• Christianity The Good Samaritan parable
• Catholicism In 1100, in Decretum, states that
  the wealthy have a legal and moral obligation to
  support the poor.

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Confucianism

• Old men without wives, old women without
  husbands, old people without children, young
  people without fathersthese four types of people
  are the most destitute and have no one to turn to
  for help. Whenever King Wen put benevolent
  measures into effect, he always gave them first
  consideration. The Book of Songs says Happy are
  the rich, but have pity on the helpless.
• Confucianism. Mencius. I.B. 5

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• Give the king thy justice, O God,
• And thy righteousness to the royal son!
• May he judge thy people with righteousness, And
  thy poor with justice!
• Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
  and the hills in righteousness!
• May he defend the cause of the poor of the
  people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush
  the oppressor!
• Judaism and Christianity, Psalm 72.1-4

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From Religion to Legislation

• 1601 Elizabethan Poor Laws
• 1795 Speenhamland
• 1834 The new Poor Law established in UK.
  Emphasizes self-reliance and less eligibility.
• 1854 Movement for federal legislation/ funding
  for mental hospitals fails with a presidential
  veto.

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From Religion to Professional Movement

• 1657 The Scots Charitable Society, the first
  U.S. private welfare organization, est. in Boston
• 1853 The Childrens Aid Society established by
  C.L. Brace (orphan trains)
• 1854 Dorothea Dixs movement on behalf of the
  mentally ill fails.
• 1870 Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer) gains
  influence (J.S. Lowell writes her piece in 1890)

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The Beginnings of Social Work

• 1877 Charity Organization Society
• In which friendly visitors exhort the poor to
  live more productive lives.
• 1889 Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr open Hull
  House. Offers classes to immigrant women and
  their children. Focuses on issues in the social
  environment, e.g. sanitation, child labor

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Jane Addams Mary Richmond

• Hull House (emphasizes environmental change)
• Social reform mvt.
• (embodies)
• INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH

• Charity Org. Soc.
• (emphasizes personal change)
• Scientific helping
• (embodies) RESIDUAL APPROACH

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Social Reform and Scientific Helping (helping
person v. shaping environment)

• THESE TWO STREAMS OF THOUGHT AND PRACTICE FORM
  THE BASIS FOR MODERN SOCIAL WORK. UNTIL THE
  ADVENT OF SIGMUND FREUDS WORK EARLY IN THE
  CENTURY, SOCIAL WORK APPEARED TO BE EMBRACING THE
  JANE ADDAMS POV. THIS MODEL HAS BEEN ADOPTED BY
  PUBLIC HEALTH.

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This is the core of social works professional
uniquenes

• Person - in - environment focus
• The social work professions dual consideration
  of the person and the environment in which he
  functions makes it unique among the helping
  professions. We consider not only the private
  trouble, but the public issue.
• Private troubles as public issues
• When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is
  unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for
  its relief we properly look to the character of
  the man, his skills, and his immediate
  opportunities. But when in a nation of 50 million
  employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is
  an issue, and we may not hope to find its
  solution within the range of opportunities open
  to any one individual.
• C. Wright Mills (The Sociological Imagination,
  1959, p. 9)

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What happened to Jane Addams and Mary Richmond?

• Jane Addams went on to form the Womens
  International League for Peace and Freedom (1917)
  and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933.

• Mary Richmond wrote the first social work text,
  Social Diagnosis. She is credited with being
  the first to identify the core (generic) skills
  common to practice across different settings.

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What Makes a Profession a Profession ?
Absolute vs. Relative

• Systematic body of theory
• Specialized skills and training
• Formation of professional associations
• Development of Codes of Ethics

• Full-time occupation
• Commitment to a calling
• Identification with peers
• Service orientation
• Authority restrained by responsibility

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Other Milestones

• 1919 Seventeen Schools of Social Work exist in
  the U.S. and Canada, all teaching psychoanalytic
  theory
• 1920 Women enfranchised
• 1920s Growth of voluntary organizations (e.g.
  YWCA, CWLA, etc.
• 1929 Stock market crashes people lose fortunes
  overnight.
• 1933 New Deal establishes major programs to
  combat poverty
• 1935 THE SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

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Other Milestones (contd)

• 1936 Emboldened by the success of Bill W. and
  AA, American Assn. for the Study of Group Work is
  formed.
• 1950 First licensing of independent social work
  practitioners, in San Diego (KS 1974).
• 1955 National Assn. Of Social Workers
• 1964 War on Poverty Food Stamp Program is
  enacted, Bob Dole is instrumental in this.
• 1996 Personal Work/Responsibility Omnibus
  Reconciliation Act welfare reform)