A New History of Social Work

What can a historical perspective teach us? Pierson argues that taking a ‘social justice’ perspective to history uncovers social work’s past prejudices and examines its relationship to a changing society. The risk is to assume that current attitudes are the ideal and to apply them to the past without properly considering the historical context but Pierson takes a more judicious approach—he’s alive to the prejudices and oppressions of the past whilst acknowledging that our progress to a more socially equitable society still has a long way to go. It’s worth noting that Pierson’s is a history of British social work—there is nothing inevitable about the way the profession has developed in the UK and some comparative case studies from other countries might have been illuminating. Pierson argues that his approach focuses on ‘street level engagement’ between professionals and service users, highlighting common themes between social work in the past and today. He begins in the post-Napoleonic period and the relatively generous provisions of the Poor Law before the 1834 Amendment. Welfare, he argues, was embedded in British society long before the post-1945 welfare state. The early chapters are the most engaging: Pierson uses historical records and case studies to bring these sections alive. Highlights for me were a balanced discussion of the Charity Organisation Society, showing how its often excellent practical and theoretical work was undermined by a rigidly individualistic philosophy of personal responsibility and a fascinating chapter on the womens’ settlement movement from which grew the first formal training courses (because, unlike with mens’ settlements, there were no subsequent career paths for the women to follow). The pioneering course at Liverpool University, established in 1905, faced dilemmas that many educators today will find familiar as—in a later chapter—did the expansion of social work courses at the London School of Economics in the 1950s. Should they be generic? Should they be dominated by a psychiatric approach? There is much to consider and reflect on in these earlier chapters as Pierson discusses the rise of psychoanalytic casework, the ‘mental hygiene’ movement, debates over exactly what sort of ‘guidance’ Child Guidance Clinics ought to offer.

Context (archaeology) · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Individualism · Just society · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Welfare state · History · Law · Social Work Education and Practice · Social Work

• Surface and depth in the Victoria Climbie Inquiry Report

  Open Access•Andrew Cooper•Child & Family Social Work•2005

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