Foundation of Social Work
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Date
2019
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Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Ilorin
Abstract
Europe and America have a long history of formalisation of help and E institutionalisation of social social welfare. Many organisations were formed to champion this course. These organisations were predominantly popular especially in England during the formalisation of the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601. Other events that impacted the formalisation of help and welfarism are the Industrial and French revolutions, the First World War and America's 'Great Depression' in the 1930s. The huge successes of the various programmes aimed at alleviating and ameliorating the suffering of people of those periods paid more attention to the establishment of a standardised welfarism profession. This gradually led to the emergence of many social welfare workers who desired to be more proactive and productive by providing a wide range of services that were not just restricted to social welfare. Subsequently, humanitarian workers such as Mary Richmond and Jane Addams emerged. Jane Addams was interested in social welfare and how states had failed in discharging their duties of provision of social amenities to all and sundry. This assumption fuelled the development of social case work by Mary Richmond who believed that social problems stem from an individual problem(s) and as such, individual's needs must be prioritised. This subsequently led to her unique method called 'social case work'. Consequently, the idea of treating a personal problem as a unique rather than a collective problem inspired the profession to integrate social case work into social welfare. The integration of social welfare with social case work thereafter metamorphosed into the development of Social Work as a discipline and profession today (Watts & Hodgson, 2019). This chapter therefore, looks at the concept of Social Work, functions of Social Work, principles of Social Work, intervention process in Social Work, relationship between Social Work and other disciplines, fields or specialisations in Social Work and finally, theories in Social Work.