Social work

Abstract

This chapter provides a timeline of the development of social work practice, education and regulation from the 1950s to 2019. Although the specific focus will be on this period in the history of social work, a period which has seen some very marked and fast changes in social work provision, organised welfare services have been in place since the times of the Knights of St John. During their 270-year rule between 1530 and 1798, the Knights of St John provided relief to the poor in the form of alms-giving and the free distribution of bread and soup (Cassar, 1984). The author refers to the pitanziere or alms-givers. He describes them as the “precursors of our modern Social Welfare Officers” (Cassar, 1984, p. 1). These were ad hoc women employees who paid domiciliary visits “to indigent and bedridden or house-bound women. In her daily calls the ‘pitanziera’ brought them, besides the bread, the medicines ordered by the doctor, the financial relief granted by the Treasury and items of bedding” (Cassar, 1984, p.1).