Overview
Institut du Développement Social (IDS) refers to a French network of social-work training institutes that originated in the mid-1970s, when the French welfare state created regional institutes (IRFTs) for comprehensive social-work training. In 1975, Secretary of State for Social Action René Lenoir entrusted this grouping of schools to René Boucher, a former specialized educator and founding director of the social-workers’ school of the Peuple et Culture movement. The training centers became the Institut Régional du Travail Social (IRTS) in 1986, and were renamed Institut du Développement Social (IDS) in the 1990s, combining popular-education values with social-work training.
IDS operates through multiple independently-run regional branches across France (confirmed branches include Normandy and a presence in Lyon); this record does not specify which regional branch it refers to.