SW 110 Notes: Foundational Ideas and Debates Over Time

What is Social Work?

• Mission: To enhance well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.

  • Source: SW 110 Mission statement.
  • Emphasis on well-being, basic needs, vulnerability, oppression, and poverty.

• Core idea: Social work is an organized response to human tragedy.

• Foundational tensions in the field (overview):

  • Conservative responses to unrest emphasize social/personal control, function, and social control.
  • Progressive responses to need emphasize social/personal liberation, cause, and social liberation.

• Key framing terms:

  • Social / Personal Control vs Social Liberation
  • Function vs Cause

Longstanding tensions in the field

• Conservative orientation:

  • Response to unrest
  • Focus on Social / Personal Control
  • Emphasis on Function

• Progressive orientation:

  • Response to need
  • Focus on Social / Personal Liberation
  • Emphasis on Cause

Social work is an organized response to human tragedy

• Defines the field as a systematic, organized response rather than ad hoc aid.

SW History: The Poor Law of ${1601}$

• Concepts:

  • Deserving poor
  • Undeserving poor

• Context: Early attempts to categorize who deserved aid and who did not.

SW History: The early Colonies (the Colonizers’ response to their own needs)

• Deserving poor
  • “Outdoor Relief”: Cash, food, apprenticeship
• Undeserving poor
  • “Indoor Relief”: Institutionalization, work-house, “Least Eligibility”
• Underlying themes: social division between those deemed worthy of aid and those deemed not worthy; precursors to social control vs social liberation dynamics

SW History: The early Colonies (the Colonizers) — Visual framing

• Deserving poor
  • Outdoor Relief: Cash, food, apprenticeship
• Undeserving poor
  • Indoor Relief: Institutionalization, work-house, “Least Eligibility”
• Key framing: SOCIAL CONTROL vs SOCIAL LIBERATION (as depicted in the slide)

What do you think?

• Interactive prompt intended to provoke reflection on responses to poverty and need.

Compassion 2020 Citizen Discourse: Compassion Contract

• Be respectful
• Listen to understand
• Act with good intentions
• Support ideas with evidence and experience
• Disagree without being disagreeable
• Critique the idea, not the person
• Invite wonder
• Source: www.Compassion2020.com

Responding to prompts (Pollev prompts)

• Class activity using pollev prompts to guide discussion.
• Example prompts include:
  • "You're walking down Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. A person asks you for money to buy food."
  • Choices: A) I do not give them anything. B) I give them money to buy food. C) I buy food for them.
• Note: Prompts appear in two scenarios (with and without a very young child).

Social Work's Historical Roots: Deserving and Undeserving

• Focus on how historical classifications of deserving vs undeserving shaped practice and policy.

The birth of social work

• Timeline scaffold: ext{years} = igl[ 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930 igr]
• Central question: How do these historical periods shape our thinking about helping others?

How might these historical periods shape how we think about helping other people?

• Conceptual lenses to apply to practice:
  • SOCIAL LIBERATION vs SOCIAL CONTROL
  • CAUSE vs FUNCTION

The roots of social work

• Charity Organization Society (COS)
• African American Settlement House Movement
• Settlement House Movement

Charity Organization Societies (COS)

• Features:
  • “Friendly Visitors” (pre-social work term)
  • Aimed to streamline giving and determine eligibility
  • Questions about moral worthiness
  • Individual-focused approach
  • Poverty rooted in character flaws

Mary Richmond (COS)

• Descriptors:
  • Social diagnosis
  • Scientific casework
  • Process: Assess → Diagnose → Treat
• Legacy: Mother of micro-practice; mother of case management and (later) clinical social work

Settlement House Movement (Hull House)

• Services and focus:
  • Child care
  • English language classes
  • Labor union organizing
• Core assumption: Behavior is shaped by environment; context-focused
• Goal: Positive assimilation into society

Jane Addams (Settlement House Movement)

• Roles:
  • Supports policy change in labor, child care, immigration
  • Mother of macro practice, community organizing, policy advocacy

Similarities & Differences: COS vs Settlement House

• COS

  • Function; Social control; Personal control
  • Conservative
  • Individual responsibility

• Settlement House Movement

  • Cause; Social liberation; Personal liberation
  • Progressive
  • Societal responsibility

COS & Settlement House: These are our roots

• Both traditions underpin modern social work, illustrating early tensions between control vs liberation and individual vs societal responsibility.

Person - In - Environment (PIE) framework

• Core idea: Interaction between person and environment shapes behavior and outcomes
• Components:
  • Person factors (individual)
  • Environmental factors (social environment)
  • Interactional factors (the dynamic between person and environment)
• Visual framing (PIE):
  • Social Environment: Relational factors
  • Interactional (PIE) factors
  • Individual factors
  • Social Environment: Environmental factors

PIE expanded (environmental factors)

• Social Environment includes: Physical, Social, Economic, Political, Spiritual, Familial, Temporal factors
• Interactional (PIE) factors denote the relationships and interactions between individual and environment
• Individual factors include physical, psychological, biological aspects (as implied by the PIE model)

African American Social Work & Mutual Aid

• Emphasis on mutual aid within African American communities
• Notable locations/areas mentioned: BIOT AREA extending over the Black Belt stock yards (text appears garbled in transcript)

African American Settlement Movement

• Theme: Separate and unequal
• Emphasis on community-based settlement activities in a segregated society

Leaders of the Movement

• Harriet Tubman
• Lugenia Burns Hope
• Jane Hunter
• Ida B. Wells
• Lugenia Burns Hope (listed again; note potential transcription duplication)
• Descriptors: Black Southern Reformer

Black Settlement: Cause and Function

• Functions provided by settlements: laundry facilities, showers, meals, clothing closet, classes (sewing/carpentry)
• Causes addressed:
  • Women’s suffrage
  • Equal education for children
  • Civil rights
• Concept: Oppositional Consciousness (definition below) and its relation to PIE-centered work in spaces like the Seventeenth Street Mission, Richmond, VA

Oppositional Consciousness

• Definition (Hounmenou, 2012): "… attitudes and disposition of members of a dominated community to challenge injustice and oppression" (p. 648)
• Implication: Communities develop awareness and willingness to challenge oppressive structures

Contrasting White and Black Settlement House Movements

• Similarities vs Differences:
  • Both involve settlement-like work but differed in leadership, aims, and approaches
• Black Settlement House Movement tends toward mutual aid, inclusive leadership, and a combined focus on causes and functions
• White Settlement House Movement tended to center on middle-class leadership and a more gift-based approach

Summary of roots: COS, Settlement House, African American Settlement House Movement

• Pairwise contrasts: Social Control (COS) vs Social Liberation (Settlement Movements)
• Personal control vs Societal responsibility
• Conservative vs Progressive orientations

Visual and source notes

• Images and references used in the slides included various web links to UC Berkeley imagery, teeter-totter, 1600s England poor people, tree with 3 roots, Mary Richmond, Jane Addams, Harriet Tubman, etc.
• Notable: The transcript lists numerous image links for supplementary context.

Quick reference: Key terms and ideas

• Deserving vs Undeserving Poor: categorization used under the Poor Law framework to determine who qualifies for aid
• Outdoor Relief vs Indoor Relief: community-based aid vs institutionalization
• Least Eligibility: a principle used to justify harsh indoor relief measures
• COS (Charity Organization Society): focused on moral worth, individual diagnosis, and micro-level casework
• Settlement House Movement: environment-centered, policy advocacy, macro practice
• Mary Richmond: social diagnosis, scientific casework, micro-practice leadership
• Jane Addams: macro practice, policy advocacy, community organizing
• PIE (Person-In-Environment): framework for considering individual and environmental factors in practice
• Oppositional Consciousness: collective consciousness to challenge oppression

Connections to broader themes

• Historical tug-of-war between charity (personal responsibility) and social reform (societal responsibility)
• Evolution from Charity Organization Societies to Settlement Houses reflects a shift from social control to social liberation.
• The PIE framework integrates both individual and environmental determinants of well-being, aligning with the field’s move toward holistic, context-aware practice.

Practical and ethical implications highlighted in the transcript

• Ethical emphasis on respectful discourse (Compassion 2020) and evidence-based reasoning when discussing social welfare policies
• Recognition of historical inequities (e.g., separate and unequal movements) informs contemporary practice and the need for culturally responsive approaches
• Balancing immediate aid with advocacy and policy work to address root causes (causes vs functions)

Important dates and dates-like anchors (for quick recall)

• $1601$: Poor Law established (Deserving vs Undeserving Poor)
• $1860 - 1930$: Birth and development of social work through key movements and leaders
• $17^{ ext{th}}$ Century: Context for England’s early social welfare conditions (referenced as $17^{ ext{th}}$ Century England)

End of notes

• The slides collectively summarize social work’s origins, the central tensions that have shaped its practice, and the evolution toward integrated, environment-aware approaches that balance intervention at micro and macro levels.