History of social work
past events in social work
Social work as a profession can be traced back to the first social welfare agencies appearing in urban areas in the 1800s. It has its roots in the attempts of society at large to deal with the problem of poverty and inequality. Social work is intricately linked with the idea of charity work, but must be understood in broader terms. The concept of charity goes back to ancient times, and the practice of providing for the poor has roots in all major world religions.
Pre-modern antecedents
Before the rise of modern states, the Christian church provided social services in (for example) the Mediterranean world. When the Roman Emperor Constantine I endorsed Christianity in the 4th century, the newly legitimised church set up or expanded burial societies, poorhouses, homes for the aged, shelter for the homeless, hospitals, and orphanages in the Roman Empire. These were often funded, at least in part, from grants from the Empire.
By 580 AD, the church had a system for circulating consumables to the poor: associated with each parish was a diaconium or office of the deacon. Monasteries also often served as comprehensive social-service agencies, acting as hospitals, homes for the aged, orphanages, travelers' aid stations.
During the Middle Ages, the Christian church had vast influence on European society and Christians regarded charity as a responsibility and a sign of one's piety.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “History of social work” as past events in social work. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5868882. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “History of social work” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.