Candeia (1943-1947): the earliest face of professional association among Portuguese social workers. A (trans)national project

In Portugal, the emergence of professional social work took place during the late 1930's, following the opening of the oldest countrywide training school: the Lisbon Social Work Institute. This period of Portuguese history leads us to the New State’s (Estado Novo) construction phase, throughout a new national conjuncture in relationships between Catholic Church, State and intellectual movements, and across a national historical framework shaped by political authoritarianism, and strongly closed to international influences.This presentation covers the first movements towards an associative grouping of Portuguese social workers, carried out by catholic former students from the Lisbon Social Work Institute, which was conveyed through Candeia [Candle Lamp] bulletin. Published between 1943 and 1947, Candeia bulletin closely followed the process of establishing the "Association of Social Workers from the Lisbon Social Work Institute" (officially recognized in 1946), encouraging professionals to take action around a common associative project, similarly to what was happening with other Catholic social workers all across Europe.Curiously, given the Portuguese “closing aboard” imposed by political reasons since the early 1930´s, transnational connections took here a significant role, more precisely, relations taken between the Lisbon Social Work Institute’s board and an international Catholic organization: the “Union Catholique Internationale de Service Social” (UCISS), seated in Brussels during that same period. The newly created professional Association, throughout Candeia bulletin, claimed the improvement of its associate members, not only at a professional level, but also in a moral and religious dimension, based on Catholic Church’s social doctrine. This first professional Association was incorporated as a UCISS’s full member in 1946, being this illustrative of the transnational relations that sharply marked Portuguese social work’s identity since its early beginnings.The historical sources that support this presentation have been collected in Portuguese and foreign historical archives, mainly in Brussels (Centre d´Animation et de Recherche en Histoire Ouvrière et Populaire).