#confession: i think social work has a horrible past (present)

Written on October 5, 2011 by amanda in What I'm Reading

as i read about the history of social work (namely, james leiby’s 1978 history of social welfare and social work), i am having a very hard time being accepting of the way things were done. while i recognize that this is me taking for granted what is considered “common sense” these days, i still find it hard to accept many of the ideas (e.g. social darwinism, denying assistance to people just because they’re not from the neighborhood, the criminalization of poverty, etc.) that were commonplace during times such as the 17th-19th centuries. and then i remember: many people still believe a lot of this stuff today. case in point: the tea party.

but i REALLY don’t know what to do with stuff like this:

and i thought human auctions were just about race...

i mean, i’m glad we’ve “officially” moved beyond this as a body of social workers, but damn…

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Ichoosethesun

Hey lady! Welcome back
Re: the history of social work, yes I agree our past is pretty disconcerting. As a trainer in Child Welfare, we talk a lot about the Case of Mary Ellen (the first documented report of child abuse/neglect) and how such cases were treated prior to 1874. The really disheartening part is that although we have come along way, we still have some pretty archaic policies and procedures on the books that in many cases do more harm than good.

http://www.amandamichellejones.com Amanda Michelle Jones

hey to you, too!
i hope i really am “back”; all this reading is getting to me… nice to know some folks are looking for me, lol!

but yeah, social work definitely still has a long way to go. at least now i have the background as to why some of our current policies are what they are.