Thoughts on the History of Community Practice Social Work

This week, my thoughts and comments from the reading are centered around chapter two of Marie Weil’s “Handbook of Community Practice.” While reading this week, I had yet another experience of realizing that my understanding of history was not only flawed, but lacking! Throughout high school and college, I admittedly struggled through American History courses repeatedly (both at the AP level as a senior, and then due to my low score on the exam, again, as a freshman in college… for two semesters). I’m not sure if it’s the format in which the courses were taught or my inattention to the content, but I really struggle to retain information when read in a text book, in a classroom taught strictly lecture-style. Either way, somehow, in my repeated history education, my knowledge of the history of community practice was definitely lacking, and this week’s reading presented an understandable synopsis in the way I’d been craving. I partially realized that I was leaping into the field with both feet - without a firm grasp of the history, and where the practice came from.

One area that I would very much like to learn more about  (that I previously misunderstood) is the settlement house movement. (Embarrassingly, I previously thought the term “settlement house” was used to describe the early formation of a group home or shelter – a home for those in need of services). Come to find out, I was very much “off the mark” here, and learned this week, that settlement houses were actually, “houses … founded on the idea that university students from the elite class should live and work in deprived communities not only to understand community members’ lives but also to work with neighborhood residents to improve community conditions” (Weil, 2013). Once the comedy of my misconception had worn off, I became really intrigued by this idea  - both out of desire to read further literature on the subject – and because the settlement house experience (I imagine) has some connections with the undergraduate experience I had as a student in Boston, Mass, really immersed in the community and volunteer work.

When trying to picture settlement houses and their relationships with surrounding communities, I can’t help but wonder about the composition of the university students – my guess, given that their formation was around the time of 1900, was that the makeup was mostly male – and I’m curious as to whether or not there was any female involvement, and if so, how that impacted the information they were able to gather and/or projects initiated.

Beyond the makeup, I’m really curious about the community perception of settlement houses. Were inhabitants generally welcoming of this outside presence, or was there resentment of outsiders entering the community to learn? (Perhaps a mix of both?)

It seems like their research methods and intentions very much influenced current technique and practice; however, I wonder if they abided by an ethical code as is practiced now.

I’m also curious about whether or not the settlement house experienced was considered desirable among students, or whether participation was mandatory, and therefor resented in some way.

To answer some of these questions, I delved into some research online (using admittedly questionable resources) but what I have gathered so far, is that the population make up varied depending on house (male/female etc.) but that female participation often consisted of those working as nurses versus as social scientists. Furthermore, I had a difficult time gauging what public opinion was in this preliminary research. My guess is that this is due to the variation that existed between houses and environments. It is probably very difficult to make general statements about support (or lack of) given how widespread this movement was.

It feels good to rock my understanding of social work history a little bit. While I didn’t get full, clear answers to my questions yet, I am interested in keeping this historical inquiry progressing.

Reference:

Weil, M., Reisch, M., & Ohmer, M. (2013). The Handbook of Community

Practice. 2^nd Edition. Sage.