ABSTRACT
Although the profession of social work is young—less than 100 years old—the practice of helping others is ancient. There have always been people willing to devote large portions of their lives to alleviating human suffering. This chapter will focus on some of the people who were instrumental in the development of the profession, as well as on some early efforts to help the poor, which eventually expanded to include help for all socioeconomic classes and for emotional as well as social problems. In addition, the chapter will trace the development of social consciousness and social welfare that laid the foundation for the contemporary practice of clinical social work, a field that has been called an entirely separate discipline (Alexander, 1977), a specialization of social work (Strean, 1978), and a movement (Briar, 1983).
