ABSTRACT
The core chapter of the report, 'The Meaning of Social Work', is preceded by a resume of the historical development of social work. The origin of 'The Social Work Task' lay in concern expressed at the 1973 Annual General Meeting of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), about the utilisation of trained and untrained manpower within the field sector of the statutory social services. Social work is said to be distinguished from other helping professions by its focus on the 'interactional field between man and his environment, i.e. social functioning'. The discussion on social work values tends to blur the distinction between values that may be explicit or implicit in the practice of social work, and values held by individual social workers. The roles performed by social workers appear overinclusive: as proposed by the working party, any role performed by a social worker could be compatible with a social work context.
