It was also inspired by the settlement movement, which emerged in England during the 1880s and in France at the turn of the century. However, social work was not exclusively the successor of charitable relief.
The COS proved appealing abroad: it took root in the United States, while in France the public assistance congresses held from 1889 onward praised the COS’s method as a tool for modernizing charity. Members of the COS were the first to use the term “social work” and “social workers” to refer to such investigators.
The investigation had to evaluate the needs and morality of potential “clients” and conclude whether they deserved the relief being sought. The Charity Organisation Society (COS), which was born in England in 1869, advocated inquiries for families requesting material relief in order to distinguish between the “good” and the “bad” poor.
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Two types of female figures are the “ancestors” of social workers: the sisters of religious congregations devoted to an apostolic mission, and charitable ladies of the upper class, who used their free time to visit poor families.ĭuring the last decades of the nineteenth century, philanthropic reformers wondered how to organize charity with more “rational” and “scientific” means of action. They offered both material relief and moral advice to poor families, thereby marking the beginnings of social work. Many charitable organizations flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was seen as a source of suffering but also as a potential trigger for political revolts on the part of workers. In the industrialized societies of Germany, England, and France, the misery of the working classes raised concerns among the elite. Social work has its roots in the philanthropic movement of the nineteenth century.