Social Work
Irving was born on 25 February 1897 at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. She was the oldest of three children and her father, Godfrey Irving, was an Army officer who later held senior positions in the Australian Army. The family moved frequently as her father was posted to new positions, and she was educated at schools in most states.
Irving worked in a number of social welfare positions after leaving school. During World War I she served in a Red Cross voluntary aid detachment in Australia. In 1924 she became secretary of the Girl Guides' Association, Victoria, a position she held until 1940. In 1935, she was one of the two founders of the Victorian Society for Crippled Children (and Adults) and worked for this organisation until her death. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 2 January 1939 for her services to social welfare services in Victoria. Irving left the Girl Guides Association in 1940 to work as Assistant-Secretary of the Victorian Red Cross Society.
Read more about this topic: Sybil Irving
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or work:
“Children, then, acquire social skills not so much from adults as from their interactions with one another. They are likely to discover through trial and error which strategies work and which do not, and later to reflect consciously on what they have learned.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)