![]() This law included direct care such as providing food and wood for fire and referrals for services such as healthcare. This early social welfare, although not social work, provided another area in which the roots of social work can be found through the acts of those working to provide for these poor. The law required the government, through local counties, to provide for the poor when the churches were unable to do so ( Jansson, 2012). The Elizabethan Poor Law Act of 1601 is generally seen as the key turning point toward government intervention and away from church oversight as the primary method of caring for the poor. As the feudal system of the European nations went into decline and capitalism was on the rise, we begin to see the early formulation of social welfare as a function of the government. Early congregations incorporated regulations regarding the treatment and care of the poor into their system long before governments at any level had done so ( Jansson, 2012). The church was seen as responsible for the physical and social needs of the poor prior to the 17th century. Other traditions, such as the mutual aid practices of Africans, Asians, and Native Americans, resonate with what we might now consider social welfare ( Reisch, 2014). In Europe, monasteries began to function as early relief agencies in about the 6th century ( Popple & Leighninger, 2010). The Old and New Testament of the Jewish and Christian religions and the Quran of Islam have numerous verses on helping other people. Jewish philosophy, leading into early Christian beliefs, also stressed the need to give to others, especially older adults and those with special needs. Popple and Leighninger (2010) give examples of what we might consider social work or social welfare from several thousand years ago, including the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi providing for the protection of widows and orphans in his code and the Islamic tradition of requiring Muslims who are able to contribute 2.5% of their wealth each year to support the needy to do so. Social work is relatively new as a profession however, people have been engaging in social work activities for many, many years. “A profession which did not know its own history, which was indifferent to the memory of the men and women responsible for its making, would still be a shambling and formless thing.”
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