EN
The article discusses the education of social workers in Poland in the interwar period. The first “experts” in social welfare were social carers, who often were not adequately trained for their profession. Instructions issued by the Ministry of Social Welfare and short, several-month-long training courses were employed to improve their professional qualifications. Catholic Social Courses, organized in 1907 in Warsaw by Fr. Jerzy Matulewicz and others, are seen as the beginning of professional education of social workers. Helena Radlińska was the initiator and organizer of the system of social education and human development in the interwar period. She created the Social and Educational Work Study at the Faculty of Pedagogy of the Free Polish University (1925). Pedagogical research was also of particular importance to the field. It was conducted, among others, by Bogdan Nawroczyński’s Pedagogy Chair in Warsaw, Zygmunt Mysłakowski’s Chair in Kraków, the Institute of Social Affairs in Warsaw, the Institute of Special Education in Warsaw, the Pedagogical Institute in Katowice and the Pedagogical Institute in Warsaw. A separate contribution to the education of social workers was made by Catholic education and further training centres in the field of care and education.