History of social work
Monasteries also often served as comprehensive social-service agencies, acting as hospitals, homes for the aged, orphanages, travelers' aid stations.
This charity came in the form of direct relief (for example, giving money, food, or other material goods to alleviate a particular need), as opposed to trying to change the root causes of social ills.
As there was no effective bureaucracy below city government that was capable of large-scale charitable activities, the clergy carried out this role in Europe until the Early Modern Period.
[8] It was not until the emergence of industrialization and urbanization that the informal helping systems of the church and family began to be replaced by social welfare services.
Chalmers believed that local communities, organized around parish structures, should take active responsibility for helping and supporting those in need.
Chalmers argued for a decentralized approach to social welfare, emphasizing the role of the church and local communities in caring for their members.
This perspective contributed to a broader understanding of social work as a profession that is not only concerned with material needs but also places significant value on the moral and spiritual well-being of individuals.
This community-oriented perspective highlighted the importance of understanding and addressing the specific needs of local communities, an idea that has persisted in social work practice, emphasizing the significance of culturally competent and contextually relevant interventions.
While Thomas Chalmers may not have directly shaped the formal structure of contemporary social work, his ideas have left an enduring impact on the profession's ethical foundations, community-based practices, and the holistic understanding of well-being.
This galvanised the socially active, prosperous middle and upper classes to search for ways to ameliorate the physical and spiritual conditions of the poor underclasses.
There, Hill advised applicants for assistance, and founded and edited Labour News to improve communication between masters and men seeking work.
She was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment.
She and her assistants, including Emma Cons combined the weekly rent collection with checking every detail of the premises and getting to know the tenants personally, acting as early social workers.
Her colleagues Samuel and Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall, Oxford House[35] in 1884 in Bethnal Green as the first university-sponsored settlement.
A focal point of his commitment was the slum of Whitechapel, in east London, where he helped to establish public libraries for the working class population.
She founded Chicago's Hull House in 1889, which focused on providing education and recreational facilities for European immigrant women and children.
[19] The concept of the Settlement house movement was to bring upper and middle class students into lower-class neighbourhoods, not only to provide education and social aid, but to actually live and work together with their inhabitants.
[34] The movement gave rise to many social policy initiatives and innovative ways of working to improve the conditions of the most excluded members of society.
[38] One important participant in the scheme was the philanthropist Charles Booth who published his study Life and Labour of the People in London in 1889 while working at Toynbee Hall.
For example, he consulted leading nutritionists of the period to discover the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary before people got ill or lost weight.
Rowntree's argument that poverty was the result of low wages went against the traditionally held view that the poor were responsible for their own plight.
In the early 20th century, Mary Richmond of the Charity Organization Society (COS) and Jane Addams of the Settlement House Movement engaged in a public dispute over the optimal approach; whether the problem should be tackled with COS' traditional, scientific method that focused on efficiency and prevention, or whether the Settlement House Movement's immersion into the problem, blurring the lines of practitioner and client, was superior.
On one hand, their discourse reinforced the dualist vision of social roles, considering care work was appropriate with the characteristic women were supposed to have (e.g. softness, empathy, solicitude, love, abnegation, etc.).
[52] This study shows that men were hired as socio-cultural community workers to develop youth activities, especially with teenage boys, while status of women were less prestigious (assistant, social carers or child care workers) and the child care work they were attributed to viewed as not (or less) relevant for the « socio-cultural community work project » of the centres.
[19] The first professional medical social workers to be hired in the United States were Garnet Pelton (6 months) and Ida Cannon (40 years), in 1905 at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
After graduating from Simmons College in 1907, Cabot was in charge of the outpatient ward of the hospital, and together with the newly created social workers, they redefined the way in which health and wellbeing was managed.
While this detracted from the social concerns, it added a more scientific basis to dealing with patients, and challenging behaviours were more likely to be seen as a mental dysfunction than poor moral character.
The principles of classical liberalism were being increasingly challenged by downturns in economic growth, a growing perception of the evils of poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation present within modern industrial cities, and the agitation of organized labour.
[54] A liberal convert to greater government intervention was Thomas Hill Green, who believed that the state should foster and protect the social, political and economic environments in which individuals will have the best chance of acting according to their consciences.
[59] The report proved very popular with a war-weary public, and went on to form the basis to the post-war expansion of the Welfare State and the creation of the National Health Service, a free at the point of delivery healthcare provider.
