History in the Making

To understand and appreciate the resources, organizations, and programs there are today that help social work to be successful it is important to take a look back to where it all began...

Once upon a time there was no such thing as a social worker, social justice, community organizations, or welfare. In the 20th century the United States went through the Great Depression. The Great Depression took much more out of the economy and the human population than was expected. Before the depression welfare and poverty were not likely to be known and utilized by many. After the depression public welfare became more recognized and accepted. A part of what made welfare and poverty more recognized was due to social work. Welfare became part of the Social Security Act in 1935 under Franklin D. Roosevelt. These were the years when social work was looked at as just a vocation and pass time and slowly began to be seen as a career and a profession.

There lived courageous and determined people such as Jane Addams, Florence Kelly, Lillian Wald, Harry Hopkins, Frances Perkins, Molly Dewson and Aubrey Williams who were all parts of the change in the way social work is viewed. In the 20th century these people helped change the social work profession and helped gain its respect it has today. Through the Great Depression many outstanding results came about. Unemployment and work programs, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, Civilian Conservation Corps, and other public programs were all created to help with what the depression had put on people. This allowed individuals and families to get the support they needed. Such programs offered jobs for those on unemployment and struggling to find a job placement, which in turn helped financially.

Macro social work practice is the work that is done with communities, organizations, and policy to help change and better the quality of life for those in need. Macro practice made an effective change by the combined diversity of different approaches and practices which showed to be successful. Community justice, social justice, and distributive justice were three starting components that helped advocates to create the change that was needed. Where social work started with community practice and its focus on social justice is more affective when individual social workers and the profession of social work come together in order to make the macro practice and goals achievable.

Another part of what made a huge impact on macro social work was the work done by women. Women in social work and social justice play a big role in the rights women and others have today. Such things that women helped to create change with involve benevolence, reform, and rights. Macro practice has to have many different parties involved in order for it to be successful. One women who made a tremendous effect on social work is Jane Addams. She is known for her work in creating settlement housing in Chicago for immigrants. For this she won a Nobel Peace Prize. During the New Deal which was a result from the Great Depression, Frances Perkins was the first women to be part of the cabinet of U.S President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As known social issues were tackled and resolved, there are new ones rising everyday. Such social issues that macro practice lobby for are the LGBT community, health insurance, adoption, incarceration, welfare, single parents, substance abusers, the disabled, the elder, your neighbors, classmates, and family members. Everywhere around you there are people who need help. Throughout history as new issues have arrived macro practice social work is here to find a solution to it. Although macro practice doesn't result in a quick outcome, the last effect of it can be forever. One person may not  get their happily ever after, but the practice of social work is here to make sure that the rest of us can come a little bit closer.

http://www.welfareinfo.org/history/

http://www.boisestate.edu/socwork/dhuff/xx.htm

http://www.naswdc.org/pressroom/features/general/history.asp

http://www.historyofsocialwork.org/eng/index.php

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/tcn/valocchi.htm

Hill, K. M., Ferguson, S. M., & Erickson, C. (2010). Sustaining and Strengthening a Macro Identity: The Association of Macro Practice Social Work. Journal Of Community Practice,18(4), 513-527. doi:10.1080/10705422.2010.519684