This article analyzes the historic nature and construction of the so-called welfare state in Spain, as well as the particularities of the process of construction and consolidation of Social Work as a profession and discipline. It presents the important role of the profession in the implementation, organization and consolidation of the public social services network with the predominance of the professional bureaucratic-administrative model. It concludes by indicating the main current challenges to Social Work in a context of a strong crisis in the capitalist economic model and the radicalization of the social question.
Social Work; Social question; Welfare State; Social services; Spain