Welcome to the re-launch of the California Social Welfare Archives website!
It’s fitting that our website re-launch occurred during the month of March: It’s Social Work Month!
My name is Elise Johnson. I’m an LCSW, LPS and I am one of the many volunteers dedicated to the California Social Welfare Archives (CSWA). I serve as the Co-Chair of CSWA’s Collections Committee. The Collections Committee is responsible for two things; 1) Interviewing social workers (Oral Histories) and, 2) Supporting and promoting the archival material held at USC’s Special Collections Library. The archive collection includes over 100 years’ worth of documents, photos,ephemera and even VHS tapes that tell the story of social workers in California’s history.
But why should social work practitioners and students care about the history of our profession?
The NASW Code of Ethics requires that social workers participate in social and political action. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE EPAS 2022) requires that SW students be educated on historical content. “Social workers should use rights-based, antiracist, and anti-oppressive lenses to understand and critique the profession’s history, mission, roles, and responsibilities and recognize historical and current contexts of oppression in shaping institutions and social work.” (Council on Social Work Education [CSWE], 2022, p. 8)
Along with these two mandates, we, the practitioners and educators who volunteer for the CSWA, are committed to the dissemination of history of social welfare throughout California.
With this blog I hope to introduce you to the inductees of the California Social Welfare Hall of Distinction and encourage my fellow social workers to nominate those social work elders who have inspired you and who have made lasting contributions to your local community. This blog also intends to explore the history of social welfare through a critical lens with the hope that this viewpoint sheds light on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ social workers and others whose contributions to our city, state and profession have been overlooked or de-legitimized. While my professional life is centered around the geographic region of Los Angeles, I hope to inspire others throughout the state of California to learn about social welfare influencers in their own communities. I encourage readers to consider participating in this blog.
In future episodes of this blog I’ll share the stories from what I’ve found in my adventures in the California Social Welfare Archives. Here is just a sampling;
Herbert McCanlies was a social worker during the Great Depression who was concerned with the way in which homeless people were being treated. McCanlies went “undercover” and “lived on the rails” surviving only on the “relief” from charities and organizations. Among other things, he exposed abusive behavior by LAPD’s notorious “Bum Brigade”. His documentation had an enormous impact on CA state policies on the unhoused and impoverished during that time.
Opal C. Jones, MSW, was a social worker from the 1960’s who was fired from her job after organizing the residents of South Los Angeles. Her job was only reinstated after hundreds of South L.A’s community members protested. Her methodology of community organizing is now the gold standard of macro practice - but Jones has never been credited.
Ray Valle, MSW, a social worker from the 1970’s helped establish the first community mental health clinic led by all Latinx staff.
...and there are SO many more! Come to the CSWA and experience your own Adventures in the Archives!
Elise Johnson, LCSW, LPS
Know a social worker from your community who may have been forgotten or overlooked? Drop me an email at eljohnson@csudh.edu and/or follow me on Twitter @EJohnsonLCSW.
References
Aranda, M. P. (2001). The development of the Latino social work profession in Los Angeles. Research on Social Work Practice, 11(2), 254-265.
Clarke, K. (2022). Reimagining Social Work Ancestry: Toward Epistemic Decolonization. Affilia, 37(2),266-278.
Council on Social Work Education. (2022). 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards for Baccalaureate and Master’s Social Work Programs. Author.
Ernst, J. S. (2022). Historical content in the social work curriculum: the value of local history. Social Work Education, 1-12.
Ioakimidis, V., & Trimikliniotis, N. (2020). Making sense of social work’s troubled past: Professional identity, collective memory and the quest for historical justice. The British Journal of Social Work, 50(6), 1890-1908.
Jones, O.C. (1962-1976, undated). Neighborhood Adult Participation Project (NAPP) records.California Social Welfare Archives Collection 0488.
Lewis, M.H (1936, 28 February). Special Surveys and Studies Progress Report. California SocialWelfare Archives, Migrant, Transient, and Homeless Populations Collection 0449, Box 1, folder4.
(Photo credit, photographer unknown.) In Lewis, M.H. (1936, 28 February). Excerpt of a “Journal of a Transient” Special Surveys and Studies Progress Report 7, Transients, Feb. 28, 1936.California State Relief Admin—Surveys & Studies, 1935-1936 (Folder Number 148-18). https://ia800300.us.archive.org/27/items/transientsincali00cali/transientsincali00cali.pdf
Valle, R. (1971, 29 August). Los Barrios de EastLos: East Los Angeles and Comprehensive Mental Health Planning Perspective, California Social Welfare Archives, Collection 0603, Box 3, Folder 7
Wright, K. C., Carr, K. A., & Akin, B. A. (2021). The whitewashing of social work history: How dismantling racism in social work education begins with an equitable history of the profession.Advances in Social Work, 21(2/3), 274-297.