Foster care in South Australia

In 1969, a book titled “The semi-professions and their organisation: teachers, nurses, social workers” was published in the U.S.A.¹ Edited by sociologist Amitai Etzioni, the book's stated aim was “to increase sociological knowledge about the professions by focusing on a group of new professions whose claim to the status of doctors and lawyers is neither fully established nor fully desired”.² While the relegation of social workers to “semi-professional” status must have annoyed some American social workers, the same year saw a heartening step forward for social workers in Australia. On 3rd December, 1969, the Deputy Public Service Arbitrator (Mr. W. B. Wilson, B.A., Dip.Ed.) handed down Determination No. 386 of 1969, which substantially increased salaries of social workers in the Commonwealth Public Service.