2020 Volume 60 Issue 4 Pages 1-13
The issues of “disruption” and “continuation” before and after World War II have long permeated the history of social welfare. For instance, the role of a social work administrator is an overlooked topic although it is presumed to have simply “continued” from the pre-war era to the post-war era. The archives of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare describe social work administrators as pioneers of their time but do not elaborate further. Therefore, this discussion attempts to reveal the outline of the Edict on the Social Work Staff System of Local Government, which provided a legal basis for their work, as well as the attributes of several persons employed as social work administrators at the time. Moreover, the education system of social work trainees is examined. The results indicate that social work administrators, regarded as specialists in their field prior to the war, experienced a “disruption” in their profession in 1944. However, the influence exerted by the aforementioned training system on post-war social welfare professional education, as well as the roles fulfilled by individuals employed as social work administrators in the post-war social welfare system, represent a “continuation” that cannot be overlooked. These will be future topics of research.
