The history of the care profession – from poorhouse to modern home care

When you meet a citizen in their own home helping with the intimate — getting up being washed getting food being seen — you're part of a long tradition of caring for other people. The trade itself with education tools and rules is young but the care behind it is ancient. Knowing the history helps you better understand why your trade looks as it does today.

§The monasteries and the first hospitals

In the Middle Ages, it was especially the Church that took care of the sick, poor and travellers. Monasteries ran hospitals and shelters where monks and nuns cared for the weak as part of their calling. It was rarely treatment as we know it — more shelter, food, warmth and care for those who could not manage themselves. Many of the values you work by today, such as seeing the whole person and meeting them with dignity, have roots back in this care.

§The poorhouse takes over

After the Reformation, the state and municipalities gradually took over responsibility for the weakest through the poorhouse system. Poorhouses, madhouses, and later nursing homes were to house those who could not support themselves. Care was provided by servants and supervisors without education, and conditions were often harsh. Being dependent on others' help was seen as a shame, not a right – and that is an attitude that modern welfare society has consciously rejected.

§Nursing becomes a profession

A major shift came in the 1800s when nursing began to become a real profession. The English nurse Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) showed during the Crimean War that hygiene fresh air clean bedding and systematic care save lives. She founded one of the first real nursing schools and made care into something you could learn and document. Her thoughts on cleanliness and observation of the patient are still cornerstones of your work.

§How the key players work together to solve a patient's problems

Before modern aids, care work was hard physical labor without the tools you have today. People lifted clients by hand without lifts, there were no pressure-relieving mattresses, and hygiene was far from today's standards. Much depended on the individual care worker's goodwill and experience rather than on shared professional guidelines. Documentation was sparse, and the client's own wishes were rarely asked about.

• 01PLACEHOLDER_22
• 02Few common guidelines – much depended on individual experience.
• 03Sparse documentation and little focus on the citizen's own wishes.
• 04Care provided in the home often by family.

§The Danish welfare society and the SOSU education

In the 1900s Denmark built the welfare society where help for the sick and elderly became a right paid through taxes and not a charitable gift. Home help nursing homes and home nursing care grew. In 1991 social and health education (SOSU) were united in a new common education that replaced earlier arrangements like home helper and nursing aide education. Thus care work got a common formal professional framework with clear goals for what a social and health assistant should be able to do.

§The social and health helper today

Today social and health assistant is an independent profession with formal education and a central place in the welfare society. Where the task once was to do things for the citizen it now largely involves helping the citizen to be able to do themselves — what we call rehabilitation and help to self-care. You work according to professional guidelines document your work collaborate with nurses and therapists and uphold the citizen's dignity and right to decide over your own life. The long line from monastery care to today's home care is above all about one thing: meeting the other person with care and respect.

“From monastery infirmaries to the citizen's own home, the history of the care trade is the story of seeing the whole person – and that is still the core of your work every day.”