Professional work involving the investigation and treatment of individual cases, typically used in social work, law, or counseling.
Compound of 'case' and 'work,' emerging as a term in the late 19th-early 20th century as professions like social work became systematized around individual case management.
When social work became a profession in the 1900s, 'casework' was revolutionary—it meant treating people as individuals with unique problems rather than just statistics, though some critics later argued it individualized structural problems.
Social casework emerged in early 20th century as a female-dominated field; the term historically carried gendered assumptions about caring labor and lower compensation compared to case law (male-dominated legal field).
Use neutrally; acknowledge that casework encompasses diverse practitioners across genders and that it carries equal professional value to related fields.
["client advocacy","individual support services","care coordination"]
Early caseworkers were often women who professionalized social support without equal recognition or pay; their invisible labor shaped modern social services.
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