Kay McDougall
Kay McDougall OBE born Kate Florence Long aka Kate Florence McDougall was a British psychiatric social worker. She led the formation of the British Association of Social Workers and she was its first member.
Life
McDougall was born in Camberwell in 1910. Her father was a socialist and the family were working class.In 1937 she was a psychiatric social worker having completed a course at the London School of Economics and she went to work at Warlingham Park Hospital in Croyden.
She led the Social Work department at the London School of Economics. She started a journal called Case Conference which allowed discussion of the work that the emerging profession of social workers were doing.
McDougall was elected to lead the Standing Conference of Organisations of Social Workers in 1965. SCOSW had been formed in 1962 to bring together the different branches of the social work profession and these were nearly all wound up on the formation of British Association of Social Workers which was formed in 1970. She became the first member of the British Association of Social Workers. McDougall retired from her work that year. The chair of the new organisation was hospital almoner Enid Warren.
McDougall was awarded an OBE in 1967.