Settlement houses are a staple in any historical account of the development of social work and the dominant approaches and enduring practices within this profession. Indeed, there appears to be wide consensus that the Settlement House Movement has played a crucial role in the development of social work and social work research internationally. Yet, there is often a sense that a more nuanced appreciation of the Settlement House Movement and its intersect with social work is missing in much of the social work discourse. This volume seeks to address this lacuna by adopting a cross-national historical perspective.

Evidence of the initial association between social work and settlement houses can be found in the latter part of the 19th century in the United Kingdom (UK). The term ‘social worker’ was initially employed to describe individuals from the ‘educated classes’ who engaged in social service in order to address social problems and to alleviate their impact on individuals (Brewis, 2009; Chapter 6 in this volume). Prominent among these were the residents of the first settlement houses being established at that time (Attlee, 1920).

The subsequent advent of social work as a profession occurred, not surprisingly, parallel to the emergence of the Settlement House Movement. As Stefan Köngeter notes in Chapter 2 in this volume, in the decades following the establishment of Toynbee Hall, the first settlement house, in London in 1884 (Pimlott, 1935; Meacham, 1987), the settlement house idea enjoyed exceptionally strong growth in the UK and elsewhere. During the same period, the first schools of social work were established in Amsterdam, London, New York, Chicago and Berlin (Kendall, 2000; Leighninger, 2000) and the social work profession took hold in Europe, North America and beyond (Katz, 1986; Hauss and Schulte, 2009). The expansion of the Settlement House Movement, the rapid process of professionalisation and internationalisation of social work and the overlap between the two with regard their goals, values and the social groups that they served led to an increased presence of professional social workers in settlement houses. Moreover, it enhanced the impact of the Settlement House Movement on the way that social work defined itself and the practices that its practitioners adopted.