Professor Gertrude Wilson contributed significantly to the establishment of social group work within social work in the United States. Through national research and numerous publications, Professor Wilson was able to demonstrate and describe the relationship between group work and case work. She demonstrated that they draw upon many of the same basic concepts from the behavioral sciences as well as from socio-psychological sources; and that there were key common skills. She argued that group work was a process through which group life was influenced by a worker who directed the process toward the accomplishment of a social goal conceived in a democratic philosophy
Continue Reading »Search Results for: settlement movement
Educational Alliance
“Educational Alliance: A History of a Lower East Side Settlement House,” by EJ Sampson. “The Educational Alliance…balanced the growing professionalization of settlement house work by becoming community-based, and kept its emphasis on encouraging public civic culture even as in other ways it aligned with a social service “agency” model. And it kept it eyes on its Jewish origins not only in its neighborhood work, but in negotiating its internal ethos. “
Continue Reading »The New Deal: Part II
The public’s acceptance of New Deal programs and services initiated by President Roosevelt in his first term was to a large extent a result of the pain and fear caused by the Great Depression. How bad the conditions were is worth remembering, since this is a means of gauging the enormous pressure for significant changes in government policy. One of the worst thing about the 1929 depression was its length of time. Men who had been sturdy and self-respecting workers can take unemployment without flinching for a few weeks, a few months, even if they have to see their families suffer; but it is quite different after a year, two years, three years. Among the miserable creatures curled up on park benches, selling apples on the street corner or standing in dreary lines before soup kitchens in 1932 were white men who had been jobless since the end of 1929. This traumatic experience marked millions of people for the rest of their lives, and made them security conscious.
Continue Reading »What is Professional Social Work? (1923)
Social work does not consist of maintaining any social activity which has become standard and permanent. Social workers are continually originating certain activities and vindicating them and making them standard and permanent but after they have reached that stage they are not rated as social work. At one point kindergartens which are now a regular part of our educational system were promoted and maintained as social work. Some activities that are more or less permanent and standardized in regard to their procedure such as the relief work of old family welfare societies are nevertheless exceptional activities because the circumstances of the different individuals require and receive special treatment in each case. Even relief giving may pass out of the realm of social work if it is put on the basis of flat pensions and paid for out of taxation, as in the case of soldier’s pensions; or if pensions are given as a part of a fixed policy of a big corporation toward its employees, there is no reason to class the administration of these pensions as social work.
Continue Reading »State Boards of Charity: Early History
History of State Boards (1863 – 1891) Report of Committee at the Twentieth Annual Session of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in 1893 Committee Members: Oscar Craig, New York; W. F. Slocum, Jr., Colorado; Herbert A. Forrest, Michigan; Samuel G. Smith, Minnesota; M. D. Follett, Ohio. Ed. Note: This entry was condensed…
Continue Reading »National Conference of Charities and Corrections: Social Progress from Its Beginnings
The Relation of the National Conference Of Charities and Correction to the Progress of the Past Twenty Years (1873-1893) By Hastings H. Hart, President Editor’s note: Hastings H. Hart was at the time Secretary of the Minnesota State Board of Corrections and Charities. At this twentieth meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Correction we…
Continue Reading »Lutheran Social Services of Michigan
This entry was copied with permission from the book “This Far By Love: The Amazing Story of Lutheran Social Services of Michigan” by Nancy Manser. Motivated to serve others as an expression of the love of Christ, Lutheran Social Services of Michigan continues today to help those in need regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or national origin.
Continue Reading »Taft, Jessie
Jessie Taft (1882 – 1960): Social Worker, Advocate for Women, Academic and Founder of the Functional School of Social Work By John E. Hansan, Ph.D. Introduction: Julia Jessie Taft was born on June 24, 1882 in Dubuque, Iowa, the oldest of three sisters. Her parents were Charles Chester Taft and Amanda May Farwell who during…
Continue Reading »African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church
Written by Michael Barga. “The vision of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church has remained consistent throughout its existence and is a strongly social and service-oriented spiritual community.”
Continue Reading »Berry, Margaret E.
Her leadership years at both NFS and NCSW came at the time when social welfare organizations faced some of their most profound challenges, in particular surrounding the relationship of race and civil rights to welfare and social work. Berry also served on the U.S. Committee of the International Conference of Social Work from 1972 to 1979 and again from 1987 to 1990.
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