ABSTRACT
Beginning in the 1950s and increasingly in the 1960s, importance was attached to ‘preventive’ work, ‘community care’ and domiciliary services—all of which were based on what one writer calls ‘the conviction that the best place for any individual is his own home’ (Forder, 1971). The development of casework in bureaucratic settings occurred in this context. It is a story of the interaction of bureaucratic competition with professionalisation, and the progress of social work educators in influencing the whole ethos of certain social service organisations. Professional social work practice became more closely identified with government social policy.
