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11 Int'l Soc. Work 1 (1968)

handle is hein.journals/intsocwk11 and id is 1 raw text is: 






















UNITED KINGDOM EXPERIENCE

                         IN THE EXPANSION

                                         Geraldine  Aves,  C.B.E.*


IF   change   is the outstanding  characteristic of the
    period in which  we  live -   in science and  tech-
nological advance,   in politics and in cultural patterns
-   it is certainly equally true in the United Kingdom
of the  framework  against  which  social work is prac-
tised and   social workers   are  trained.  Frankly,  in
the  years between   the wars  we   stagnated,  in spite
of transatlantic encouragement   to improve  our teach-
ing  and  our practice  in terms of  casework  and  the
influence of psychiatry. The  second  World  War  gave
us  a good   jolt, but after it for the first few years
we  were  so occupied  with  the creation and  adminis-,
tration of  new   services  in the  realms   of  health,
education,  child care and  social security that insuffi-
cient thought and  resources were devoted  to questions
of recruitment and  training of the requisite staff. For
too  long we  tried to  make  do  with  the numerically
totally inadequate products of university courses which,
to  a  minimal  extent,  supplemented in the public
services the great  majority of workers  qualified only
by  experience  or  by  wholly outdated   public assist-
ance  credentials. To this the new  Child Care  Service
for children  deprived  of  normal  home   life was  an
honourable   exception,  to the  extent that  the need
for trained staff both for field work  and  in residen-
tial settings was recognized from  its inception. Steps
were  taken  to  provide  specialized training  courses
from  1947  onwards  through  a Central Training Coun-
cil in Child Care.


                A  Climate  of  Change

   It is now   a  matter  of history - I believe, of
international history -   that  the Working   Party  on
Social Workers   in the Health &  Welfare  Departments
of  Local Authorities, set up  by  the Health  Ministers
and  presided over by  Eileen Younghusband,  first shook
us effectively out of our rut.' The Younghusband Re-
port, published  in 1959,  caused  us to face our  limit-
ations, to recognize the  need to provide  trained staff
throughout  the local authority service and to this end
to set up new  training programmes   outside the univer-
sities. The  sequel  to  that  Report, which   received
overwhelming   support  for  ifs recommendations   from
bodies  concerned   with  social work  education,  with
social services in their different statutory and volun-
tary settings and from professional associations, forms
the main  substance  of this address.  It must however
be  said that the impact  of the Report  was  far wider
than  the health and  welfare  field.  In particular, its
pleas for  closer liaison between  social services, and
for  the deployment   of  staff to meet  the  needs  of
given  family or individual situations instead of being
restricted by administrative  departmental  boundaries
had  strong  implications for  separately administered
services like child care,  as well  as for  others, like
the probation service, which were  not a local authority
responsibility.  Nevertheless,   I  propose   to   refer
mainly  to its effect on the local authority health and
welfare  services.


* Miss Ayes, formerly Chief Welfore Officer in the Ministry of Health, Britain, is a member of the British Council for Training in Social Work
and a Governor of the Notional Institute for Social Work Training. Her paper was presented at a Conference on Manpower Needs and Education
in the Field of Social Welfare convened in Ottowo, Canada, in November, 1966. Permission has been granted to reprint this article by the
Association of Universities and Colleges of Conada which produced the Proceedings of the Conference under the title, Manpower Needs in the
Field of Social Welfare (Ottawa, 1967).
1 Report of the Working Party on Social Workers in the Local Authority Health and Wetfare Services (London : H.M.S.O., 1959).

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