social work history

	SOCIAL WORK REACTS
	ocial work reacted to the early years of the depression by turning away from the individual approaches and re-embracing reform. Bertha Reynolds, director of the Smith College School of Psychiatric Social work, stated that it was absurd to focus on emotional problems when so many people were going hungry. Social workers realized the seriousness of the depression before most other professionals. Their work put them in a unique vantage point where they had an all too clear a picture of the people's plight. Social workers were also among the Great Depression’s earliest victims. Faced with the dual hardships of increased demand and decreased donations, a third of all private agencies were forced to close their doors.

Predictably, social workers also engaged in self-flagellation, an enterprise that would recur during times of crisis. Some leaders lamented that the professions' focus on technique and that social casework had turned the profession away from more substantial issues related to reforming the system. More constructively, social work organizations began lobbying the national government for action.

The American Association of Social Workers testified before the U.S. Senate on the gravity of the crisis. A number of social work leaders petitioned president Hoover to begin a federal unemployment program. Local organizations surveyed communities to gather data on the depth and breadth of the Great Depression's effects. The activities by social workers and their allies did have an impact. In 1931, the government passed several small programs that recognized the difficulties most Americans were now experiencing. Regrettably, the government’s halting attempts to do something were too little and too late.

	Ch. 5
	Pg. 3


	Poor but clean.


	CHRISTMAS