Social Work In Australia History
. Yet there has been little analysis of the historical literature on social work and social workers in Australia. The effect of this has been to ignore social activists particularly women who pre-date professional social work and religious women in the few social welfare histories written about Australia.
Social work is a profession that began its life as a call to help the poor the destitute and the disenfranchised of a rapidly changing social order. Other Universities followed suit and courses were established at University of Melbourne. Australian social work lacks a reading of its history that places it within the social reforms and movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries unlike histories of American and British social work.
Without such a system in place assumptions and generalisation about professional social work in Australia cannot be confidently grounded.
Social work historians in the schools of social work working in close collaboration with other historians and with archivists to develop a national system of social work archives and historical research. The first trained social worker in Australia was Miss Agnes McIntyre who came from St Thomas Hospital London in 1929 to take up the role of hospital almoner at the Melbourne Hospital later the Royal Melbourne Hospital. The Council on Social Work Education was formed in 1952. History of social work From assisting discharged prisoners at the prison gates back in 1883 through to the network of life-changing social services we run todayour Australian story is one of empowering people strengthening communities and bringing hope to those that find themselves in.
