Social welfare systems and policy frameworks

Social Work and Welfare

The Charity Organization Society (COS), established in 1869, has had a profound influence on social work by way of its support and codification of budding techniques. This, along with its spotlight on the family, and upon a scientific advance offered a key basis for the progress of social work as profession. The Charity Organization Society came into existence in large part as a reaction to the opposition and overlap taking place between the diverse charities and agencies in a lot of parts of Britain and Ireland. The universal lack of collaboration between associations not only led to repetition, it also entailed what was seen at the time as haphazard giving. Not enough comprehensive consideration was given to looking at the issues and needs of possible clients (Smith, 2002).

Mary Ellen Richmond was a pioneer of professional social work and a vital part of women's history in the United States. She worked with families and their social troubles, as well as did research, providing important information into how charity developed into social work. She effectively fashioned a model for social casework, which today is known as case management, and the advance now referred to in the social work field as person-in-environment viewpoint. Mary Ellen Richmond started her social work career with the Charity Organization Society (COS) of Baltimore which permitted her the occasion to work inside her neighborhood to raise money for the work of the COS. Later on, Richmond worked as the Director of the Charity Organization Department for the Russell Sage Foundation where she endorsed the institutionalization of social work with support of philanthropies (Szymoniak, n.d.).

The Settlement House Movement, which was begun by Jane Addams was a division of the national Progressive Era reform movement. It extended quickly to a lot of industrial urban areas. Addams's Hull House, which was positioned in an immigrant neighborhood of the city with awful living circumstances, provided many women with the occasion to serve the underprivileged area and reform circumstances there. Environmental reforms became a significant part of their work, but settlement houses also planned kindergartens for immigrant kids; offered classes on ethnic society and art; and gave immigrants a place to gather, visit, bathe, and get health care (Settlement House Movement, 2011).

Addams included a large amount of environmental reforms in her program for Hull House. One of the most prominent incorporated her labors to address the unhealthful heaps of garbage in immigrant areas because of a lack of public interest. The mayor of Chicago ultimately appointed Addams garbage inspector for her region a job that she took very seriously. Addams managed garbage collectors and took violators of garbage policies to court. Even though Addams and her associates frequently started reforms, the immigrants had a dynamic role as well, helping in knowledge gathering and its communication to their neighbors (Settlement House Movement, 2011).