Social work as a theory-driven profession
If we think about the central tasks of social work as supporting individuals, families and communities through difficulties and safeguarding vulnerable people of all ages from harm, it is difficult to imagine any historical society without something akin to social workers. People helped others long before anything like a state, as we now know it, emerged. But there is much speculation and debate about when and where social work began to be an organised response with specific objectives beyond the basic human need to help others. Doel (2012) explains that social work is a modern profession with its roots in antiquity, and has both reformist and radical roots. Its role in mediating between the state and the individual is highly contested (Parton, 1996/2000). The nature of social work is not fixed; people view it differently and their views alter over time (Oko, 2011) and are influenced by geographical, cultural and historical contexts. It is therefore no wonder that social work has evolved from and continues to embrace many different theories:
social work is an age old phenomenon. The seeds of the origin of social work could be traced from global ideologies which include humanism, rationalism, welfarism, liberalism, democracy, secularism and utilitarianism. (Thomas, 2010, Preface)
What we now consider social work practice traces its roots to the Industrial Revolution. Whilst the Industrial Revolution sparked huge leaps in technological and scientific advancements, the great migrations to urban areas throughout the Western world led to increased social problems and in turn social activism (see Chapter 3). In England, the 1834 Victorian Poor Laws established workhouses where destitute people could work in harsh conditions in return for shelter and food. The workhouse system ignited debates about the deserving/undeserving nature of poverty and the success or otherwise of offering universal relief. Public opinion vacillated between contempt and sympathy for the poor, and Victorian philanthropists emerged to set up charities to help people experiencing hardship and poverty. The relationship between charit-able relief and workhouse support was ill-defined, and led to concerns about whether support fostered dependency which perpetuated poverty. In 1869, the government published a policy statement (the Goschen Minute) on the ‘necessity for co-operation between the London Boards of Guardians [who managed Poor Law relief and workhouse provision] and London charities’ (The Spectator, 1869). This statement delineated the support available to poor people, emphasising that the Guardians were to assist only the ‘totally destitute’, whilst charities could provide help before people reached this point. It also instructed both Guardians and charities to record and list assistance being provided to people in order to prevent overlap.
From the mid-19th century onwards, various Christian societies organised the visiting of poor people – sometimes weekly – in a practice known as district, or household, visiting. Visiting was a voluntary, religiously motivated practice based on the belief – or theory – that destitution could be alleviated through spiritual welfare.
The simple doctrine that informed district visiting for much of its history was that impoverished and benighted souls could be saved by the agency of another human being, who cared enough about them to be interested in their survival and spiritual well-being. (Prochaska, 2006, pp. 66–7)
Visits included Christian discussion and practical support in the form of clothes, blankets and food. Prochaska (2006) argues this practice of district visiting was the forerunner of the social casework model developed by the Charity Organisation Societies (COS), founded in England in 1869 (Wilson et al., 2011). The casework approach was first developed by Mrs Ellen Ranyard through the Bible & Domestic Female Mission in Glasgow in 1857, whose working-class women voluntarily visited poor people. Members of the COS adopted this approach and termed it a form of scientific casework or ‘scientific charity’, so as to separate out the ‘undeserving’ from the ‘deserving’ poor. Theoretically speaking, casework was established to determine whether or not impoverished people deserved support, and if so, what form this should take. However, whilst the COS had given social work a structured approach in both the UK and USA, American educational reformer Abraham Flexner, writing in 1915, challenged its professional status, arguing that it lacked a teachable method, specialist skills, knowledge or theory (Gitterman, 2014).
Visiting was ultimately superseded by state social services funded through compulsory taxation following the Beveridge Report (1942) and the Second World War (1939–44). The birth of the British welfare state in the post-war period extended people’s rights to social services and created further demand for social work. In his work on Christianity and social service in modern Britain, Prochaska (2006) suggests religion and secularism competed on how best to provide social care, with the former arguing for voluntary support based on religious values and the latter on compulsory contributions and collectivist state-provided services. However, it can be argued that theory was incorporated into social work functions on a relatively ad hoc basis, given that there was no statutory requirement for social workers to have specific training until the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 and the creation of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW).
In the 1970s CCETSW began to establish social work as an academic discipline. Social work education drew – and continues to draw – from theories associ...
