A History of the Roles and Responsibilities of Social Workers

From the Poor Laws to the Present Day

Mike Burt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367264703
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000071382
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Tracing the origin of work with the 'impotent poor' under the Poor Laws, to social workers' current responsibilities towards vulnerable people, this book introduces the reader to the way in which the identification of particular social problems at the end of the nineteenth century led to the emergence of a wide range of separate occupational groups and voluntary workers, which were sometimes, but increasingly, referred to as social workers.

Using an extended single chronological historical narrative and analysis, which draws heavily on original archival sources and contemporary literature, it addresses the changes which took place as part of the welfare state and the identification of common roles and responsibilities by social workers, which led to the formation of the British Association of Social Workers in 1970. The expansion of roles and responsibilities in social services departments and voluntary societies is analysed, and their significance for the development of social work is evaluated.

By highlighting the changes and continuities in these roles and responsibilities, this book will be of interest to all academics, students, and practitioners working within social work, who wish to know more about the origins of their discipline and the current state of the profession today.

1 History and social work

The historiography of social work

There has been limited study of the history of social work either by historians of welfare or by writers within the profession, an issue referred to by Rodney Lowe when he pointed to the neglect of the development of the personal social services by welfare historians.¹ More specifically, Jane Lewis observed that the part played by the family in the welfare state had not been the subject of much historical study.² Within the profession Margaret Lloyd and Carolyn Taylor suggested that ‘[s]ocial work is notoriously poor at developing a sense of its own history’.³ Reflecting on their own substantial involvement in the development of social work, Noel Timms regretted that social workers had shown little interest in their own history, and Olive Stevenson suggested that there had been limited reflection on historical developments in child welfare.⁴ Writing from a European perspective, Walter Lorenz argued that

[s]ocial work is notoriously poor at developing a sense of its own history. It is as if we were too embarrassed to look seriously at our history, afraid of the disorder we might find, too eager to distance ourselves from the pre-professional beginnings. Only when we engage in open minded, critical historical research can we hope to find meaning in this confusing diversity, to define our place in the diversity of histories with which we are interwoven.⁵

Since the above observations were made, some general histories of social work have been written.⁶ They are organised to provide an overview of policy and practice with different client groups, legislation, organisational structures, social and political ideologies, and the development of professionalisation. A common theme is that social work reached a peak in its development in the early 1970s and has been in decline since then. Moreover, they emphasise its origins in the voluntary social work carried out in a wide range of societies from the end of the nineteenth century. This was similarly the start for an earlier text by Ronald Walton who wrote in detail about the historical role of women in social work, including reference to women as relieving officers, factory inspectors, and government inspectors of boarding-out.⁷ In focusing on women in social work, Walton briefly acknowledged that earlier occupations relevant to the origins of social work mostly involved men in roles which exercised authority and control, for example, the work of relieving officers, school attendance officers, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) inspectors, and probation officers, had not formed part of his study.⁸ Indeed, Karen Lyons has recently suggested that this earlier ‘statutory’ strand of work has been largely omitted from histories of social work.⁹

The historical narrative mode of writing

The historical narrative form of writing is widely used by historians and emphasises the importance of documentary sources. Ann Rigney explained the method as ‘the representation of a set of chronologically and logically connected events’, and argued that ‘the basic underlying narrative structure of showing how one situation developed into another continues to inform historiographical practice across the board’.¹⁰ Although the chapters and sections follow a chronological sequence, the focus of sections within chapters varies. They address what are considered to be significant dimensions of each period, including as Peter Burke has suggested ‘structure – institutions, modes of thought and so on – whether these structures act as a brake on events or as an accelerator’.¹¹

As well as describing significant events it is necessary to include analysis of what happened. In an established primer, John Tosh drew attention to the importance of alternating between narrative and analytical modes of writing, ‘sometimes in alternating sections, sometimes more completely fused throughout the text’.¹² Similarly, William Sewell Jr asserted that

to narrate an event meaningfully, the historian must not only recount happenings in time, but must break from narration – that is to temporarily suspend time in order to analyse, in a synchronic discursive mode, the skein of relationships that define the nature and potentialities of the objects and persons about which a story may be told.¹³

Archival sources are central to historical narrative writing and are widely used in this text. However, a number of issues arise in their use. On the one hand they enable a researcher to access material produced at the time events took place, while on the other hand they are a selective, incomplete, and therefore potentially misleading record of what took place. In relation to public records, which provide the examples in this book, Tosh suggested that ‘reliability is hardly an issue, for the records are studied not as reports (of events) but as parts of a process… which is itself the subject of enquiry’.¹⁴ He further advised that to counteract problems arising from the selection of material as wide a range of sources as possible should be used.¹⁵ In using local authority committee minutes to research the roles and responsibilities of social workers, a particular issue comes to the fore. Those which have been accessed focus primarily on issues relating to buildings, individual personnel, and items of expenditure with little discussion of the work carried out by social work and social care staff other than in broader statements of policy. Where relevant information is included it is often found in reports of senior officers to those committees. Pat Starkey has addressed the issues involved in carrying out archival research in social work.¹⁶

Having acquired a substantial knowledge of the subject and period of study from as wide a range of sources as possible, the qualities of a historian come to the fore in their interpretation of the material. Tosh asserted that

the historian has to be able to perceive the relatedness of events and to abstract from the mountains of detail those patterns that make best sense of the past: patterns of cause and effect, patterns of periodization … patterns of groupings.¹⁷

He further suggested that the historian should engage in a process of using imagination to interpret the significance of events in relation to their social, economic, and political context and to a broad range of documentation.¹⁸

History, theory, and archival research

Historians have discussed the relationship of their field of study to other social science disciplines. Advocating an active engagement of historians and social scientists in supporting developments in which they have a common interest, Sewell Jr contrasted the field of social science ‘which aims to establish general laws or at least valid generalizations (and are) defined by their theories and formal methodologies’ with history, which ‘is more informally (but no less effectively) defined by its careful use of archival or “primary” sources, its insistence on meticulously accurate chronology, and its mastery of narrative’.¹⁹ Burke envisaged a more cautious approach, acknowledging an overlap and suggesting that empiricists and theorists were two ends of a spectrum rather than two close-knit groups. Nevertheless, he posited that ‘historians, like ethnographers offer reminders of the complexity and variety of human experience and institutions which theories inevitably simplify … [w]hat theories can do … is suggest new questions for historians to ask about “their” period’.²⁰ Similarly, Sally Sheard concluded that whereas sociological research worked towards establishing a particular focus, historical analysis was most useful for the way in which it identified divergent views and interpretations.²¹

Most studies of the history of social work make limited direct reference to archive material. Exceptions include: Walton’s Women in Social Work; Robin Means and Randall Smith’s study of the development of services for older people which included material relevant to staffing; Means et al.’s history of community care for older people which was based on the records of four local authorities, the authors expressing surprise that more use had not been made of similar material; and David Burnham’s account of social workers’ reflections throughout the twentieth century on their work, in the context of changes in social policy and social work practice.²² Harry Ferguson’s history of child protection drew heavily on the archive of the NSPCC and argued that it could be understood with reference to theory about ‘modernity’.²³ Of particular significance is Andrew Sackville’s series of papers which brought to life the archives of former representative bodies of social workers and which are available in the online archive of the Social Work History Network.²⁴

Where professional historians have written historical accounts of social work, they have chosen to write about the history of v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Focus and structure
• 1. History and social work
• 2. Social problems in the Tudor and early modern periods
• 3. Relieving officers and charitable societies, 1834–1890
• 4. Developing specialised roles and responsibilities, 1890–1914
• 5. Expanding the roles and responsibilities of social workers, 1914–1939
• 6. Social work during the Second World War and the introduction of the Welfare State, 1939–1950
• 7. Reviewing social work roles and responsibilities in the Welfare State, 1950–1963
• 8. Exploring social work roles, 1963–1974
• 9. Consolidating the responsibilities of social workers in social services departments, 1974–1989
• 10. Managing social workers, 1989–1997
• 11. Reviewing the roles and responsibilities of social workers
• Bibliography
• Index