The development of professional social work in Australia

Abstract

There are certain features which tend to be strong in the established professions - external and internal recognition of collective rights and duties, a generally acceptable common purpose, shared intellectual techniques, fundamental knowledge, an ethical code, and community service. Important in establishing and maintaining these features are training bodies and professional associations. Within the upsurge of social provision in modern industrial urban societies a characteristic has been the development of institutions to train some of the people involved in its administration, and the forming into professional groups of people so qualified. In Britain and the United States, this phase of development occurred earlier than in Australia, and their experience subsequently influenced Australian developments. In the thirty year period from the late 1920's, a period which witnessed a depression, a war, and a post-war reconstruction, social provision in Australia was greatly extended. 'While this occurred, an Australian social work training movement was established, and the people who were trained by it became organized professionally. Social work training began in the largest urban communities. It moved into the universities in the early 19^0's. Medical social work, the only independent specialized training which was established, became absorbed within the university courses. The university training was largely generic in character. Preparation of students for work in a specialized field, when it was given at all, was additional to the generic training. Over the thirty year period changes in the curricula, the teachers, the teaching materials, and the students of the training bodies effected improvements in the professional education. By i960, social workers qualified by the professional education were employed in many fields of Australian social provision, but the development was limited and uneven, to a considerable extent because of the continued overwhelming preponderance of females. Questions of status, numbers, and sex were closely connected. Parallel with the growth of the social work training movement, and the spread of qualified social workers in employment fields, was their movement towards more effective professional organization. By 1960, they were banded together in the one general nation-wide professional association, the Australian Association of Social Workers. This also catered for specialist interests, including those of the medical social workers who were formerly in an independent national association. For the professional association to be fully effective it had a three-fold function - to provide educational opportunities for its members, to take action on their behalf on social issues, and to protect their employment standards. Despite the generally weak administration of the professional association, there was some achievement on all three counts, although relatively the third function was under-developed* After thirty odd years, this new occupational group was demonstrating in varying degrees of strength all the features which tend to be strong in the established professions.