ABSTRACT
Writing The Social Worker in 1920, Clement Attlee identified a number of roles for social workers. These included pioneer, investigator and agitator. For Attlee it is the social worker who sparks life into the ideas, plans and principles of the social theorist, the social reformer and the social revolutionary. Attlee optimistically declares that the pioneers of today are the prophets of tomorrow: he is speaking of social workers. They add to the stock of social knowledge and investigate the consequences of social legislation. 'Every social worker is almost certain to be also an agitator', Attlee concludes, whether it is to battle against vested interests or to stir the apathy and complacency of the general public. The view that social work should be partisan, committed to social justice and fighting for those who are oppressed, is just as relevant a century later.
