Talk:Eileen Younghusband

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Dame Eileen Louise Younghusband (1902-1981), welfare worker, born in London on 1 January 1902, was the daughter of Sir Francis Edward Younghusband (1863-1942), soldier, diplomat, explorer and mystic and his wife, Helen Augusta, daughter of Charles Magniac MP of Colworth, Bedfordshire. Her childhood was spent in Kashmir, where her father was British Resident, 1906-1909. Her unusual father was one of the formative influences on her life. On the family's return to England in 1910, she was educated privately and then attended the London School of Economics, gaining an external certificate in social studies, followed by a university diploma in sociology in 1926. In 1929 she was appointed half-time tutor at the LSE, obtaining a full time post there four years later. Her interests lay in the problems of the poor and deprived and much of her time was spent as a voluntary social worker. In 1933 she was appointed a JP in Stepney and she worked in the clubs run by the Bermondsey settlement. She later became involved in courses financed by the British Council for refugee women returning to their own countries after the second world war. In 1941 Eileen Younghusband became principal officer for training and employment for youth leaders for the National Association of Girls' Clubs and two years later undertook a survey of the welfare needs of the recipients of benefit. In 1955 the Ministry of Health invited her to chair a working party on the role of social workers in the health and welfare services; its report recommended that training courses should be set up for social workers in the polytechnics and colleges of further education as well as in the universities. As a result the Council for Training in Social Work was set up and a social work certificate initiated. A further outcome of the Younghusband report was the establishement of the National Institute for Social Work Training, in which she was much involved. She pioneered in 1954 a generic course at the LSE which became the prototype for professional social work training in other universities. In 1961 she was awarded an honorary fellowship. She insisted that good social work practice lay not only in acquiring knowledge and skill, but also in the possession of personal qualitities of a high order. Eileen Younghusband was also tireless in her work overseas, working after the second world war for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. She worked as consultant in Geneva in 1948, and also in Greece and Hong Kong, she made study visits to the India and Pakistan in 1952-1953, and was a frequent visitor to America. She served as external examiner to the universities of Hong Kong, Columbia, Nottingham, Khartoum, and at the University College of Makerere. She was president of the International Association of Schools of Social Work and later an honorary life president, which gave her the opportunity to visit Africa and Asia. In 1976 she was given the Rene Sand award, the highest award in the field of international social work. She was appointed MBE (1946), CBE (1955) and DBE (1964). For further details, see the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ILayPipe (talk • contribs) 15:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)