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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR W . N . D O A K , Secretary CHILDREN’S BUREAU G R A C E A B B O T T , Chief CHILD WELFARE IN SELECTED COUNTIES OF WASHINGTON Bureau Publication No. 206 UNITED STATES ul r ?<l- GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE - z - o te WASHINGTON s 1931 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Price 20 cents https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Contents Letter of transmittal--------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------Purpose and scope of the study------& ------------------------------------------- ------------------Summary of public provisions for care of children, and recommendationsState provisions-------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------County provisions---------------------------------------Recommendations_____________________________________________________ — Provision for care of children in the six counties___________________________ Care of dependent children in their o.wn homes-------------------------------------Mothers’ aid__________________________________________________________ Poor relief and private relief______ ________________________________ Care of dependent children away from their own homes_________ ;-----Provisions for protection of children removed from their homes— Agencies caring for the children--------------------------------- ---------------------Children under care of institutions and agencies------------ -------------Care of children presenting special problems----------------------------- .------------Children of illegitimate birth_______________________________________ Children handicapped physically or mentally---------------------------------Delinquent children under care away from their own homes-------The children and the courts--------------------- -----------------------------------------------Juvenile courts and their administration___________________________ Delinquency cases of children_____________________________ '-------- — Dependency, neglect, and other cases_______________________________ Adult cases involving children_______________________________________ Social resources of the six counties___________________________________________ Adams County--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------General description___________________________________________________ Provision for the care of dependent children_______________________ Provision for the care of delinquent children---------------------------------Health program---------------------------- ---------------------------------------— ---------Recreation program---------------------------------------------------------------------------School program ________________ Grays Harbor County-------------------------------------------------------------------------------General description-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Provision for the care of dependent children_______________________ Provision for the care of delinquent children----------------- ----------------Health program_______________________________________________________ Recreation program----------------------School program ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------King County-------- --------General description________________— ------ ------------------------------------------Provision for the care of dependent children-----------------------------------Provision for the care of delinquent children------------k--------------------Health program_______________________________________________________ Recreation program------------------«,---------------------------------------- ---------------School program _______________________________________________________ Pacific County — --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------General description___________________________________________________ Provision for the care of dependent children-----------------------------------Provision for the care of delinquent children---------------------------------Health program-------------Recreation program---------------------------------------------------------------------------School program -------------------Spokane County----------------------General description------------------- ------------------------------------- -1-------------------Provision for the care of dependent children------------------------------------ m https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Page v 1 3 3 6 10 14 14 14 22 28 28 33 38 43 43 45 48 58 58 65 69 71 74 74 74 74 75 75 75 76 77 77 77 79 79 80 81 82 82 82 88 91 93 93 95 95 95 96 96 97 97 98 98 98 IV CONTENTS Social resources of the six counties— Continued. Spokane County— Continued. Provision for the care of delinquent children. Health program------------------------------------------------Recreation program--------------------------------------- — School program --------------------------------------------- — W alla W alla County________________________________ General description---------------------------------------- — Provision for the care of dependent children.. Provision for the care of delinquent children. Health program________________________________ Recreation program-----------------------------------------School program ------------------------------------------------- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Page 102 103 104 105 107 107 107 109 110 110 111 Letter of Transmittal U n it e d S tates D L abor, C h il d r e n ’s B u r e a u , e p a r t m e n t oe Washington, J vly 1 , 1931. There is transmitted herewith a report on child dependency, neglect, and delinquency in six counties in the State of Washington. The investigation was made at the request of the Washington State Conference on Social Work with a view to determining the social resources in the counties visited and the part that State and local public agencies are taking in meeting the wants of all children in need of assistance. The investigation was made and the report writ ten by the social-service division of the Children’s Bureau under the direction of Agnes K. Hanna, director of the division; Ruth Bloodgood was in charge of the field party. The Children’s Bureau is indebted to the various public and private institutions and agencies in the counties visited for their cooperation in making available the information upon which the report is based. Respectfully submitted. Sir : G race A Hon. W . N. D bbott, Chief. oak, Secretary o f Labor. v https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis CHILD WELFARE IN SELECTED COUNTIES OF WASHINGTON Purpose and Scope of the Study A t the request o f the Washington State Conference o f Social Work, the Children’s Bureau, in the spring of 1927, undertook a field study of child dependency, neglect, and delinquency in certain rep resentative localities in the State of Washington. The object of this study was to find out what were the varying social resources in the districts selected, the number of children in whose behalf special activities were being carried on, and the extent to which legislation and State and local resources succeeded in providing adequately for all children in need of assistance. Six counties were selected as typical o f the varying social, eco nomic, and geographical conditions existing throughout the State. Three of the counties were situated east of the mountain range which divides Washington into two distinct sections. Spokane County con tains the most important city in the eastern section. Adams County js a distinctly rural county with a small population in spite o f its extensive area and had in 1920 no towns of 2,000 inhabitants. Walla Walla County in type of population is midway between these two, as it contains a very prosperous small city with a population o f about 16.000. A somewhat similar selection of counties was made in the western section. King County contains Seattle, the largest city in the State, and also has a rural and small-town population of nearly 100.000. Grays Harbor County has two cities nearly adjacent, the combined populations of which are about 26,000. Pacific County is distinctly rural; its largest city has only about 4,000 inhabitants. The counties selected for study present a great variety o f socialservice undertakings. In some counties both public and private agencies were operating, and at least part o f the work was being carried on under the direction o f trained workers; in others, espe cially the smaller counties, few private agencies existed, and most of the public officials had no case-work training. In the progress o f the study information was obtained in each county in regard to the agencies available for service throughout the county. In five of the six counties this was supplemented by descriptive material as to local facilities in three to five typical communities. Although the time allowed for the survey made it impossible to make as complete a study of the local community resources in King County as in the other counties, information was obtained as to the work of the county-wide organizations as well as the majority of those serving: Seattle only. 1 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 2 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON The data obtained in each of these counties were of two types: (1) Descriptive material obtained through interviews and personal observation showing the methods and standards o f work done by agencies providing assistance to children or to families with children and the special activities for children provided by such general agencies as the schools and recreational and health organizations ; (2) individual records o f all children or families under care o f insti tutions and agencies obtained from the records o f these agencies. As records were obtained for all children given care at any time dur ing a 12-month period ended February 28, 1927, two groups o f chil dren were included—those remaining under care at the end of the year and those under care during the year but discharged before the end o f the year. Information was obtained also from the court rec ords o f all adult cases in which children were affected— offenses committed by adults against children, cases of nonsupport and de sertion, cases o f adoption, and establishment of paternity in illegiti macy cases. No attempt was made through case studies to investigate the care being given to individual children. Although some light was thrown by the reading of case records on the quality o f the agencies’ work, an evaluation of the activities o f agencies was not always possible because of the meagerness of the recorded mate rial. In many cases no records were available ; in a few cases access to records was refused. The organizations from which detailed information was obtained included : 1. Those providing for the care of children in their own homes by mothers’ pensions and by poor-relief and private-relief agencies. 2. Those providing for dependent children away from their pa rental homes, either in institutions or in family homes. 3. Those providing for delinquent children, including public and private institutions within the counties, and the two State institutions located outside the counties. 4. Courts hearing children’s cases. Records were obtained also for the children from the six counties who had been in the State custodial school during the year. The State school for the blind and the State school for the deaf were visited, but no records were obtained, as they are educational insti tutions and not schools for dependents. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Summary of Public Provisions for Care of Children, and Recommendations STATE PROVISIONS In most States the first method o f caring for children undertaken by the State has been the provision of institutions for delinquent and mentally and physically handicapped children. Institutions providing custodial care or training for feeble-minded children and schools for delinquent children have been provided in all but a few States.1 State schools for the blind and for the deaf have also been established in most States,2 and in a few States special hospi tals have been provided for treatment of crippled children. In nearly half the States 8 institutional care for dependent children has also been undertaken by the State. With the growing realiza tion of the importance o f family life in the development o f a child, most of these institutions for dependent children are gradually assuming the position o f receiving homes, children from the institu tions being placed in family homes. in more than one-third of the States all or a part of the State institutions are administered by governing boards of trustees ap pointed for each institution. In the larger number of States, ad ministration o f institutions is the responsibility of a central State department ; in a number of these States the department is also responsible for a general social-welfare program. In Washington the department of business control administers all State institutions. This State department was established by legislation in 19214 as successor to the State board of control (cre ated in 1901). The director of this department is appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate. The department has juris diction over the 12 State institutions and is given full authority to manage and control these institutions and appoint or remove all superintendents. It also serves as purchasing agent for the State both for the institutions and for other State departments. The institutions for children under the administration of the de partment are the two State schools for delinquent children (one for boys and one for girls), the State custodial school for mentally defective children, and the State schools for the deaf and for the blind. The department has no other responsibilities for children. 1 Institutions caring for most of the delinquent children needing such care have been provided in all States, and all but four States (Arkansas, Mississippi, Nevada, and West Virginia) have institutions for feeble-minded children. * Four States (Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Wyoming) do not have schools for either the blind or the d ea f; New Mexico has a school for the blind o n ly ; and four States (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont) have schools for the deaf only. 8Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mis souri^ Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming. * Laws of 1921, ch. 7, sec. 2 ; Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 10760. 3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 4 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON That the State should assume greater responsibility for the care and protection of children and other dependent classes than the provision of State institutions has become generally accepted. To meet this responsibility, State departments or boards have been established in most States which have broad responsibilities and duties to take the leadership in preventive work and to insure that the care given to all handicapped persons is reasonably adequate. In many States these additional State activities have been under taken by departments, boards, or commissions created for this pur pose ; in other States they have .been made the responsibility of departments that are also administering State institutions. In line with this idea of the State’s assuming responsibility for the protection of children, but much more limited in vision, was the provision in a few o f the Western and Southern States 5 of bureaus of animal and child protection, sometimes called humane bureaus. The development o f State humane bureaus was influenced by the humane-society movement that spread throughout the coun try during the latter part of the nineteenth century. In three of the States where such bureaus have been established, the protec tion o f animals has often appeared to be the primary activity of the bureau, and the work for children was assumed by other public or private agencies. Exceptions to this situation are found in Montana, where the present State bureau of child protection is an outgrowth of the earlier bureau of animal and child protection, and in Wyoming, where the child-placing activities of the humane bu reau have only recently (1929) been delegated to the State board o f charities and reform. The State Humane Bureau o f Washington was created “ to pro mote and aid in the enforcement o f the laws for the prevention o f wrongs to children, idiots, imbeciles and insane, feeble-minded and defective persons, and persons who * * * are helpless or unable to care for themselves.” This bureau was authorized also to enforce laws for the prevention o f cruelty to. animals.6 A small appropriation was made to this bureau in 1915, but no further ap propriations have been made. The bureau consisted o f the governor, the superintendent o f public instruction, the attorney general, and two members to be appointed by the governor. A small amount o f work for animals was done but, none for children. No evidence was found in any of the counties visited that children’s cases had been referred to this bureau. The following statement7 summarizes the recommendations of the committee on State and local organizations of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, as to the part that the State should take in a child-welf are program: There should be in every State, Territory, and possession of the United States a welfare department with special responsibilities for children, and there should be available in every jurisdicton, well co ordinated, the various services necessary for the protection and care of handicapped children. Every State should furnish leadership in work being done for de pendent, neglected, delinquent, physically and mentally handicapped 6 Colorado, Montana, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. •Laws of 1913, ch. 107 ; Remington^s Comp. Stat. 1922, secs. 10960—10964. . 1 Unpublished preliminary report presented at the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, Nov. 19-22, 1930. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SU M M ARY OJF PUBLIC PROVISIONS 5 children, and should set standards, promote social-work programs, and stimulate protective work for children. Every State should make provision for the care of delinquent and of mentally handicapped children needing institutional treatment, and in sure adequate supervision of those children who remain in the community. Every State should secure for physically handicapped children— the blind, the deaf, and the crippled— the medical care, education, and social service that their handicaps require, and should regulate the standards oï their care. Appropriations for the State’s child-welfare activities should be ade quate in order to make social legislation effective, since mere legislative enactment is not sufficient. A State department should maintain adequate standards in refer ence to qualifications and size of its staff, in relation to the work under taken and the quality of its service. The State child-welfare program should be free from domination by partisan politics. The activities undertaken by State departments concerned with the social welfare o f the State vary with the administrative organi zation of different States. Some departments have broad pow ers and responsibilities, whereas others are more limited in their activities. Work for children is a major responsibility of such de partments, but in only a few States 8 have their activities been lim ited to child welfare. Exclusive o f the administration of State institutions, which may or may not be the responsibility of a State department of public- or social welfare, the following outline shows the major activities that may be undertaken by such departments: Educational and research activities. Investigation and study o f the social needs of the State. Collection, analysis, and publication of social sta tistics. General educational work to build up understanding o f social problems and desirable methods o f dealing with them. Protection of socially, mentally, and physically handi capped persons. Approval o f incorporation and control by licensing o f private charitable and child-caring agencies. 1#Maintenance through educational supervision of de sirable standards of care in all public or private agen cies caring for such groups. Safeguarding of the rights o f children lacking their natural guardians or suffering from inadequate guard ianship : Children of illegitimate birth ; children placed for adoption; children placed in family homes within or outside the State; neglected or mistreated children. Assistance to local communities. Promotion o f the organization o f county agencies competent to undertake programs of prevention and treatment of dependency, neglect, and delinquency. < Assistance through itinerant clinics, consultant serv ices, and demonstrations to local agencies. ■Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 6 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON Administration of case work or aid to children when such care is undertaken by the State. Placing in family homes children accepted as wards. Case work for special groups of children for whom the State may assume responsibility: Children o f ille gitimate birth, crippled children, etc. A t the time o f this study Washington had made no provisions for the State to assume any ox these activities, although the State board o f health had a limited responsibility. On the recommendation of the State board o f health, institutions caring for dependent chil dren or for delinquent girls and women and hospitals were to be exempt from taxation when such institutions were supported in whole or in part by the public or by private donations.9 But with its many other activities the health department had not utilized this authority to develop the standards of social work in these institutions. COUNTY PROVISIONS The care o f dependent, delinquent, and mentally and physically handicapped persons is a dual responsibility of the State and of the county or other local administrative unit. The part that each o f these units of government should take in sharing responsibility for these groups received much attention in the deliberations ox the committee on National, State, and local organizations for the handi capped, of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protec tion. It was- the opinion o f this committee that “ administratively, responsibility should rest with the county for all services to any child until, after substantial case-work treatment, such child, for good cause, has been permanently removed from his family, or until a determination has been made that for given reasons he requires the specialized care that only the State can provide.” 10 It is evident that in many localities the local unit can not equip itself to administer or to support certain types o f care, such as schools for delinquents, training schools, custodial institutions, and hospitals for the mentally deficient or disordered, mental-hygiene clinics, and clinic and hospital provisions for the physically handicapped. Most localities have only a few children needing these types of treatment and must look to the State to furnish services that require specialists. The extent to which it is necessary for the State to care for de pendent children must depend upon whether or not there are available adequately equipped local agencies to which this responsibility can be delegated. There has been a tendency in a number of States for the assumption by some State agency o f a large part of the public responsibility for. children, with consequent weakening in county responsibility. This situation not only has resulted- in failure to develop local preventive agencies but has placed upon the State an unnecessary burden of complete support o f children who might have remained in their own homes if good case-work methods had been used for their problems earlier. 9 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 11104 (4). 10 Unpublished preliminary report presented at the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, Nov. 19-22, 1930, p. 429. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SU M M ARY OF PUBLIC PROVISIONS 7 Just as there is need in every State for the creation o f a State department responsible for the social welfare of the State, there is need for the creation in every county of an agency responsible for the social welfare of this smaller unit and for cooperation with the State department in a program for the whole State. The develop ment of such county agencies, as has been indicated on page 5, should be one of the major responsibilities of a State department of social welfare. Within.the last few years county programs for caring for children or other persons in need of care have been developed in several States.11 Some of these have included county activities only, but in most States the agency provided to do the county social work has also been the agent of the State department in carrying out its respon sibility for children or persons in need of care. Most of these county agencies have taken the form of a county welfare board having administrative authority. These unpaid boards are composed of citi zens appointed because of their understanding of county needs and their ability to enlist the interest and support of the people of the county and are authorized to appoint trained personnel to do the actual case work; funds for the work are appropriated by the county commissioners or other local taxing agency. The wide differences in the financial and social resources o f differ ent counties have been* a serious handicap in the development of a complete State program of county welfare work in many States. In Alabama this situation has been met by making State funds avail able to be used for all or part o f the salary o f a trained case worker to be employed by the county.12 West Virginia also has recently made legislative provision for such assistance.13 Such provisions are in accord with a growing realization that in the field of social wel fare, as in education and health, the State must help in equalizing the resources of the counties if they are to provide adequately for persons in need. In New Mexico and North Dakota, both of which have the population scattered over a large area, a plan has been developed of having a group of counties employ one worker. In New Mexico the State also contributes to the salary o f the trained case worker, who is also responsible for serving the State in her district. In addition to assisting in organizing such county agencies the State department in a few States has been made responsible for assisting the counties in obtaining properly qualified personnel and in making provisions for special educational opportunities for county workers serving in the State. The scope of a county welfare board’s activities must depend some what upon the character and responsibilities o f the social-welfare agencies that have been developed in the past. In most States county welfare boards or departments have been made responsible for all child-welfare activities not undertaken by existing county agencies and have been given broad powers to assist other agencies in their 11 The County as a Unit for an Organized Program of Child-Caring and Protective Work, by Emma O. Lundberg. U. S. Children’ s Bureau Publication No. 169. Washington, 1926. 12Alabama, Annual Report of the State Child Welfare Department, 1927—28, p. 12. “ West Virginia, Laws of 1929, ch. 30, sec. 2. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 8 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON case-work activities. In general, the child-caring work of such an agency includes the following types o f work : To develop, in cooperation with the juvenile court, the superintendent o f schools, and the county board of commis sioners or supervisors, a unified program for the care of dependent and neglected or unfortunate children and chil dren exhibiting conduct difficulties, which will provide early discovery of such children, prevent unnecessary breaking up of families, provide adequate local resources for children needing temporary care, and obtain for children who must be permanently separated from their families the type of care by an agency or institution suited to their needs. To assist the juvenile court and other local courts in their case-work responsibilities, such as investigations of cases of delinquency, dependency, and neglect, investigation and supervision o f mothers’ pension families, investigation of adoptions, and supervision o f children placed on probation in counties having no special probation staff. To undertake, at the request o f the county commissioners or supervisors, the administration o f relief funds. To serve, when requested, as agent for the State within the county in the investigation or aftercare supervision of chil dren who are the responsibility of the State. In Washington, except for the State provision of institutional care for delinquent and mentally and physically handicapped children and parental schools for delinquent children maintained by municipal boards of education, the county is responsible both administratively and financially for all public care for children. This responsibility is divided by law between the juvenile court and the county com missioners. The juvenile court administers mothers’ aid and under takes a broad program o f care of dependent and neglected children. It is also authorized14 to appoint a county board of visitation o f four persons who may visit and report on all institutions or agencies receiving children from the court. No such board was functioning, however, in any o f the counties visited. The county commissioners are charged with the superintendence of the poor o f the county. They may appoint agencies to perform such work, and they may provide for and maintain almshouses and hospitals for the care of the indigent, ill, and injured.15 Although the commissioners have no special responsibilities for children, a number of families with children were receiving poor relief, and in some of the smaller counties dependent children were being cared for by the county commissioners or their agent, the charity commissioner, without reference to the court. An almshouse or poor farm had been provided by the commissioners in four of the counties, but these were never used for the care o f dependent children. In the two largest counties (King and Spokane) many child-wel fare activities had been undertaken by the juvenile court, which was 14 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 1987 (18). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SU M M ARY OR PUBLIC PROVISION'S 9 administering mothers’ aid, providing temporary care of children in a detention home, and doing case work with delinquent and dependent and neglected children in their own homes and in foster homes; the Spokane court was also placing children for adoption. In both these counties a county department with several staif members was adminis tering outdoor relief. In Spokane County the charity commissioner in charge o f the county department was also the chief probation officer o f the court, so that the two agencies were working closely together. A similar cooperative situation existed in Walla Walla County, the charity commissioner doing all the social-welfare work for the juvenile court, and for the county commissioners exclusive of administration of the poor farm. Grays Harbor County was reorganizing its welfare activities at the time of the study; the court had appointed several part-time probation officers to carry on the work with delinquent children which' had previously been done by the charity commissioner. In the two smallest counties, Pacific and Adams, no person had been permanently appointed by the court or the county commissioners to care for persons needing social service; the county commissioners and the judge o f the superior court assumed some responsibility for individual cases. Although all except the smallest counties were employing one or more persons for full-time work, very few of these appointees were trained case workers. This lack of good case work was especially serious in those counties having no well-equipped private agencies to which difficult social problems could be referred. The counties selected for study (Adams, Grays Harbor, King, Pacific, Spokane, and Walla W alla), although representative of d if ferent conditions, do not present a cross section of the social resources of the State. While Washington contains a number of counties with prosperous cities, King, Pierce, and Spokane were the only counties having a population of more than 100,000 in 1920. Twenty-three of the thirty-nine counties of the State had a population of less than 20,000, and most of these were as small as Adams County or smaller. Some of the smallest counties were also the poorest. Although the number o f persons needing care in these smaller counties is prob ably not large, the need for skilled services for these few is as great as though they lived in more populous counties. Public responsibility for temporary support o f destitute children has been recognized in Washington in statutes which provide that the county is authorized to pay a sum’ not to exceed $50 for the care of each child surrendered to a private agency for permanent care or to pay for temporary care by an agency, institution, or indi vidual on order o f the juvenile court at a rate of not more than $12 a month for* a period not exceeding six months unless renewed.16 Funds for such care had been provided during the year of the study in all the counties except the smallest (Adams County). Payments were made for the care o f individual children to child-placing agen cies and institutions, for children placed in boarding homes under the supervision of the courts, and for some children under supervi sion of the court in their own homes. 16 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, secs. 1707, 1937 (8). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 10 CHILD WELFARE IN' WASHINGTON Although they were not authorized by law, four of the counties had granted lump-sum payments to a nuihber of institutions receiv ing dependent children.17 The amounts paid to these institutions bore no relation to the number of children referred to the institu tions by the court. In many instances children considered as county wards had been placed in the institutions by the county commis sioners or by their parents. Almost invariably when a lien has been made on the services of an institution, through a grant of funds, children are sent there for care without regard to the real needs of each child. In addition to making institutional care the most convenient method o f caring for children who are county wards, this form of payment has the serious disadvantage o f providing no safeguard against keeping a child indefinitely in the institution, since no rehearing is necessary such as has been required in the stat ute providing for temporary care of children. No recognition has been given in the State of Washington to public responsibility for permanent or long-time care o f dependent children other than those receiving assistance in their own homes. There are many children separated from their parents who can not be placed in family homes for adoption but yet need normal home life. Such children may need, in addition to special study or treatment, long time care in boarding homes. Whether such care should be under taken by a State agency or whether it can be undertaken by the counties with the assistance of the State and qualified private agencies is a problem which needs thoughtful consideration. Emphasis has been given by the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection to the need of State grants in aid to the counties to help equalize the great differences in the resources of the counties. State funds to help meet the cost of county child-welfare programs have been provided in more than one-third o f the States. In most of them such funds have been provided for aid to children in their own homes, and in a few States to assist the counties in obtaining trained case workers for county welfare work. RECOMMENDATIONS The study of public provisions for the care o f children in Wash ington, and analysis of the findings as to child-welfare conditions in six counties, indicate the need for increased public responsibility and administrative provisions for the care o f dependent, delinquent, and other handicapped children and for the strengthening of present legal provisions for their care. In formulating the following recom mendations the experience of other States and the conclusions and recommendations of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection have been carefully considered. In order that State responsibility for the care of de pendent, neglected, delinquent, and handicapped persons can be adequately discharged, a State agency with broad provisions for the care of children should be created to un dertake the various supervisory and administrative functions 17 Financial reports of the counties for the year 1926 showed that the following amounts had been spent in lump-sum payments to institutions during the year : King County, $5,100 ; Spokane County, $4,800 ; Grays Harbor County, $500 ; Walla Walla County, $1,300. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SU M M ARY OP PUBLIC PROVISION’S that are needed. The appropriations for the work of the department should be adequate to provide a staff with the traimng and experience that will enable it to hold a place o f leadership m the social-welfare work of the State. One o f the important duties of the State department con cerned with social welfare should be the development of local resources for the care o f children. This should in clude assisting the counties in the creation o f a countv board or department of welfare responsible for providing service to any child needing care. In addition to under taking protective work and other services for children at present not undertaken by the county, this agency might be authorized to assist the juvenile court and the countv commissioners in their activities which require social case work, such as the administration o f mothers’ aid and poor relief, and case work with dependent and problem children i&Qluding school attendance. The need for having avail able to every county board or department the services o f a trained case worker should be considered in any county program. Because of the wide variation in the resources and populations o f the counties of the State, this would necessitate State funds to assist the counties and some plan for providing one worker to a district consisting o f sev eral small counties. Provision should be made for supervision by the State of all institutions and agencies having the care o f children whether dependent, neglected, delinquent, or physically or mentally handicapped. Effective supervision requires the setting up and enforcing through licensing or other form o f direction or control, of at least minimum standards of work m agencies caring for children and the provision of services which will help to initiate and stimulate more ade quate care, training, and protection o f the children. The requirement o f reports o f activities at least annually is another aspect of such supervision. Approval of the State department concerned with social welfare should be re quired before incorporation 's granted to private child caring and charitable organizations. More adequate provision should be made for the protec° f , cT ldren separated from their natural guardians. -¡Most o f the measures that should be adopted require the provision o f administrative machinery. These activities may be undertaken by the staff of a State department or delegated by this department to local agencies which it supervises and approves. The following provisions are greatly needed: A thorough investigation by a State department or by the court of' all petitions for adoption should be required, as well as a definite trial period in the adop tive home under supervision before the final decree is granted. 54586°— 31----- 2 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 11 12 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON Placements of children in family homes should be made only by authorized agencies, and authority should be given to the State department o f social welfare to inspect all placements of children and to remove a child from any home when such removal is clearly in the interest of the child. These safe guards for children should be extended to include those brought into the State or taken from the State for placement in family homes. State supervision of boarding homes for children should be provided. Provision should be made for legal regulation of the transfer of parental guardianship through the re quirement of consent of the State department o f social welfare or a court of proper jurisdiction. Some public agency, probably a county agency, should be made responsible for the protection o f children of illegiti mate birth. This would involve the reporting o f all such births to the agency, which should be equipped to do case work with the mother and to initiate whatever action is nec essary to obtain support from the father or other care needed by the child. In order to prevent unsocial and often unnecessary separation of the child of illegitimate birth from his mother, hospitals and maternity homes should be prohibited from placing children unless licensed as child placing agencies and conforming to the standards for such agencies required by a State department of social welfare. Aid to mothers with dependent children is one of the most important child-welfare measures. Much variation existed in the different counties in the character of the services given to mothers’ aid families. The development of higher standards o f administration through assistance and educa tional supervision might be made one of the responsibilities o f a State department of social welfare. Whether the State should undertake to reimburse the counties for part of the mothers’ aid grant, as has been done in a number of States, should be given consideration in deciding on the relative responsibility of the State and the county for the care of dependent children. It would be desirable to strengthen the present provisions for public financial support o f dependent children in their own homes. In order to make aid to mothers achieve its purpose of maintaining satisfactory home life, the present limitation in the maximum amount that can be paid should be changed so that grants could be made in accordance with the needs o f families. The continuance of grants to chil dren remaining in school until 16 years of age would be another desirable modification in the existing law. More adequate support for children needing temporary or long-time care in boarding homes should be provided. The amount that could be paid for board should be liberal https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SU M M ARY OF PUBLIO PROVISION'S enough to provide for the special care needed by some chil dren. County funds should be available not only for the care of children referred to the juvenile court but also for the care of any child under the supervision of a county board or department of public welfare. Because of the wide variations in the quality o f probation work in the counties, there is need for a State program, preferably carried on by the proposed State department o f social welfare, for the promotion of juvenile-court and pro bation work. Such a program should include formulating minimum standards of juvenile-court and probation work, assisting county officers responsible for such work, and devel oping uniform reporting o f juvenile-court and probation statistics throughout the State. Child-guidance clinics for the study o f problem children, equipped to provide services throughout the State, should be available for the juvenile courts and other agencies caring for such children. More adequate provision should be made by the State for the care, education, and training o f mentally handicapped children. This should include an extension of the pro gram for providing special classes in the public schools as well as increased institutional provision for such children. The present State institution provides primarily for custo dial cases. The enlarged program should include facilities for training and thorough aftercare supervision o f all chil dren who can be returned successfully to their communities. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 13 Provision for Care of Children in the Six Counties CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN IN THEIR OWN HOMES MOTHERS’ AID The provision through State legislation of aid to mothers with dependent children is one o f the most constructive child-welfare measures. Such legislation has as its primary objective the conserva tion o f home life and the maintenance of suitable homes for the rearing of children. There is much variation throughout the 44 States having mothers’ aid laws in the extent to which the laws defi nitely prescribe and define the persons who may be beneficiaries under the law and the amount of aid that may be given. There is also variation in the types of service provided to the families and the standards o f case work maintained by the administrative agencies. PERSONS RECEIVING AID Mothers eligible. The provisions of the law in Washington are so general that any needy mother may be eligible for assistance. It is stated that “ it shall be the duty of the county commissioners to provide out of the moneys in the county treasury an amount sufficient to meet the pur poses of this law for the support of mothers who, by reason of desti tution, insufficient property or income, or lack of earning capacity are unable to support their children under the age of 15 years. Although this law applies throughout the State, some differences in policies were found in the counties visited as to the type of mothers who were given assistance. In Grays Harbor County the general policy o f the court was not to grant aid to mothers who had been deserted or who were divorced, though one divorced mother was re ceiving assistance, whereas in the adjoining county (Pacific) it was stated that the policy of the judge in such cases was so liberal that applications for mothers’ aid had been filed in some instances imme diately after the divorce had been granted.- A deserted mother was given aid in King County only if she consented to having a warrant served for the arrest o f the father. _ n 1 During the year ended February 28,1927, 994 families received aid in the six counties included in the study. The number receiving an allowance on any one date was smaller than this. On February 28, 783 mothers were receiving assistance, the allowance to 211 families having been discontinued during the year. 1 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 9993, 14 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 15 The number o f families and children who had received aid during the year is shown for each county in Table 1. In proportion to the population Pacific County granted ,aid to a larger number of families than the other counties. T able 1.— Number of families and children receiving aid during the year, num ber receiving aid at close of year, and number for whom aid was discontinued in six specified counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Receiving aid during year Receiving aid Feb. 28, 1927 Families Families Aid discontinued during year County Total_______________ Adams___ _______________ Grays Harbor.......................... King........................................ Pacific____________________ Spokane ________________ Walla Walla.......................... . Children Children Families Children 994 i 2,103 783 21,734 211 8369 7 87 621 52 183 44 21 4110 1,306 »125 437 104 6 67 497 39 139 35 17 «103 1,075 895 359 85 1 20 124 13 44 9 4 «7 231 30 78 19 1 Children reported in 952 families. * Children reported in 756 families. 8 Children reported in 196 families. 4Children reported in 46 families. * Children reported in 41 families. • Children reported in 5 families. i Children reported in 51 families. •Children reported in 38 families. It was found that in 503 families (51 per cent) the mothers were widows. The divorce or separation o f parents (16 per cent) and desertion by the father (15 per cent) were responsible for the dependency o f 300 of the families. A id was given to 162 families because of the incapacity of the father; 90 (9 per cent) of the fathers remained in their homes, and 72 fathers (7 per cent) were in hos pitals for the insane or the tuberculous, or in general hospitals. In 26 (3 per cent) of the families the fathers were confined in cor rectional institutions. These figures indicate that when no specific limitation is placed upon the type o f family to be aided, the need in a large proportion of the families is due to causes other than death of the father.2 The granting o f mothers’ aid to such families is most desirable. The number o f incapacitated fathers remaining at home is large enough to raise the question whether all the agencies were requiring that fathers with infectious diseases must be placed in hospitals or so cared for as to eliminate all chance o f danger to the family. A second question that might be raised is whether the number of families receiving aid as a result of separation or deser tion is high. The number of such families receiving assistance is influenced by the thoroughness of the effort made by the agencies administering mothers’ aid to locate the absent fathers and obtain support for the family from them. Answers to these questions could be obtained only through case studies, which were not possible within the limitations of this study. Children for whom aid was given. The law specifies that “ whenever any child shall reach the age o f 15 years any allowance made to the mother o f such child for the 2 Unpublished figures for 10,884 mothers’ aid families, compiled in 1923 from material from several States, including a number with specific limitations, illustrate the effect of limitation on the types of families under care. The percentage distribution of reason for need was as follow s: Father dead, 78 per cen t; mother divorced or deserted, 12 per cen t; father incapacitated 8 per cen t; father in prison, 2 per cent. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 16 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON benefit of such child shall cease.” 3 This age limit for granting an allowance is less liberal than that found in the majority of the States. Twenty-eight of the forty-four States having mothers’ aid laws permit aid up to 16 years or beyond.4 A ll but 24 of the 1,733 children receiving aid on February 28, 1927, were under 15 years of age. Most of these older children were only a few days or months beyond their fifteenth birthdays; and when the records were examined later in the year, revocation o f the grant for the child was often noted. In a small number of cases, presum ably when a special problem occurred, the grant had been given throughout the child’s fifteenth year. It is, of course, probable that in a number of cases aid was not consciously given beyond the child’s fifteenth birthday, but because of the limited supervision the usual monthly check was sent without consideration of changed condi tions. It is quite understandable that in many instances it would be most desirable to grant aid to a child beyond the birthday date specified in the law, in order to keep him in school throughout the school year or to provide for some other need. In order that actual practice might conform with the law, it would be most desirable so to modify the law that aid might be given beyond the usual age limit in exceptional cases. In consideration of the fact that the school attendance law of Washington has as its purpose the keeping o f children in school until they are 16 years of age,5 it would seem most desirable to raise the age limit for granting an allowance to 16 years at least. Although grants for children starting to work on reaching 15 would be dis continued as at present, an opportunity would be given to keep a much larger number o f children in school without sacrifice to the family. SUPPORT OF FAMILIES Mothers’ aid administrators as a rule agree that it is desirable to avoid definite limitations o f grants and to permit assistance to be based on the needs of each individual family. Washington is one of the many States having mothers’ aid laws that specify the maxi mum allowance that may be paid to a mother. It is also one of the seven States having the least adequate grant.6 The law provides that the allowance “ shall not exceed $15 per month when she (the mother) has but one child under the age o f 15 years, and if she has more than one child under the age of 15 years it shall not exceed the sum o f $15 per month for the first child and $5 per month for each o f the other children under the age of 15 years.” 7 I f a mothers’ aid law is to be more than a relief measure, if its purpose is to provide for the well-being of the children through ade quate mother care and the maintenance o f an adequate standard of living, it is essential that the allowance be liberal enough to accom plish this end. This does not mean necessarily that the grants to all «Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 9996. *A Tabular Summary of State Laws Relating to Public Aid to Children in Their Own Homes, pp. 4-25. U. S. Children’ s Bureau Chart No. 3. Washington, 1929. 5 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 5072. 6 Public Aid to Mothers with Dependent Children, by Emma O. Lundberg, p. 10 (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 162, Revised) ; A Tabular Summary of State Laws Relating to Public Aid to Children in Their Own Homes, pp. 4—25. 7 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 9994. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 17 families must be large, but it does mean that funds sufficient to sup port the family should be available when the family has no other resources and it is desirable to limit the wage earning of the mother, in order that she may give more time to the care of young children. Table 2 shows the amount of the monthly grant given to families in the six counties and the number o f children under 15 years o f age in these families. About one-third o f the families for whom the number of children was reported had three or more children under 15 years of age. The majority o f the families (620) were receiving the maximum grant allowed by the law according to the size o f the family. Twenty-five families appeared to be receiving more than the maximum; in each of these the extra allowance was being granted for another child who was over 15 years of age. (See p. 16.) Grants smaller than the maximum had been given to 109 families. T able 2.— Amount o f final monthly grant and number of children under 15 years of age in the homes of families receiving aid in the six counties, February 28, 1927 1 Child of low mentality—16 years of age. 1Includes 1 family in which the child was separated from the mother. *Includes 7 families in which children separated from their mothers were receiving a grant. 4Includes 2 families in which children separated from their mothers were receiving a grant. In some o f the 109 cases in which the grant was less than the maximum, the small allowances may have been due to the fact that the family income from other sources was large enough to necessitate only a small grant from mothers’ aid funds. In others the informa tion would suggest that little consideration was given to the fami lies’ needs or other resources, the aid being in the nature of a dole. The largest proportion o f small grants was found in three counties (Walla Walla, Grays Harbor, and Adams), as 50 o f the 82 families in these counties for which the size o f the family and the amount of grant were reported were granted less than the maximum per mitted by law. In 10 families the children for whom aid was given were not with their mothers. In most of these this was a temporary situation, the grant being revoked when it became evident that the mother could no longer care for her children. The willingness of the administrative agencies to carry a family through a period of tempo rary break in home life shows that consideration is being given to the real needs of the children. The number of such cases is usually small. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 18 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON Because of the limited amount allowed by the mothers’ aid law, it was necessary for all families to have some supplementary income. The most important source o f supplementary income was earnings of the members o f the families. Assistance from poor relief, private relief agencies, and from relatives was also counted upon. A num ber of the families owned their homes, sometimes with a garden; some had other resources, allowed by the administrative agency.8 The earnings of the family were primarily those of the mother; in many families her earnings were supplemented by those of the older children. Family earnings were reported in 784 o f the 994 families receiving aid during the year, the mother being unemployed in only 91 of those families. O f the 693 working mothers, 405 were employed for full time and 288 for part time. The mothers were reported as employed in about four-fifths of the families in King County and in about three-fourths o f the families in Spokane County. In the counties containing no large city the proportion of working mothers was much smaller, as very little work for women was available; in Grays Harbor County no information as to the employment o f the mothers was available. O f even greater signifi cance than the extent of employment is the fact that more than onefifth (150) o f the working mothers had children under 6 years o f age. Eighty-four mothers with from one to three children under 6 years o f age were working full time. Although in some o f these families with preschool children it may be possible to provide in some way for supervision o f the younger children, it would seem that the purpose o f the mothers’ aid law had been defeated in large part by depriving these children of their mothers’ care during the working day. As far as could be ascertained, there were no definite policies in the counties visited in regard to giving a family both mothers’ aid and poor relief. In one o f the counties it was learned that a few mothers who were eligible for mothers’ aid had not been given this allowance but were receiving regular grants from the poor fund, as it was possible in this way to make more adequate provision for the family. Since it was not possible to obtain complete information as to the families receiving poor relief or assistance from private agencies in the four smaller counties, and the mothers’ aid records seldom con tained this information, no statement can be made as to the extent of supplementary assistance that was being given by such agencies in these counties to families receiving mothers’ aid. About onefifth (165) of the 804 families who had received mothers’ aid dur ing the year in King and Spokane Counties were receiving assist ance from public or private agencies in addition to mothers’ aid: 91 families had received both mothers’ aid and poor relief; 55 mothers’ aid and relief from private agencies; and 19 mothers’ Rid, poor relief, and assistance from private agencies. In none of the 121 families in the two counties living outside the cities, had moth ers’ aid been supplemented by relief from private agencies, but 18 had received aid from poor-relief funds. 8 In King County a mother was permitted to retain an equity of $3,000 in a home and savings to the amount of $300. In Spokane County the mother’s equity in her home waa limited to $2,500 and her savings to $100. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 19 In some o f the 110 mothers’ aid families who had received poor relief in King and Spokane Counties relief funds had been granted as supplementary to mothers’ aid on application of the mothers’ aid worker; in other families poor relief had been granted prior to the application for mothers’ aid. The amounts o f poor relief granted most o f the mothers’ aid families were quite small; 60 families received less than $20 each during the year. A few families were not given any relief except clothing, some especially needed article o f furniture, or a few dollars in cash. Seventeen mothers’ aid families, however, received as much as $100 each in poor relief dur ing the year. For a number of years the public-welfare department o f King County had been supplying certain necessities to mothers’ aid fami lies in cases of emergency. During 1926 a sum of $3,000 was appro priated by the county for this additional relief fund. Beginning with January 1, 1927, this money was put at the disposal of the mothers’ pension department. Special orders for food, fuel, or clothing could be given from this f und. Private relief was not used so extensively as poor relief to supple ment mothers’ aid; only 44 mothers’ aid families in King County and 30 in Spokane received aid o f this type. Ten o f the King County families were given $100 or more by private agencies, the three largest amounts being $350, $413, and $1,143. Assistance ranging from $110 to $140 was given to 3 families in Spokane County. Nine o f the mothers’ aid families in King County and 10 in Spokane County had received both poor relief and private assistance. The amounts of poor relief in the King County cases were small— from $3 to $25— during the year, the grants by a private agency being somewhat larger. One family received $144. In Spokane County, on the other hand, the poor-relief grants ranged from $5 to $361, but the amounts of private relief were correspondingly low— from $4 to $46. In one family in which a mothers’ allowance o f $45 a month was being made for seven children, $361 in poor relief and $24 in private relief had been given during the year. Information was obtained also in King and Spokane Counties as to the extent to which relatives were assisting the families and as to whether the income of the families had been supplemented by such resources as ownership o f the home, produce raised, savings used, or some form of insurance. Nearly one-sixth (127) o f the 804 families in the two counties were receiving some assistance from relatives, and 329 families had been able to supplement their income from their resources. ADMINISTRATION The administration of the mothers’ aid law in Washington is one of the duties o f the juvenile court. In King and Spokane Counties special departments of the juvenile court had been organized for the administration o f mothers’ aid. In the other four counties mothers’ aid was administered by the judge of the superior court. Applica tions for an allowance were made by the mothers to the court in King and Spokane Counties, to the prosecuting attorney in Adams Pacific, and Walla W^alia Counties, and to the charity commissioner https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 20 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASH INGTON in Grays Harbor County. A ll mothers’ aid work in King and Spo kane Counties was done by the staff of the mothers’ aid department. In the remaining counties the investigation of applications and the supervision of families receiving aid were the responsibility of some official who was serving the county in other capacities such as the probation officer (Walla W alla), the charity commissioner (Grays Harbor), the county nurse (Pacific), or any county commissioner (Adams). Because of the other activities of these workers it was possible for them to give but little time to this work. To give financial assistance should be only one part of the work of an agency which is undertaking to assist mothers to maintain homes that will best develop the children. In order to assist in overcoming adverse conditions which may exist and to obtain for the family the benefit of all the resources o f the community, the services of a skilled case worker should be available to the families. Many local admin istrative agencies fail to realize this need and do not provide suffi cient funds for these services to families. The necessity for good local administration has been recognized in the mothers’ aid laws of one State which specifies that State funds not exceeding 10 per cent o f the amount appropriated for aid to mothers should be spent in administration.9 In none o f the six counties were enough thoroughly trained work ers employed to give the amount and type of services really needed by the families. Even in the counties having special departments responsible for this work the force was inadequate ; Spokane County had oniy 1 field worker for about 140 active cases, and King County only 3 field workers for about 500 cases. It is probable that a trained worker employed on half time could render satisfactory serv ice to the small number of mothers’ aid families in Pacific and Walla Walla Counties, but the full-time services of a trained worker would be desirable in a county having as many mothers’ aid families as Grays Harbor County. The records of the administrative agencies showed that in some of the counties the investigation of the case prior to granting aid was limited to fulfilling the requirement of the law but was quite insuffi cient to provide for a constructive plan of treatment for the family. The law specifies that the juvenile court, through thé probation offi cers, charity commissioners, or other persons, “ shall carefully inves tigate the merits of every application to the end that this act may be fairly administered and no person granted relief hereunder except those justly entitled thereto.” 10 The number of times the mothers were visited by the workers af fords some idea o f the extent of the supervision given. Because of the limited records in the smaller counties it was impossible to ascer tain the exact number o f visits to individual families. In Adams County it was definitely known that no regular visits to the homes of the families were made, the county commissioners depending en tirely on their personal knowledge of the family in deciding upon the eligibility of the mother for aid, the amount of the grant, and the desirability o f renewing or withdrawing the grant at the end of 9 Pennsylvania, Laws of 1919, No. 354, sec. 5. ** Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec, $998, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FBOVISION FOE CHILDREN" list T H E STY COUNTIES m the year. In Grays Harbor and Walla Walla Counties the families were visited about once a year, usually when the renewal o f the grant was being considered. Although the county nurse in Pacific County was handicapped by having so little time to devote to this work, she was visiting the mothers5 aid families as often as her other duties permitted. ' Prior to her taking over the work six months before the study was undertaken, no home visits had been made to the mothers’ aid families. Information was obtained from the individual records in King and Spokane Counties showing the number of visits to the families during the year. Three-fourths of the families in King County were visited once m two months or oftener. In Spokane County, on the other hand, a large majority (88 per cent) of the families were visited less frequently than once in two months, one-fourth of the entire group of mothers having been seen in their homes only once during the year. It was reported that five mothers in Spokane County and two in King County were not visited during the year, ih e number of visits made to the 462 families in the two counties that had received aid during the entire year covered by the study is shown m the following list: Number of Number of visits families Total_________________________462 N on e. 1___ 7 29 3_____ 23 2___ 21 Number of visits 4 __________ __________ Number of families -------- 36 5 _______ !_______ -------- 50 6 _ -------- 59 7_________ -------- 47 or more_________ __________________ 172 Not reported_____ !_________________ ig . and Spokane Counties were the only two of the six counties visited that were carrying out a comprehensive plan for services other than relief for the families under their supervision. The workers m these counties had undertaken to provide various kinds of assistance through cooperation with other agencies in the county. The special activities included attention to the housing, health, and recreation needs of the mothers and children. In Spokane County the mothers’ aid department had enlisted the cooperation o f the Kiwanis Club in a definite building program for mothers aid families. In King County the mothers receiving aid were required to live away from the crowded down-town district beyond the railroad, cheap rooming house, factory, and water-front section. Considerable effort had been expended in helping the mothers build or buy their own cottages. None o f the other four counties paid any particular attention to the types o f houses in which the mothers lived. In fact in one county it was learned, in connection With the rehearing of a case, that the family consisting of a mother .ve children were living in a tent. The judge commented on the situation but expressed no concern and made no inquiry as to her reason for living in this way. No one seemed to feel any responsibility for seeing that more adequate provision be made for the family. ‘i Some city or county health workers were available in all the counties visited except Adams. A ll the counties had some means of providing medical examinations and care for county wards, but no medical examinations were required by the court in any o f these counties at the https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 22 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASH INGTON time o f application for aid unless there was obvious need for it or unless there was a question as to the mother’s ability to work. Some < attention to the health needs of the families was given by the mothers’ aid staff in K ing and Spokane Counties and also in Pacific County during the period that the county nurse had been supervising mothers’ aid families. None of these counties required the mothers to place their preschool children under the supervision o f health centers, but in both K ing and Spokane Counties the mothers were required to carry out any recommendations that were made by physicians or by school or county nurses. It was sometimes neces sary to threaten to withdraw the grant in order to persuade the mothers to have necessary treatment for themselves or the children. Clinic facilities for psychological and psychiatric examinations were available only in Seattle. Examinations for mental defect were provided by the schools in the cities o f Seattle, Spokane, and Aber deen, where there were special classes for retarded children. Even in the larger cities mental examinations of children in mothers’ aid families were seldom requested. In the two counties having large cities the workers did much to assist the mothers and children in taking advantage of the recrea tional activities of their communities. In the smaller counties some organized groups providing recreational facilities were found in the cities and towns; but participation in such activities was left to the initiative o f the individual families, as the persons administering mothers’ aid assumed no responsibility for extending the interests or opportunities for the families under their care. It is apparent that there is great need in Washington for some form o f State supervision of mothers’ aid administration. The edu cational activities of such an agency should do much toward bringing the individual counties of the State to a realization that mothers’ aid means more than mere relief, and that services to the family such as can be given by a trained case worker are an essential element of adequate aid to mothers. POOR RELIEF A N D PRIVATE RELIEF ADMINISTRATION OF POOR RELIEF The boards o f county commissioners in the various counties of Washington are “ vested with entire and exclusive superintendence o f the poor in their respective counties.” 11 Adams County was typi cal of the smaller rural counties of the State in that the county com missioners administered the poor relief themselves. In the more populous counties it was customary for the county commissioners to appoint some one to do this work. In Pacific County the county nurse had been asked to administer poor relief in addition to her other duties, but the commissioners had not cooperated with her fully and frequently granted relief without referring the case to her. This work was delegated in Grays Harbor County td a charity commissioner, in Spokane County to a charity commissioner and an assistant, and in Walla Walla County to the juvenile-court proba11 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 9981. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 23 tion officer. A department of public welfare in charge of a commis sioner and three assistants had been created in King County. Six months’ residence in the county is required by the State law before a person is eligible to receive poor relief. I f an applicant has not fulfilled this requirement, the county may return him to the place from which he came or through a constable serve a notice on him ordering him to leave the county.12 As Washington has no statutory provision prescribing how a settlement is lost, the county commissioners of the different counties may interpret the settlement law to mean that if an applicant for poor relief has been absent for one day or more “ immediately preceding the day upon which such application is made, he has lost his residence and is not entitled to any relief.” It would seem desirable that the interpretation o f this point be uniform throughout the State and that residence in a county should be retained for at least.' the 6-month period required to obtain residence in another county. One county (Walla Walla) required a year’s residence and refused to grant relief to three groups of families that were not considered strictly chargeable to the county. These were the families of men in two institutions in Walla Walla—the State penitentiary and the United States veter ans’ hospital—the families o f men sent to jail for bootlegging, and transient families. No detailed information could be obtained in the four smaller counties in regard to the families with children that were receiving poor relief, as no social records were kept, the stubs of relief orders, which were issued to single persons as well as to families, being the only available record. As in many counties o f similar size, the county commissioners or their agents in making grants de pended largely upon their own personal knowledge o f the families or upon the judgment o f acquaintances. No attempt was made to investigate thoroughly the needs and problems of the families or to make constructive plans for their care. In cases not well known, inquiry was always made into the eligibility of the family for receiving aid. Records o f all families under care were available in the two larger counties. About 30 per cent o f the families with children receiving aid in King County were living outside Seattle, although less than 20 per cent o f the population o f the county were outside the city. The large percentage o f rural poor-relief cases was due to an agree ment between the county commissioners and the large private relief agency of the city that because of the inadequacy of the poor-relief funds the commissioners would care for all relief work with fam ilies having children outside the city and that part of those apply ing to the department in the city would be referred to the private agency. Although 26 per cent of the population o f Spokane County live outside the city of Spokane, only f per cent of the poor-relief fam ilies were from the rural sections or small towns of the county. The supervision given to poor-relief families in Spokane was out standing among the counties. The need for family rehabilitation was recognized, and close cooperation was maintained by the com12 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, secs. 9987, 9989. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 24 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON missioner o f charities with local family-relief agencies, with the confidential exchange in Spokane, and with the juvenile court. A definite medical program was being carried out, and special atten tion was given in families where there was tuberculosis. As is usual in granting poor relief, cash was seldom given in any o f the counties, the immediate needs o f the persons applying for aid being met by giving orders for food, clothing, or fuel or by providing medical care. As far as could be judged, few families with children had been receiving aid regularly from poor funds. Whenever possible mothers needing assistance over a long period were given mothers’ aid. In two cases in one of the counties this policy had not been carried out, as the mothers preferred to re ceive poor relief because they could receive a larger amount than was possible under the maximum allowed by the mothers’ aid law. A number o f inothers’ aid families had been granted poor relief for a short time before receiving a grant from mothers’ aid funds. A few mothers’ aid families were receiving aid regularly from poorrelief funds. ADMINISTRATION OF PRIVATE RELIEF In practically every community visited, needy persons were being helped to a greater or less extent by private individuals, by churches and fraternal societies, and by clubs or small social organizations. Wherever such agencies as the Red Cross or the Salvation Army existed, these also, among their other activities, were providing as sistance to families. It was obviously impossible to obtain any esti mate as to the number of individuals assisted in this way or of the amount expended for relief. Eight agencies in three of the smaller counties reported that they had given relief to families, the number assisted varying from 3 to nearly 50 families. While some o f the groups or agencies in these counties were giving food, clothing, or other necessities with little or no investigation, a few were giving systematic and thorough care to a few families, rendering them services that would contribute to the general welfare and rehabilitation of the family. The city of Walla Walla was the only place in the four smaller counties where any at tempt had been made to coordinate the work of private agencies. At the time of the study a community chest had been organized and a social-service exchange had been started. A number of private agencies were giving relief in each of the large cities of the two larger counties. Information as to the exact number of families under care during the year and the amount of aid given could be obtained from the records of only three of the 10 agencies that reported giving relief. Four o f the agencies from which data could not be obtained reported that they had aided a large number of families. The agencies from whom records were obtained were all family-welfare agencies providing whatever services were needed for the families applying for aid. Material aid was the pri mary need in some families, whereas in others adjustment of family problems, provision of medical care, assistance in providing suitable work, and other problems were the immediate cause o f application for assistance. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 25 FAMILIES RECEIVING AID IN KING AND SPOKANE COUNTIES Agencies giving aid. Since detailed information as to the assistance given to families in King and Spokane Counties was obtained from the county agency providing relief and from three o f the principal family-relief agencies, it was possible to get a comparative picture of the extent of aid to families with children in these counties from the three important sources: Mothers’ pension funds, poor relief, and private agencies. As it was obviously impossible to obtain any data as to the amount of relief given by private individuals and such organi zations as churches and lodges, and no complete information could be obtained from a number o f agencies giving relief, the data from private-relief agencies give only a minimum statement as to the num ber of families with children being aided by private funds, whereas the record of families aided from public funds was complete. Fur thermore, the private agencies confined their activities to the cities o f Seattle and Spokane, while the public aid was provided for families through the counties. The population of King County is nearly three times as large as that o f Spokane County. Practically the same number of families, however, were receiving poor relief during the year in the two counties—204 and 201, respectively. On the other hand, 621 families were receiving mothers’ aid and 787 assistance from private agencies in King County as compared with 183 from mothers’ aid and 445 from private relief in Spokane County. The 405 families receiving poor relief had 1,270 children under 18 years of age at the time of the study, and the 1,232 families receiving private relief had 3,311 children under 18. About one-tenth of the families given assistance in the two coun ties had received aid from more than one source during the year. Table 3 shows that in proportion to the total number o f families given assistance the number receiving aid from more than one source was greater in Spokane County than in King County. The number o f families in Spokane receiving both poor relief and private relief is particularly large. It is probable that this difference in the two counties is influenced both by the territorial agreement made between the department o f public welfare and the large private agency in King County and by the cooperative relationships that existed be tween the county commissioners and the private agencies in Spokane County. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 26 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON T able 3.— Number of families receiving aid and type of aid given in King a/nd Spokane Counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Families receiving aid Type of aid Total Total_______________________________________________________ In In King Spokane County County 2,183 1,484 699 639 221 1,084 239 512 120 733 119 127 101 351 120 91 55 74 19 65 35 10 9 26 20 64 10 Unemployment was given in the largest number o f cases as the reason for application for assistance, both for families receiving poor relief and for those receiving aid from private agencies. In many o f these cases other factors were present that made it neces sary to continue the aid even after the temporary unemployment problem had been solved. Illness or incapacity o f the parents was the next most important cause o f need. Broken families, insuffi cient income, losses, or other problems were the reasons for applica tions in the remaining families. Extent of assistance. Poor r e l i e f Although some families had applied for poor relief only to tide them over a single emergency such as temporary un employment or illness, others were helped at irregular intervals over extended periods by the commissioners or a representative giving an order for food or some other necessity only when applica tion was made because o f special emergency. A few families had received regular relief for many months and sometimes for years. Table 4 shows that 211 families were receiving aid at the beginning of the year o f the study and that nearly two-thirds o f these received less than $50 in relief during the 12 months. The amount o f assist ance given to the 18 families who had received more than $200 dur ing the 12 months was equivalent to the amount that could be given during a year from mothers’ aid funds to a mothers’ aid family having one or more children. A number o f families who had been under care less than 12 months had also received the equivalent o f $15 a month or more. The majority of the families receiving the larger amounts were living in Spokane County. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 27 PROVISION FOR CHILDREN- IN TH E SIX COUNTIES T able 4.-—Amount of relief and period during which relief was given to families receiving poor relief in King and Spokane Counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Amount of relief Period during which relief was given Total families receiv 3 6 9 Less 1 month, 12 ing months, months, months, than less months Not re relief 1month less less less than 3 than or more ported 6 than 9 than 12 Total______________ 405 34 57 44 27 Less than $10________ $10, less than $25_______ $25, less than $50_______ $50, less than $75....... . $75, less than $100............... $100, less than $200_____ _ $200 or more....... Amount not reported_____ 98 133 69 34 24 27 19 1 12 18 4 11 29 8 4 5 17 12 8 4 i 2 6 7 6 1 3 3 1 29 211 3 11 1 Private relief.—A large proportion o f the families receiving relief from private agencies had been under care for more than 1 year at the end of the period of this study or when the case was closed; 364 had been under care for 1 to 4 years, 116 from 5 to 9 years, and 32 for 10 years or more. The relief given to these families constituted only part o f the assistance that had been given by the agencies. During the 12 months of the study, 357 families had continuous contact with the agencies. Table 5 shows that, as in the similar group of poor-relief families (Table 4), nearly two-thirds had received less than $50 during the year. A large number of families that had had contact with the agencies during only part of the year had also received small amounts o f relief. Although the proportion o f fami lies receiving more than $100 is smaller than the proportion receiv ing such amounts from poor relief, the actual amount given to some o f these families was much larger than that given to any family from poor funds. T able 5 — Amount of relief and period during which relief was given to families receiving aid from private relief agencies in King and Spokane Counties dur ing the year ended February 28, 1927 Period during which relief was given Amount of relief families 3 6 9 receiv Less 1month, 12 months, months, months, ing relief than 1 less months, Not re less less less month than 3 ported than 6 than 9 than 12 or more Total.... .......... 1,232 210 270 202 105 85 357 3 Less than $10............ $10, less than $25....... $25, less than $50____ $50, less than $75____ $75, less than $100___ $100, less than $200... $200 or more.............. Amount not reported 377 318 197 91 66 75 33 75 111 58 17 1 3 1 1 18 83 87 46 17 14 5 49 55 36 19 16 12 3 12 27 26 16 13 6 11 1 5 21 18 23 9 3 4 4 3 84 74 59 31 24 42 24 19 2 54586°— 31------ 3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 18 i CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON 28 CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN AW AY FROM THEIR OWN HOMES PROVISIONS FOR PROTECTION OF CHILDREN REMOVED FROM r TH EiR HOMES The separation of a child from his own home may be far-reaching in its consequences. It is essential, therefore, that such a separation should be safeguarded by adequate legal protection and by good case work on the part of all agencies concerned with the child s care. That the State should be responsible for the well-being of children who for some imperative reason are separated from their families is generally accepted. The assumption of such responsibility does not mean that the State need assume the actual care of children; it does mean, however, that all agencies or persons caring for dependent children should be responsible to some State agency tor the quality o f the care given and that the State should provide such advice and services as will help the agencies in maintaining adequate standards. STATE SUPERVISION OF CHILD-PLACING AGENCIES Institutions and child-placing agencies. Some provision for supervision o f private child-caring agencies and institutions by a State department has been made m the majority of the States. In more than half the States having such provisions all or practically all the work of such agencies and institutions within the State is under control of the State department of charities or welfare, which is authorized to license (usually annually), inspect, prescribe minimum standards or rules and regulations, and usually to require reports at stated intervals. Provisions m the remaining States are limited either as to the types of agencies to be supervised or as to the nature of the supervision given by the State department. In the States that have undertaken an adequate program of super vision such work is looked upon as an educational rather than a regulatory function. The character of the supervisory staff vitally affects the nature of the services that can be given, and the contribu tion of the State department to the care given to children is greatly increased if specialists of various types able to give help on specific problems are available for consultation or demonstration. Some of the types of specialists provided in different States are an experienced case worker for consultation or demonstration of satisfactory intake practices for institutions, a consultant on mental hygiene, an adviser on health problems, and specialists in record keeping, m accounting, and in institutional management. When a State department is unable to maintain specialists on its own staff it should be possible to provide for part-time services of such persons recruited from either private or public agencies. . _. , , L Two legal provisions have been made in Washington for the super vision of private institutions and child-placing agencies,^ -*-fe appointment of county boards o f visitation which may visit and report on all institutions and agencies receiving children from the court have been authorized by law, although no such board had been functioning in any o f the counties visited. The second provision exempts orphanages and other institutions from taxation, provided https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 29 the State board of health and the county and city authorities have access to their books. Annual reports of vital statistics as well as reports o f all receipts and expenditures must be made to the State board o f healthMaternity homes and hospitals. Because o f the dual function o f maternity homes as hospitals and as homes for mothers and infants, these institutions are licensed in some States by the State department o f health, in others by the State department of public welfare, and in others by both. The recognition and regulation of maternity homes as child-caring insti tutions is one of the essential steps in an adequate child-caring pro gram. Study of the child placing done by maternity homes and hospitals in the Washington counties (see p. 37) showed that through these agencies a not inconsiderable number o f children were being separated from their mothers as soon as possible after birth and placed in homes, with little regard to the physical needs o f the child or proper safeguards for the future o f the child or his adoptive parents. The requirement of adequate social records for all chil dren, the requirement that children should not be separated from their mothers during a three to six month nursing period, and pro hibition of child placing by any maternity home or hospital unless licensed as a child-placing agency, are provisions that have been made in some States for overcoming the unsocial dispositions o f children, which often occur in maternity homes.13 Boarding homes. The supervision o f boarding, homes for children is another State responsibility. Nearly two-thirds of the States by either special or general legislation require the annual licensing or certification of such homes. In most o f these States the State department of public welfare is the licensing authority, although in a few States this responsibility is placed upon the State department of health or upon local health officers. Desirable though it may be to have health authorities pass upon the sanitary requirements of boarding homes, it is becoming generally recognized that health is only one of the several factors that need to be considered in deciding upon the desir ability o f a boarding home. Some variations exist in the different States as to the licensing of boarding homes receiving children of different ages. The intent of the earlier legislation appeared to be that only boarding homes receiving young children (under 2 or 3 years) should be subject to State inspection. The later tendency is to make such legislation^ applicable to homes receiving any child. In many o f the States in which the State department o f public welfare has been given authority to license and supervise boarding homes, the department has delegated supervision to qualified local public or private child-caring agencies, granting a license upon their recommendation but reserving the right to inspect homes and to remove a child if necessary. In the Washington counties included in this study, boarding homes were being used by agencies and by parents and guardians in both the large cities. In Seattle a municipal ordinance required 18 A Study o f Maternity Homes in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, Bureau Publication No. 167. Washington, 1926. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ü. S. Children’s 30 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON that all boarding homes be granted permits by the child-welfare division of the city health department. About 70 homes had been inspected and permits granted at the time of the study. Although every effort was made to maintain good standards m the boarding homes o f Seattle, the lack of county or State regulation of boarding homes in the suburbs of the city made it possible for an undesirable home to carry on its activities just beyond the city limits, in Spokane no attempt had been made by either the city or the county to license boarding homes, though a number of such homes were advertised in the newspapers. The child-placing department ox the juvenile court in Spokane was using a few carefully super vised boarding homes for its wards. The limitation of county re sponsibility for payment for temporary care of children to $12 a m onth14 was a handicap to the court in obtaining satisf actory homes, the rate of board paid by private agencies in Washington at the time of the study being $18 to $25 a month.15 It is probable that a few boarding homes may have existed in some of the smaller cities of the six counties, but no agency had undertaken to regulate them. INTERSTATE PLACEMENT A complete program for the care o f dependent children would insure that every child placed in a foster home within the State and every child taken from the State for placement would be adequately supervised. Provision has been made in more than half the States for some regulation of “ importation” of dependent children into the State; in a few States provision has been made for regulation of both “ importation” and “ exportation” of children. lhese statutory provisions are of two types: Those which have for their object safeguarding the child, and those which are primarily con cerned with safeguarding the State against receiving children who may become public charges. _ . , , , Notification of a State department, usually the State department of public welfare, o f all placements made is required by most States having interstate-placement laws, and usually the deposit of a bond or a written guaranty by the agency making the placement is also required. When the intent of the legislation is to safeguard the children, the placing agency must also make some provision for supervising the child. Approval by the State department of the home in which the child is placed and periodic reports from the agency regarding conditions in the home are required by many States. . , , _ 7 . , Washington, at the time o f this study, had no law governing inter state placement of children. During the progress of the study records were found of a few children that had been placed in homes in adjoining States. It was impossible to judge whether or not children from other States had been placed in Washington. Oregon, on the southern border of Washington, had made provision16 to »'Even th is amountPis especially for the care of preschool children or infants, as cnmnarpil with the navinents made by child-placing agencies in other cities. See The Work of Child-Placing Agencies, by Katharine P. He wins and L. Josephine Webster, p. 48 (U S Children’s Bureau Publication No. 171, Washington, 1927), ie Oregon, Laws of 1920, Olson’s, sec. 9835. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 31 protect itself against receiving within the State children who might become paupers or delinquents, and required that any person, agent, agency, or institution of another State who placed a child in a home in Oregon must furnish the child-welfare commission with a guar anty against the child’s becoming a public charge within five years from the date of placement. It had no provision for insuring that the placing agency properly supervise the child so placed. Neither o f the other neighboring States, Idaho and Montana, had undertaken any regulation of interstate placement of children. TRANSFER OF GUARDIANSHIP The permanent separation of a child from his natural guardians is serious and should be allowed only after careful consideration of all the problems involved. According to the minimum standards of child welfare adopted by the 1919 Washington and Regional Con ferences on Child Welfare, “ transfer o f the legal guardianship of a child should not be permitted save with the consent of a properly designated State department or a court o f proper jurisdiction.” 17 Only about one-fourth of the States have authorized such protective legislation. The largest group of children needing the protection which such legislation affords are children of illegitimate birth. Under the emo tional strain which the unmarried mother suffers, her natural affec tions are submerged by her immediate problems, and she often signs a release from guardianship which she later regrets. A similar situa tion may occur in a normal family which without wise guidance sees no other solution than the breaking up of the family in cases of death, unfortunate domestic relations, or financial need. I f the agency authorized to give consent to transfer of guardianship is also equipped to assist the parent in caring for the child, much needless separation may be prevented. No safeguard o f the transfer o f custody o f dependent children was found in Washington. Transfer o f the custody of a minor child to any benevolent or charitable society incorporated under the laws of the State could be effected by a written surrender by the parents or other legal guardian.18 Wnen a minor was a county charge, the board of county commissioners could surrender him to the care and custody o f any benevolent society or corporation without the consent o f his parents if after a written notice the parents, guardian, or next o f kin did not provide for the child and relieve the county o f his support.19 ADOPTION The original adoption laws of most States were intended merely to provide a procedure by which the custody o f a child could be legally transferred from the natural parent to the adopting parent, the chief object in many States being to enable the adopting parent to make the child his legal heir. It was assumed that the motive for 1TMinimum Standards for Child Welfare Adopted by the Washington and Regional Conferences on Child Welfare, 1919, p. 12. U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 62. Washington, 1920. 18 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 1700. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 32 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON adoption was the good o f the child. Experience has shown that this is not always the case, and these laws are being gradually displaced by laws that emphasize the protection and welfare of the child. Nearly half the States have recognized this need o f legislation for the pro tection of children placed for adoption. In most of these States a social investigation made by the court or by a State department is required before entering the decree. A trial period of not less than six months in the adoptive home, which is the practice of the better child-placing agencies, is prescribed by law in some States. Another form o f safeguard is the prohibition of advertisements offering to adopt or dispose o f a child. In Washington the superior court has been given jurisdiction in adoption cases. During the year of this study 322 cases came before the courts in the six counties. In 85 of these 322 cases the person adopting the child was a step-parent or other relative, 3 o f the children being adopted by their own parent or parents after re linquishment by adoptive parents. A large proportion of the remaining cases £234) involved children of illegitimate birth, most o f whom were infants. Although the largest group of the children were infants when the petition for adoption was filed, one-fourth being less than 6 months old and about the same proportion from 6 months to 2 years, the records showed that a number of the children (37, or about one-eighth of the entire group) were 12 years of age or over. The status of the child’s parents as shown in the following list indicates why some of the children were available for adoption: Parental status Number of children Total— ________________________ — ------------------------------------- 322 Both parents in home-------------- ----------------------------------- --------------One parent and step-parent in home----------------------------------------Both parents dead— ------------------------------------- ---------------------------One parent dead (no step-parent)---------------------------------------------Parents divorced_________ :---------------------------.------------------------ — Parents separated---------------------------------------------------------------------One parent deserting----------------- ----------------------------------------------Parents not married to each other------------------------------------------Status not reported---------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 65 29 44 10 4 8 96 49 Only 87 o f the 322 children involved in adoption proceedings were reported as having been under agency care before the filing o f petitions for adoption. The reason for agency care was given for 62 children, 35 being o f illegitimate birth and 27 otherwise dependent. The majority o f the 87 children under agency supervision had been under such supervision long enough to enable the agency to make a complete social investigation. Since none of the child placing agencies provided examination o f the child’s mental abilities except in cases o f obvious defect, it is probable that this most sig nificant information was seldom available for children placed for adoption. Investigations in the 235 cases not under agency super vision should, have been the responsibility of the court. It is the usual practice in Washington to file a petition for adoption at the time of the final hearing. As no records were made of previous hearings, it was impossible to judge whether the court had author- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 33 ized an investigation if the case had been considered before. W ith the exception of the Spokane court, where records were available of some investigations that had been made by the staff o f the ju venile court on request of the judge o f the superior court, no records were found in any of the courts showing that investigations had been made. There was no generally accepted policy or legal provision in Washington as to the length of time that a child must remain in a prospective adoptive home before an application for adoption was made. The Seattle Council o f Catholic Women had a requirement that children must remain in supervised adoptive homes one year be fore a petition for adoption was filed. The Washington Children’s Home Society required a 6-month trial period under supervision. The child-placing department of the juvenile court of Spokane re quired a 3-month trial period. The policies of maternity homes and various agencies and individuals placing children in adoptive homes varied greatly. Some maternity homes had no policy, one required a trial period of a week, and another required three months. In one maternity home the prospective adoptive parent was re quired to file an application for adoption before the child was placed in the home. AGENCIES CARING FOR THE CHILDREN INSTITUTIONAL CARE Types of institution available. For many years institutional care was almost the only method of providing for dependent children. With the development of other types of assistance, the need for institutional care has greatly decreased, until at the present time it has come to be somewhat generally recognized that “ the purpose of an institution for de pendent children should be the care of children who can not be pro vided for properly in their own homes or with relatives and for whose care a particular institution is better adapted than any other available agency.” 20 Four types of institutions were available for the care o f dependent children in the counties visited: 1. Institutions 'providing general care fo r dependent children.— Although some o f the institutions of this type in Washington kept children for a number of years, long-time care was the exception rather than the rule, as most children were received because of some emergency in the home and were returned to parents or other rela tives as soon as some adjustment could be made. The majority of the children released during the year had been under care for less than one year. Most of the institutions limited their intake on the basis of age, sex, or some religious or group affiliation. 2. Institutions providing care fo r special groups o f dependent children.— Three o f the institutions visited were serving special functions. The activities of one centered in its school, the majority of the children not remaining during the summer; another institu20 Handbook for the Use of Boards of Directors, Superintendents, and Staffs of Institu tions for Dependent Children, p. 3. U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 170. Wash ington, 1927. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 34 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON tion cared only for infants; and the third was a home caring for mothers and their children. 3. Receiving homes fo r emergency and short-time care.—In Washington the state-wide children’s home society was maintaining three receiving homes, two of which were located in the counties selected for special study. These institutions provided care only until children could be placed in suitable foster homes.21 4. Detention homes and 'parental schools.-—Two o f the counties (King and Spokane) had provided special detention homes in con nection with the juvenile courts where both dependent and delinquent children were kept awaiting court hearing or pending return to relatives or placement in an institution or in a foster home. The periods o f detention were short, the majority o f them being less than a month. A small number of dependent and neglected children had been committed to the parental schools for boys and for girls that were available in the cities o f Seattle and Spokane. Although there was no law prohibiting the care of children in almshouses in Wash ington, it was apparent that it was not customary to use these institu tions for dependent children, as only one such case was found in the four counties having a county farm or infirmary. Excluding receiving homes, detention homes, and parental schools, there were 12 institutions providing for the care of dependent chil dren in King, Spokane, and Walla Walla Counties. A ll but one of these were visited by agents of the Children’s Bureau. Another institution located outside the counties included in the study was also visited because this institution was caring for a large number of children from Grays Harbor County. No institutions were found in Grays Harbor County, Pacific County, or Adams County. Standards o f care in institutions. The 12 institutions visited had facilities for the care of about 1,000 children. A congregate type of building was the most usual plan for institutions caring for more than 50 children. The smaller insti tutions were usually housed in old residential buildings; two such buildings had inadequate fire protection, and another was totally inadequate in equipment for a children’s institution. In sanitary equipment and housekeeping care, most of the institutions came up to acceptable standards. Most of them had been established for several years, having been organized to meet the apparent needs o f the local ities m which they were situated. They were quite generally used by the social agencies, children being sent by these agencies for insti tutional care. The exceptions were three institutions whose money raising and publicity methods or methods of caring for children had been much criticized. One had been criticized for serious overcrowd ing as a result of limited financial resources and failure to limit intake. Another, although attempting to maintain better standards, had become, through lack of wise guidance and poor administration, a liability rather than an asset to the community. The third institu tion was so obviously below standard in all particulars that it should have been abolished. These three institutions illustrate the need for licensing and supervision by a State department of all institutions caring for children. 21 Children needing temporary care away from their families were provided for occa sionally in these receiving homes, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION EOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COÜNTIES 35 In order to study the quality of the care given to children in insti tutions, an analysis was made of some of the practices and policies of the nine institutions providing general care to dependent children whose problems and activities were sufficiently similar to make com parisons possible. The points compared were investigation policies, methods of health supervision, and the extent to which the institution provided a homelike atmosphere and experiences that fitted the chil dren for life outside. Many superintendents and board members of institutions fail to realize the importance of a thorough study of every child before he is accepted for care. None of the nine general institutions for chil dren had a social worker on the staff, and none of them undertook to make a complete social investigation of every child that was accepted. Investigations were probably made in the cases of children placed in these institutions by the'courts and by social agencies, but a large number of children were received directly from parents or other individuals. Most o f the superintendents endeavored to obtain as much information about the children as possible without making visits to the homes or to relatives. Adequate investigations would probably have shown that many of the children might have' been kept in their own homes. Besponsibility for assisting in the rehabili tation o f the homes from which the children came was not assumed by any of these institutions. That the records of some of the insti tutions were incomplete and provided little information about the children was not difficult to understand. The need for knowledge of the child’s physical condition at the time he entered was recognized in all the institutions. Six of the institutions provided for a medical examination for every child on entrance, and one other accepted a health certificate from any physician. Only two of the nine institutions kept special health records for each child and required periodic physical examinations. Four of the larger institutions had an infirmary for the care of sick children, but only one required a period of isolation on entrance. Three of the institutions had a trained nurse, and two had a prac tical nurse who was a member of the staff. The superintendent of another institution was a practical nurse. Two institutions had no nurse, and information on this point was not obtained from one institution. General health supervision of the children in these nine institutions was given by the nurse or by a visiting physician. The general atmosphere of six of the nine institutions was home like, and the children showed spontaneity and freedom from re straint. The life in three institutions was characterized as insti tutional. In two of the nine institutions special attention was paid to providing outside contacts for the children, and some provision was made for children to earn money for themselves and to take responsibility. O f the remaining seven institutions only one gave children an opportunity to earn, another provided some opportunity for the children to take responsibility, and all but one provided some outside contacts for the children. PLACEMENT IN FAMILY HOMES The placement o f dependent children in family homes was under taken in the counties visited by a few incorporated child-placing https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 36 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON agencies, by the juvenile court in two counties, by county officers, by family agencies, by maternity homes and hospitals, and by indi viduals. The majority of the children were placed for permanent care; these were usually provided for in free homes. On the con trary, some children were received for temporary care and were placed in boarding homes or occasionally in wage homes. Child-placing agencies. Washington had only a few agencies that were doing child placing exclusively or as the major part of their work. The only agency caring for a large number o f children was the Washington Chil dren’s Home Society. This society received children from all over the State and maintained three receiving homes, one in the eastern, one in the western, and one in the southern part o f the State. During the month of January, 1927, the society had 115 children in the receiving homes and 698 under supervision in family homes. A large proportion of the wards of the society were received for per manent care, although temporary care was provided in some cases, principally for children in Seattle. The child-placing staff of the society consisted of seven full-time district superintendents and four field workers engaged in home finding and supervising. At the time o f the study, this agency was dissatisfied with its case work standards and changes were being planned. The smallness of the supervising and investigating staff was a serious limitation to the case work that could be done for the children and made impos sible any attempt to undertake rehabilitation of the families. The necessity for providing an adequate staff of trained workers able to do thorough case work had come to be recognized by the society, and an effort was being made to raise the standards in this particu lar. Lack of records of the work that had been done in the past prevented any analysis being made of the character of the supervi sion given to the* children. Only 85 o f the 809 records of children from the six counties who were under care of the agency had any information as to the visits made to the foster homes. It was evi dent that even in these cases the information was incomplete, as records of children under care for a number of years who had been m several foster homes might have only one visit to the child recorded. The Seattle Council of Catholic Women was caring for a small number of children (40), practically all of whom came from Seattle. This agency placed children in adoptive homes and also provided temporary care in boarding homes. Most of the children placed in adoptive homes were infants received from two maternity hospitals. The agency was endeavoring to maintain a high standard of place ment work by keeping close contact with the boarding homes and adoptive homes and supervising each child according to his need. Since most of the work of the council was done in the city of Seattle, adequate supervision was not a difficult problem, as it was in the state-wide child-placing agency. The placement of dependent children in family homes was recog nized as a definite part of the work of the juvenile court in Spokane County, and children were referred to the court by agencies and persons desiring to have them placed in family homes. Children https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 37 were placed in boarding homes for temporary care and for adoption.28 Maternity homes and hospitals. Since the mere signing of a surrender made it possible for the mother o f a child of illegitimate birth to shift responsibility for her baby, and no concerted effort had been made in any of the cities to develop a general sentiment among the agencies caring for unmar ried mothers toward persuading these mothers to retain the custody o f their babies, maternity homes and hospitals constituted another group of agencies doing child placing. Three o f the five maternity homes and six of the hospitals doing maternity work that were visited said that some child placing had been done at various times. In all but one o f these the responsibil ity for placing children had been taken by some member of the staff; in one hospital the placements had been made by private physicians. Since no records in regard to these placements wTere available, the information obtained was a general statement from the persons interviewed. Placements of approximately 35 infants during the year were reported by these homes and hospitals. A few maternity homes and hospitals had adopted a policy o f trans ferring to child-placing agencies the children for whom homes were desired, most of them being children of illegitimate birth. The usual procedure was for the hospital to obtain a written sur render of the child from the mother, whom the child-placing agency in many cases never saw. As the protection of the unmarried mother was often the primary concern o f the institution, it was not surprising that the placing agency was unable to obtain adequate social histories of such children. Increasing recognition is being given to the importance, from a health standpoint, o f keeping children born out of wedlock with their mothers during the nursing period or at least during the first few months of this period.23 Only one of the five maternity homes visited had required the mothers to keep their babies as long as two months. Another home had made a minimum requirement of one month. Three homes had no definite policy on this point. During the year of the study the three child-placing agencies had received for placement 74 infants 1 to 30 days old, many of whom had been received directly from hospitals or maternity homes. Other agencies or persons placing children. An agency specializing in protective work for children was visited, but no records of placements o f children were obtained. The agent o f the Children’s Bureau was told that 24 babies had been placed for adoption by this agency during the year ended August 31, 1927. Most o f these children were o f illegitimate birth. In Seattle and Spokane four agencies doing work with families had placed a few children in family homes during the year, usually 22 Records were not obtained for all children under supervision of the court. The rec ords obtained of children coming before the courts showed that during the year 32 children had been placed in family homes. 28 Standards of Legal Protection for Children Born Out of Wedlock (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 77, Washington, 1921) ; The Welfare of Infants of Illegitimate Birth in Baltimore, by A. Madorah Donahue (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 144, Washington, 1925) ; Children of Illegitimate Birth and Measures for Their Protection, by Emma 0. Lundberg (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 166, Washington, 1926). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 38 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON for temporary care. Two of these agencies used boarding homes only, one used boarding and free homes and placed for adoption, and the fourth used free homes and wage homes. Only 1 of the 12 institutions caring for dependent children that were visited had placed children in homes other than with relatives. This institu tion had placed a few children in wage homes. The child placing done by family agencies, protective agencies^ and institutions showed great variation in standards. A few of these agencies were carrying on all their work, including the child placing, according to the accepted standards of social case work. It was quite evident that the child placing of other agencies was most unsatisfactory. Investigations of foster homes by these agencies were inadequate; in some cases no investigation had been made. Some agencies made no attempt at supervising the child after placing him in the home. The need for thorough study of the child’s physical and mental condition, especially of children placed for adoption, was not realized by many agencies. No official records were obtained in any of the counties of chil dren placed in family homes for either temporary or permanent care by the charity commissioner or other county commissioner. However, in three counties (Spokane, Grays Harbor, and Walla Walla) the poor-relief officers said that occasionally such place ments had been made. For many years Washington had an inden ture law for the apprenticeship to . some respectable householder of the county ” of any minor who was likely to become chargeable to the county.24 This law was repealed at about the time that the study began, in February, 1927.25 No evidence was found that placements had been made under this law in any of the counties visited. In King County some placement work had been done by the juve nile court for dependent or delinquent children coming before the court who needed such care, this work being considered as one aspect o f the probation service. CHILDREN UNDER CARE OF INSTITUTIONS A N D AGENCIES Who were these children needing the care of institutions and child-placing agencies ? W hy were they separated from their fam ilies, and for how long a period were they cared for ? A study of the records o f children under care by these two types o f agencies gave some information on these points. It was impossible to obtain complete information as to the num ber of children from the different counties who had been cared for in institutions during the year. The records of some of the institu tions visited were so inadequate that data could not be obtained; in a few instances access to the records was refused. Another situ ation making a complete census impossible was that some children were under care o f institutions outside the counties studied, and with one exception it was not feasible to visit these institutions.26 Record material was obtained in regard to 494 children who had been under 24 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 9985. 28 Laws of 1927. ch. 154. 28 One institution situated outside the counties studied received a number of children from the county commissioners in two of the counties. No records were obtained from this institution, however. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 39 PROVISION FOR C H ILD REN IN T H E SIX CO UNTIES care of six institutions during the year of the study. Two hundred and eighty-three of these children were in the institutions on Febru ary 28,1927, and 211 had been released during the year of the study. Similar record data were obtained for the 349 children of the six counties who were under the care of the Washington Children’s Home Society and the Seattle Council of Catholic Women.27 Two hundred and sixty-three of this number were under care on Febru ary 28,1927, and 86 had been released during the year. The number of children in institutions and under agency super vision for whom records were obtained is shown in Table 6 for each of the counties. T able 6.-^—Number of children in institutions for dependents and number under care of child-placing agencies in six specified counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 County Tnt.n.1 _______________ _________ ------- ---------- Total Children Children under in insti care of tutions child for de placing pendents agencies 843 494 349 494 288 18 31 8 4 255 213 4 22 239 75 14 9 8 4 RACE, SEX, AND AGE All but 4 of the 494 children in institutions during the year were white, 2 were Indians, and 2 were Chinese. The 349 children under agency supervision included 11 Negroes, 6 Indians, 1 Japanese, 1 Eskimo, and 45 whose race was not reported. Two hundred and fifty-two boys and 242 girls were in institutions, and 218 boys and 131 girls were under agency care. The ages o f the children when they were received are shown in Table 7. T able 7.— Age of child when received by institutions and child-placing agencies in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Age of child Total Children in insti tutions Children under care of child placing agencies 843 494 349 126 20 242 368 45 42 21 9 143 267 26 28 105 11 99 101 19 14 27 Special records were not obtained of the children placed in family homes by the child placing division of the juvenile court of Spokane; 32 children were placed by this agency during the year. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 40 C H ILD W ELFARE IN W A S H IN G T O N Five of the six institutions from which records were obtained had restrictions as to the age o f children they would care for. One institution received infants o f any age, but no child was kept after he became 3 years of age. The minimum age at which the other 4 received children varied somewhat; 1 received children at 2 years, 2 at 3, and 1 at 6. The low median age of 3 years for the children under agency supervision was due very largely to the fact that 105 (about one-third) of the entire group were received before they were 6 months old. These were for the most part children born out of wedlock, surrendered for permanent placement. In both groups it was found that the majority of the children born out of wedlock were received before they were 1 year of age—7 of the 13 in institutions and 89 o f the 111 under agency supervision. Four children of illegitimate birth in institutions were from 1 to 6 years of age, and 2 were 6 when received. O f the agency wards, 18 were from 1 to 6, 1 was 8, and 1 was 11 ; the ages of 2 were not reported. PARENTAL STATUS Although a variety of causes other than the marital relations o f the parents may be responsible for the removal of dependent chil dren from their own homes, it is interesting to note in Table 8 that only 17 per cent of those in institutions and 9 per cent of those under agency supervision came from homes in which the parents were married and living together. Three hundred and twenty-three (73 per cent) of the children in institutions and 155 (49 per cent) of those under agency care were from homes broken by the death, divorce, and desertion or separation o f parents. These numbers do not include 32 institutional and 21 agency children whose own mother or father had remarried. One hundred and eleven (35 per cent) o f the agency children were of illegitimate birth as compared with 13 (3 per cent) of those in institutions. The number of orphans was considerably higher in the agency group than in the group being provided for by institutions—49 (16 per cent) as com pared with 11 (5 per cent). T able 8.— Marital status of parents at time children were admitted to institu tions or received for care by child-placing agencies in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Children in insti tutions Children under care of childplacing agencies 843 494 349 Married and living together------------------------- ------ --------------------------- 102 73 29 Both in home or temporarily absent.............................. ............ ........ Mother in home, father in hospital or institution ------------------------Father in home, mother in hospital or institution_________________ 42 20 35 5 21 19 28 5 21 1 Deserted or separated.................... ......... ...........------------ -------------------- 198 160 38 Mother deserting__________________________ — ------- --------------- 97 21 79 72 15 25 Marital status of parents Status of both not reported____________________________ https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Total 1 72 1 7 6 7 41 PROVISION- FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES T able 8.— Marital status of parents at time children were admitted to institu tions or received for care by child-placing agencies in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927— Continued Marital status of parents Total Children under Children care of in insti child tutions placing agencies 110 76 34 Father or mother remarried L --------------------------------------------------Father or mother not remarried 1-------------------------------------- J------- 13 97 4 72 9 25 One or both parents dead____________________ ____________________ 223 119 104 Father dead, mother a widow--------------------------------------------------Father dead, mother remarried_________________ ____ ___________ Mother dead, father a widower-------- ----------------------------------------Mother dead, father remarried_______________ _________________ 59 30 64 10 60 43 21 37 7 11 16 9 27 3 49 124 86 13 53 in 33 • .. Parents not married to each other------------------------------------- ----------1Information relates to the parent who was responsible for the child. SOURCE FROM WHICH RECEIVED The majority of the children for whom information was obtained were received by the institutions directly from their parents or other relatives— a total of 74 per cent. Only one of these children had been surrendered by his parents for permanent care. The source of the group under supervision of child-placing agencies was about evenly divided between parents and court, 174 having been received from parents or other relatives and 164 from the court. More than fourfifths (141) of the 170 children received from parents were surren dered, only 29 being received without surrender. The large number of children surrendered by parents to the agencies may be partly accounted for by the fact that many were children of unmarried mothers. The sources from which the children were received are shown in Table 9. T able 9.— Source from which children were received who were in institutions and under care of child-placing agencies in the six counties during the year ended'February 28, 1927 Source from which received Without surrender............ .......................... ............... ........................ https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Total Children in insti tutions Children under care of child placing agencies 843 494 349 501 331 170 142 343 16 1 314 16 141 29 19 237 11 47 28 15 73 11 38 26 4 164 9 2 42 CHILD WELFABE IN W ASHINGTON PERSON TO WHOM RELEASED As so large a proportion of the children placed in institutions by their parents were not surrendered, it is to be expected that a large number o f children would be released during the year. Forty-three per cent o f those under care at some time during the year were released. The retention o f the child’s custody by his parents is responsible also for the return of so many of the released children (188, or 90 per cent) to parents or other relatives. Only 10 children were transferred to other institutions or agencies, 2 were adopted, 1 died, 6 were provided for in other ways, and no information was obtained as to the other 4. Only 25 per cent o f the children given care by an agency, as compared with 43 per cent of those cared for by an institution, were released during the year. The largest group of the children released by an agency were those who were placed for adoption— 38 o f the 80 for whom information was obtained. Thirty-one were returned to parents or other relatives, and 11 were transferred to institutions or other agencies. TIME UNDER SUPERVISION Comparatively short periods of care were provided by both the institutions and the agencies for the children released during the year, as is shown by Table 10. In a few cases, however, the children remained under supervision for extended periods o f time. T able 10.— Length of time children who w ere released had been in institutions or under care of child-placing agencies in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Children released during year Time in institution or under supervision Total By insti tutions By child placing agencies 297 211 86 162 57 43 11 3 1 2 1 3 2 1 2 9 112 43 34 9 3 1 1 50 14 9 2 2 1 5 1 1 1 1 1 2 4 TYPE OF FOSTER HOMES AND NUMBER OF PLACEMENTS Free foster homes were used much more extensively by the Wash ington Children’s Home Society than those of any other type, 80 per cent (229) of the children cared for by this agency being in such homes at the time o f release or at the end o f the year, 9 per cent being in boarding homes, and 10 per cent in receiving homes. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 43 Twenty-five o f the wards of the Seattle Council of Catholic Women were in boarding homes and 15 were in free homes. The number of placements was reported for 71 o f the 86 children released from agency supervision during the year. Five o f these children had never been placed, having remained in the receiving home; 4 had been under care for less than three months and 1 for at least a year. Forty-seven children had been placed in only one home by the agency, 37 of whom had been wards of the agency for less than one year; the remainder had been under foster-home care for longer periods, one remaining in the same home for at least 12 years. Nineteen children had been placed from two to four times. One child who had been in four homes had been a ward of the agency for 10 years or more. One hundred and fourteen of those remaining under supervision on February 28, 1927, had been wards of the agency for less than two years and 149 for periods o f 2 to 16 years or longer; 42 children had been under care for 10 years or more. Two-thirds o f the children under supervision had been placed but once, although they had been wards o f the agency for periods varying from a few months to 16 years or more. In some cases repeated transfers from one home to another were deemed advisable or necessary, seven being the largest number reported (this child had been under supervision for seven years). One child was placed six times in less than five years, and another was placed four times within one year. CARE OF CHILDREN PRESENTING SPECIAL PROBLEMS CHILDREN OF ILLEGITIM ATE BIRTH The birth-registration records o f the State health department showed that 10,241 children had been born in the six counties during the calendar year 1926, and that 209 of these children were o f illegiti mate birth. A ll but 23 o f the children of illegitimate birth were born in the two large cities, Seattle and Spokane. Spokane serves as a population center for most of eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, and many girls from these sections go for care to the Spokane maternity homes. This accounts probably for the larger number of illegitimate births per 1,000 live births in Spokane (47) as compared with Seattle (17).28 As has been shown in an earlier section of this report, any provi sion for safeguarding children away from their own homes vitally affects children of illegitimate birth. This group of children con stituted only a small proportion of children in institutions but more than one-third of those under care of child-placing agencies, and the majority o f those placed in homes by individuals and other agencies. Washington, in common with most States, has special legislation for the protection of these children.29 Such legislation -8 For illegitimacy rates in other cities see Children of Illegitimate Birth and Measures for Their Protection, p. 6 (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 166, Washington. 1926). ’ ^Analysis and Tabular Summary of State Laws Relating to Illegitimacy in the United States in Effect Jan. 1, 1928, and the Text of Selected Laws. U. S. Children’ s Bureau Chart No. 16. Washington, 1929. 54586°—31------4 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 44 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON prescribes the procedure for the establishment of the paternity of the child and provides, when paternity has been established, for the support of the child by his father and for his right to inherit from the father. The amount of support to be provided by the father is at the discretion o f the court. Obligation to support the child continues until he is 16 years of age, and failure to support may be penalized by forfeiture o f bond or imprisonment for contempt. The extent to which unmarried mothers avail themselves o f the legal provisions made for the protection o f their children depends upon how well the community or the State is organized to assist them in the difficult position in- which they find themselves. In the counties visited in Washington no adequate program had been undertaken by either private or public agencies for case work with unmarried mothers. Records were obtained o f only 16 cases in which complaint had been filed during the year to establish paternity and to provide support for the child. Fourteen of these cases had been brought before the court in King County and two in Spokane County. In striking contrast to these figures are those reported by one State department, which has been given the responsibility “ to take care that the interests of the child are safeguarded, that ap propriate steps are taken to establish his paternity, and that there is secured for him the nearest possible approximation to the care, support, and education that he would be entitled to if born of lawful marriage.” 30 The biennial reports of this department for the four years ended June 30, 1928, show that complaints for establishment o f paternity had been filed in about one-third of the cases of un married mothers that had been referred to the board during each of the 2-year periods.31 The experience of social workers, physicians, and others in con tact with unmarried mothers is that care of the baby by his mother during the early months of infancy usually results in the assump tion of responsibility for his permanent care by his mother or other relatives. With willingness on the part of the mother to assume care of her child usually comes willingness to obtain, if possible, some support for him from his father.32 Although only a few States have specific legislation requiring mothers to keep their children for a definite time,33 the number of agencies, both public and private, that have adopted such a policy in assisting these mothers is steadily increasing. There is need in Washington for the development of public senti ment in regard to the adequate care of children of illegitimate birth as well as for legislation placing responsibility for their care on some public agency. 80 Minnesota, Mason’s Stat. 1927, sec. 4455. 81 Report of the director of the [Minnesota] Children’s Bureau to the State hoard of control for the biennial period ending June 30, 1926, and for the biennial period ending J™ eSee ’ Children of Illegitimate Birth Whose Mothers Have Kept Their Custody, by A. Madorah Donahue, p. 8 (U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. 190, Washington, 1928) ; report of the director of the [Minnesota] Children’s Bureau to the State board of control for the biennial period ending June 30, 1926, and for the biennial period ending June 30, 1928. 88 Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION" FOR CHILDREN" IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 45 CHILDREN HANDICAPPED PHYSICALLY OR M ENTALLY STATE PROVISIONS FOR HANDICAPPED CHILDREN Under the State department of business control the State of Washington has made special provisions for the education of blind and deaf children and has established an institution for custodial care and training of feeble-minded children. State care of handi capped children began in Washington in 1886, with the creation of the Washington School for Defective Youth in Vancouver, an institution which housed blind, deaf, and feeble-minded children.34 Within a short time the feeble-minded children were separated from the blind and the deaf in another institution, and in 1913 two sep arate schools one for, blind and one for deaf children—were established.35 The State school for the blind and the State school for the deaf are residential schools open for the usual school year. These insti tutions are free to residents o f the State between the ages of 6 and 21 years. County school superintendents are required to send a record to the county commissioners and a duplicate record to the State department of business control o f any blind or deaf child needing the training provided by these schools. Parents able to do so are required to pay the transportation of the children to and from school. The cost o f transportation and maintenance during the summer vacation, if needed, is provided by the county commissioners for dependent children.36 The State custodial school at Medical Lake, created in 1905 87 as the State institution for the feeble-minded, receives residents o f the State under 21 who are feeble-minded, idiotic, or epileptic. Adults under 50 years of age may also be received if proper subjects for such an institution. Applications for admission to the institution of persons under 21, other than those committed by the juvenile court must be approved by the county superintendent o f schools. In order that both the county superintendent o f schools and the superinten dent o f the State institution may know of the existing need for insti tutional care o f mentally defective children, the law requires that the names and addresses o f such children be obtained in the school census and reported to these officials.38 At the time o f the study an effort was made to obtain from the superintendent of schools in each of the counties and in each of the cities visited a statement as to the approximate number o f children found m their homes at the time of the last annual school census who were not attending school because of some physical or mental handicap. No information as to such children was available in Walla Walla County or in Adams County. In the city of Seattle the state ment was made that children with an intelligence quotient of less than 50 were debarred from public schools, but the actual number of such children was not available. Information from Grays Harbor County, Pacific County, Spokane County, including the city of 84 Laws of 1886, p. 136; Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 4644 »Rem ington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 4645. 88 Ibid., secs. 4650, 4651, 4653. a Laws of 1905, sec. 1, p. 133. »Rem ington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 4663. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 46 C H ILD W ELFAEE IN W A S H IN G T O N Spokane, and King County, exclusive o f Seattle, showed that about 250 feeble-minded children between the ages of 6 and 21 years not attending school had been found in these localities and that approxi mately 55 children were not attending school because of physical defects. How many of these children with physical defects were crippled children was not ascertained. ; ** A ll the State schools were crowded to their fullest capacity at the time they were visited in connection with this study 5 and more applications had been received than could be accepted.39 During the year of the study 27 children from the six counties had been in the school for the blind, and 36 children had been in the school for the deaf. As the State schools for the deaf and the blind are primarily educational institutions, no records were obtained of the children. At the State custodial school 230 children under 18 yearé of age had been under care from the counties included ill the study. As the number o f feeble-minded children under 21 reported as being in their own homes and not provided for by local school facili ties is apparently larger than the number under care of the State school, it is evident that there is need for an increase in the resources o f the State for the care of feeble-minded children unless the present local provisions for their care are greatly extended. I f institutional provision is made, it is probable that a training school would be better than a custodial institution, since special training in the public schools is provided only in a few large cities. As the majority of the population of Washington is situated west of the mountain range, it would seem desirable to provide for an institution in this part of the State. The experience o f other States has demonstrated the value of extending the institutional program of the State to include the estab lishment of intensive parole supervision of persons who have com pleted a period of training in the institution. In a few States an in termediate stage of community readjustment of paroled persons has been provided through the establishment of colonies where persons still under the control of the institution may undertake employment in the community. Individual records were obtained from the selected counties of the 230 children under 18 years of age under the care of the State cus todial school. Most of the children were from 6 to 13 years of age when admitted, 59 were younger than 6, and 28 were 14 years or older. Some of the children had been in the institution for so short a time that no mental classification had been made, and in a few cases this information was not recorded. O f the 193 children for whom the mental classification was reported. 56 were classified as idiots (intelligence quotient 0-24), 78 as^imbeciles (intelligence quo tient 25-49), 54 as morons (intelligence quotient 50-75), and 5 in higher grades. It was impossible to tell from the records how many of these children would be considered as cases requiring permanent custodial care and how many might be returned to their own com munities after a period of training. O f the entire institution popu lation of 845, there were 344 children receiving training in the school . department in June, 1926. During the year 8 children from the selected counties were released by the school to their parents. Only 88 The new building at the State custodial school occupied since January, 1928, has relieved the immediate congestion in this school. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR C H ILD REN IN T H E SIX CO UNTIES 47 2 o f these had been in the institution long enough for a period of training— a 16-year-old g ir l40 classified as “ moron-low ” who had been in the institution for nearly four years, and a 13-year-old boy classified as “ border line ” who had been in the institution nearly six years. Four of the others had been in the institution less than a year, and two, less than two years. The State has assumed no responsibility financially or adminis tratively for the medical treatment o f crippled children nor for their care or education. In most of the counties visited, hospital care, either medical or surgical, had been provided for by public or private funds for any children needing such assistance. Hospital treatment constitutes only part, however, of the care that must be given to a seriously crippled child. He may need a long period of reconstructive treatment and training, special equipment in the way of braces and other appliances, and specially equipped class rooms or home instruction.41 It was impossible to judge in this general survey the extent of need for special resources for the care o f such children. Unquestionably some children in the counties vis ited were not attending school because they were crippled, and some children were enduring physical handicap's that might have been removed through expert medical care. In a number o f States, usually those in which recurrent epidemics of poliomyelitis have left many handicapped children, some plan has been made for a State agency to take the responsibility of seeing that crippled children throughout the State are receiving the care that they need. Such plans have included provision of diagnostic and treatment clinics at different points throughout the State, and State funds for specially equipped day schools in the larger cities or towns with arrangements for boarding-home care during the school year for children attending such schools from other localities, and some form o f home instruction for children unable to attend school. LOCAL PUBLIC PROVISIONS FOR HANDICAPPED CHILDREN Understanding o f the needs of children who are handicapped by physical or mental defects is steadily growing, and with this has come realization o f the necessity o f local programs for their care. Both public and private agencies have undertaken to provide medical care, specialized training, and vocational adjustment for the physically handicapped. Especially in the care of crippled children, private initiative has done much toward stimulating more adequate public provisions. In many localities a large proportion of the physically handicapped children are being cared for in their own communities. Although the necessity for public provisions for the care of mentally deficient children is generally accepted, the need for local provisions for the training, supervision, and vocational adjust ment of these children is not always recognized. Which mentally deficient children can be cared for by the county and which must be sent to institutions provided by the State can not be decided wholly on the basis of intelligence level. Even a *° This girl had been sterilized before release. “ Digest of Legislation for Education of Crippled Children, by Ward W. Keesecker. U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1929, No. 5. Washington, 1929. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 48 CHILD WELFARE ÎÎT WASHINGTON child with a low mental age may be cared for successfully in his own home if he is socially adaptable and is given the proper train ing and supervision. The schools must take an important place in such a program. In fact some authorities go so far as to hold that— When the public schools shall have fully recognized that they have no right to deprive a child of educational advantages suited to his needs just because he appears on one of the lower levels of the intelligence curve, and when they shall have provided an adequate number of special classes supplemented by competent psychological, psychiatric, and visiting teacher service, then a large part of the “ problem of mental deficiency ” will have been solved.42 In addition to the training and supervision given by the schools, an adequate program should be provided through some agency in cooperation with the State for guidance and oversight of all mentally deficient persons in the community, especially those children having too limited intelligence to attend school. LOCAL EDUCATIONAL PROVISIONS FOR HANDICAPPED CHILDREN In Washington the legislature has authorized the board of directors o f any school district of the first class to establish schools for the education of any class or classes of defective youth.48 Five o f the cities in the six counties are in the first-class school districts, but only three (Seattle, Spokane, and Aberdeen) had established special public-school classes or schools. Seattle had as a department o f its public-school work a child-study laboratory with a staff of five trained workers. The laboratory had supervision over the special classes and speech classes, gave intelligence tests (both group and individual) in the grade schools and high schools, diagnosed the difficulties of problem children, and made surveys. Seattle and Spokane have classes for children with physical defects. The city of Seattle has done pioneer work in providing in the public-school system a school for the deaf and a number of sight restoration and conservation classes. The school board also maintained a school for crippled children in the privately conducted orthopedic hospital that received children from all over the State. Spokane had in connection with its special school for mentally defective children (the Horace Mann School) a special department for deaf children. Classes for mentally retarded children were available in Seattle, Spokane, and Aberdeen. It is evident that there is need for better public provision for the care o f handicapped children in their own community. DELINQUENT CHILDREN UNDER CARE A W A Y FROM THEIR OW N HOMES INSTITUTIONS CARING FOR JUVENILE DELINQUENTS Three types o f institutions for juvenile delinquents were visited during the study: State institutions—the State training school for boys, and the State training school for girls; parental schools main42 Davies, Stanley P .: Social Control of the Mentally Deficient, p, 323. Crowell Co., New York, 1930. v 48 Code of Public Instruction, 1923, sec, (4), https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Thomas V. PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 49 tained by the city under the administration of the board o f education in Seattle and Spokane; and private institutions caring for delinquent girls. A ll these institutions, with the exception of the State training schools, were located in Seattle and Spokane. In addition the State reformatory received delinquent boys, and the State penitentiary was used for both boys and girls under 18 who had committed serious offenses.44 The State schools receive delinquent children over 8 years and under 18 years o f age committed to them by the juvenile courts. In Seattle, parental schools are maintained for girls between the ages of 8 and 16 and for boys between 6 and 16 years of age. Children are received at the schools only on commitment by the juvenile court. The parental school for boys in Spokane received children over 6 and under 16 years of age from either the juvenile court or the attendance department o f the schools. Girls were received from the juvenile court or from parents or other guardians in three private institutions, which were all under church auspices. Although delinquency was the reason for commitment of children in the State schools and the majority of those in the private schools, dependency or neglect was frequently responsible to some extent for their commitment. The local facilities available for the care of dependent children, as well as the attitude of the judges toward various types of delinquency, influenced the number of commitments to institutions for delinquents from the different counties. A ll three types of institutions for delinquent children undertook to place children in family homes under parole supervision. This plan was followed to a much greater extent by the State schools and the parental schools than by the private institutions. During the biennium ended September 30, 1926, the reformatory had cared for 92 boys who were 15 to 17 years o f age at the time of conviction, and the penitentiary cared for 16 boys and girls who were 16 and 17 years of age at the time of conviction.45 The State training schools. The two State training schools for delinquent children are situated within a short distance of each other in the western part of the State. Both the institutions have large farms. The residence buildings of the girls’ school are more modern and adequate than those in the boys’ school. Individual rooms for 27 to 51 girls are provided in the four cottages at the girls’ school, but at the time of the visit of the agent of the Children’s Bureau some of them were being used as double rooms. The boys were housed in dormitories in three buildings called cottages, each caring for from 70 to more than 100 boys. In the girls’ school each cottage was a complete living unit with its own kitchen and dining room, whereas the boys’ school, had a common kitchen and dining hall housed in a beautifully equipped new building. . The recent building program of the bays’ school has included the erection of a gymnasium which supplements for indoor recreation the playroom provided in* each residence building. The boys’ school 44 The Industrial Home and Clinic established in 1920 for the care of delinquent girls and women 16 years of age and over had been discontinued at the time of the study. 45 Third Biennial Report of the Department of Business Control, State of Washington, 1927, pp. 153, 131. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 50 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON was provided with an infirmary where sick boys might be adequately cared for. No provision had been made at the girls’ school for a gymnasium and no proper provision had been made for hospital care, the only treatment facilities being those in the receiving cottage. The State schools furnished the juvenile courts of the State with history sheets upon which to supply a complete history of all chil dren committed to the schools. The courts in King and Spokane Counties were the only ones that had furnished the schools with adequate information of this kind. The only social data fqr chil dren from other counties which the schools had were gotten from the boys and girls themselves after admission to the institutions. A ll girls were given a medical examination and were isolated for 10 days or 2 weeks on admission. The boys were weighed, meas ured, and vaccinated when admitted to the school, but no physical examination was given. Both institutions provided for special ex aminations and treatments when needed. Neither institution had facilities for individualized study of the children through mental examinations or personality studies. Most of the boys and girls received from the King County court had had mental examinations. Reports of these examinations were obtained from the court by the girls’ school with the history of the case. The boys’ school did not request this information on the report required from the court. The girls’ school made a practice o f receiving as few venerealdisease cases as possible. They refused to accept such cases from Seattle, Spokane, and Tacoma, where local facilities for care were available. Only partial segregation of infected girls was main tained. One section o f the receiving cottage was used for this pur pose ; and although all the girls in the cottage ate together, all dishes used in the cottage were sterilized. Special treatment rooms and a separate bath were provided for the eight venereal cases in the school. More adequate provision for care o f these cases was needed. No special provision was made in the girls’ school for the care of maternity cases. Girls needing such care were furloughed to a maternity hospital for confinement. Regular school work was provided in both institutions. In the girls’ school one group of girls attended classes in the morning and the second group attended in the afternoon. In addition to grade teachers, two vocational teachers— a sewing teacher and a music teacher—were employed. Piano instruction was given a number o f girls as well as individual vocal instruction and chorus work in connection with the school glee club. Scholarships for further mu sical education were provided for girls showing special talent. A few girls were given training in commercial subjects. Each girl had a regular 3-month assignment to the various types of main tenance work in connection with the institution, the half day they were not in school— sewing, cooking, laundry work, and farm work. No special provision was made for organized instruction in these activities, although the girls were carefully taught how to do their work. For academic work the boys were divided into two groups, each group attending school all day on alternate weeks. Instructors were provided to teach commercial subjects and instrumental music. Music lessons were given daily in connection with the school band https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 51 and orchestra. Much of the work done in the shops and on the farm during alternate weeks was maintenance work and was not organ ized so as actually to fit the boys for a trade, although some instruc tion was given in carpentering, tailoring, shoemaking, printing, and farm work. Both institutions had a credit or merit system, and a girl or a boy was required to earn a certain number o f credits before he was eligible for parole. Misconduct on the part of the boys was penal ized by giving demerits and also special work assignments as dis ciplinary measures. The girls were given demerits and sometimes denied certain privileges, or locked in their rooms for disobedience o f rules. On good behavior girls were promoted to honor rooms or to the honor cottage, which afforded them such advantages as private rooms, unbarred windows, and an opportunity for additional decora tions in their rooms. The boys’ school had some military organi zation and a certain amount of self-government. A guard was on duty all night in each of the boys’ dormitories ; the girls were locked in their rooms. The recreation program at the girls’ school was greatly hampered by the lack of a central auditorium or recreation hall. The only room available for this purpose was quite inadequate, being located in the basement of the administrative building (used also as the honor cottage). No special indoor play rooms were provided, al though each cottage had an attractive living room and reading room. A large indoor gymnasium as well as living rooms and rooms for rough play had been provided at the boys’ school. Girls and boys in each institution had the advantage of organized outdoor sports under trained leadership. A child may be paroled from either institution as soon as he has a certain number of merits to his credit. The average length o f stay in the institutions prior to parole is approximately one year. Tech nically both boys and girls are on parole until they become 21 years o f age, although the period o f active parole supervision continues for only one year. During this year one who is on parole may be returned to the institution without recommitment by the court. With only one parole officer for each school, it was obviously im possible to carry on any constructive aftercare supervision, as there were about 300 on parole in various parts o f the State from each institution. Regular written reports are required twice a month on forms sup plied by the schools. In many cases this is the only contact the officers have with those on parole. The parole officers seldom visited the boy s or girl’s home before the parole, nor was it possible for them to do much visiting except in connection with calling for children committed to the institution and accompanying them to the homes to which they were paroled. Some assistance was given both boys and girls in finding work. A number of girls who could not be returned to their own homes were placed under supervision in wage homes, many of them in cities and towns near the State school. The officer was able to give more supervision in these cases. Whenever the parole officer went into a locality he made it a point to visit as many as possible of the boys and girls on parole who lived near by. No effort had been made by either school to gaip the cooperation of local agencies in this aftercare work, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 52 Local institutions. CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON . . Parental schools.—The two parental schools in Seattle, adminis tered by the board o f education, were providing institutional cure for a majority of the delinquent children from King County. The parental school in Spokane, on the other hand, had accommodations for only 26 boys, and a large majority of the delinquent children from the county were in State or private institutions. The boys parental schools were located in the country outside the cities, the «•iris’ school in an outlying residential section. A ll these schools provided care on a 12-month basis. (For description of schools see P P . 90, 103.) T I T ,1 , In Seattle all admissions to the parental schools were through court commitment, the responsibility for investigations being with the court, although a representative from the school-attendance department was present at court hearings and in many cases had filed the complaint. Aftercare supervision of all boys’ cases became the responsibility of the school-attendance department^ this department gave some assistance in aftercare supervision for the girls’ school. The superintendent of the girls’ school, however, did most of the supervision of those on parole. In Spokane the court made the investigations for commitment and did the aftercare supervision of all children except a few placed in the institution directly by the school department. In these few cases the visiting teacher made the precommitment investigations, and the superintendent o f the institution supervised the boys when Various methods have been developed in different parts of the country for dealing with children of school age who are truant or present other conduct difficulties. These methods may be classified into two groups: Provision for care away from the child’s home, represented by the parental school, and provision of supervision and services to the child while he remains in his own home. The establishment of special classes or day schools providing a program that will meet the needs and stimulate the interests of these mal adjusted children, and the provision of attendance officers with case work experience, and of visiting teachers, represent methods that have been designed for care of difficult children in their own homes. The visiting teacher, equipped to study the needs o f the child, to help him with his difficulties, and to work with his family in adjust ing his problems, is of the greatest value in this preventive program. The only such worker found in the schools of the six counties was in the city o f Spokane. More adequate preventive work might reduce the burden placed upon the parental schools, which would make it possible for these schools to do intensive work with a small number of boys and girls whose habits of misconduct are thoroughly established. At the time of the study no such intensive work was possible. The Seattle schools had extended their original plan of providing short-time care for truants and were undertaking to care for some children who had committed more serious delinquencies, as well as for a number who were primarily dependent or neglected. (See p. 103.) P r i v a t e institutions.— One of the three private institutions for delinquent girls (The House of the Good Shepherd) was located in https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PEO VISION FOE CHILDEEN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 53 Spokane and two (The House of the Good Shepherd and the Ruth School for Girls) in Seattle. These three institutions were pro viding for nearly 300 girls. The two larger institutions did not restrict their work to girls from the city in which they were located but accepted almost any girl for whom application was made, re gardless o f place o f residence. Only one o f the three took girls with venereal disease, and none accepted maternity cases. Although many o f the girls were committed by the court, some were received directly from their parents. Most o f the girls were 16 years of age or over, although sometimes younger girls were accepted. The House of the Good Shepherd in Seattle had a department for junior delinquents under 14. These girls were separated from the older girls during school houçs and at night. At the time o f the study the youngest girl in this department was 10 years old. The Ruth School for Girls, the smallest o f the three private insti tutions, was organized to provide a home and training for girls who are in danger o f becoming delinquent. It had not adhered strictly to this purpose, however, as a number o f delinquent girls were being received from the court. The girls all occupied small rooms, and the general atmosphere of the school was quite homelike. The girls had an opportunity for outdoor recreation, and those on the honor roll were allowed special privileges such as attendance at lectures, movies, and concerts outside the institution. In the larger institutions the girls occupied dormitories accommo dating 40 to 60 girls each. They were required to spend a part of each day on work that was a source of revenue to the institutions. One institution was overcrowded, with limited space in the dormi tories and recreation rooms and little provision for organized out door recreation; a very cheerful atmosphere was found to exist throughout the institution, however. Quite the reverse was true in the other institution. While there was ample dormitory space, the facilities for both indoor and outdoor recreation were limited, and the work program of girls over 14 left little time for recreation. It is probable that the changes in policies o f administration con templated by the superintendent and installed about the time o f the close o f the study will result in a general improvement of the at mosphere o f this institution. THE CHILDREN UNDER CARE Number of children. Records were obtained o f 900 children (506 boys and 394 girls) from the six counties who had been under care of institutions for delinquent children during the year of the study. Less than half of these children (444) were in the institutions on February 28, 1927. Two hundred and forty-nine were under supervision or on parole, 199 had been released from the institution or from parole during the year, and 8 had escaped. The number in each group, according to the type of institution, is shown in Table 11. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 54 CHILD WELFARE IST W ASHINGTON T able 1 1 — Number of children in specified type of institutions for delinquent children and number on parole at the close of the year, and number released in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Children under supervision during year Type of institution Total Total-................................................................ - ............ In insti parole Released tution at On close during close of at year of year year 900 444 249 1207 332 362 206 151 162 131 102 114 33 79 86 42 1Including 8 who had escaped. Table 12 shows the counties from which these children came and the type of institution that had cared for them. In proportion to the total population of the counties, the number of commitments to the State training schools from Spokane and Grays Harbor Counties was much larger than from other counties.46 T able 12.__ Number of children under supervision of each type of institution for delinquent children in six specified counties during the year ended Feb ruary 28, 1927 Children under supervision during year Type of institution County Total Walla Walla County------------------------- ----------- ------- ---------- State training Parental school school Private institu tion 900 332 362 206 570 248 61 9 9 3 89 167 55 9 9 3 362 119 81 6 l No records were obtained of the boys in the parental school in Spokane County. This institution pro vided for about 25 boys. A ll the children under the care o f the two State training schools and two of the parental schools were committed to these institutions by the courts, but about two-fifths of the girls in private institu tions had been placed there by parents, relatives, or other persons. Most of the children had never been committed to an institution before, but 32 had had one previous commitment, and 2 had had two previous commitments. 40 Information was obtained in regard to 11 boys under 18 yearS of age from the six counties who had been committed to the State reformatory for men during the year. Five of these were from Spokane County, 4 from King County, and 1 each from Grays Harbor and Walla Walla County. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 55 PROVISION POR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES Age and parental status at commitment. Although children between 8 and 18 years of age might be com mitted to the State training schools, very few children under 14 years of age (only one-fifth of those under care during the year) were in these schools. (Table 13.) The private institutions caring for delinquent girls were primarily caring for children over 14 years of age. On the contrary, nearly two-thirds of the children in the parental schools were under 14. The large number o f younger children in the parental schools is explained by the fact that these institutions were established primarily for children who were truants. T able 13.— Number of children of specified age groups when committed to each type of institution for delinquent children in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Children under supervision during year Type of institution Age when committed Total Total_____ 900 7 years, under 8 . . . 8 years, under 10. 10 years, under 12. 12 years, under 14. 14 years, under 16. 16 years, under 18. Age not reported.. 2 53 93 192 345 212 3 State training Parental school school Private institu tion 332 362 206 5 18 46 140 122 1 2 43 67 115 130 4 1 5 8 31 75 86 1 Information in regard to the marital status o f parents of the children when they were received by the institutions showed that only 337 (42 per cent) of the 809 for whom information on this point was obtained had both their own parents living together and maintaining a home. Family discord, as shown by desertion, sepa ration, or divorce, was responsible for breaking up the home life of 222 children (27 per cent). One or both parents of 244 children (30 per cent) had died, and the parents of 6 had not married. As is shown in the following list, a number of parents had remarried. Marital status of parents at time of commitment Total_____ Nümber of children — 900 Married__________________________________________ Living together___ _______________________________ I _________ Deserted or separated________________ ____ ;____ _________ 91 Divorced_____________________ ______________ _______________ ~ Head of family remarried____ _________________ _______ Head of family not remarried__,_____________________ g03 337 131 76 55 One parent dead____________________________________ Head of family remarried___________________________ Head of family notremarried__________________________ 68 133 Both parents dead_______________________________________ 43 Parents not married to each other__________________________ Status not reported__________________________________ " __ 9 1 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 201 6 56 CHILD WELFARE IN' W ASHINGTON A somewhat smaller proportion of the children under care of the parental schools than of those in other types of institutions were from homes maintained by both their own parents. This is probably due to the fact that children were committed to the two parental schools for dependency or neglect alone or in combination with some specific offense. The records show that at the time of their commitment to the institution 666 (81 per cent) of the 820 children for whom informa tion was obtained were living in their own homes with one or both parents, or with one of their own parents and a step-parent. Fiftysix were in relatives’ homes; 32 were under the care of another institution or under the supervision of an agency; and 66 were in other types of homes. Reason for commitment. A number of children referred to the court primarily because o f dependency, although they may have exhibited conduct difficulties also, had been sent to the parental school and three private insti tutions. Dependency probably was a factor in the commitment o f many other children to all the institutions, even to the State schools. However, the majority of the children sent to institutions for delinquents had been charged with some specific offense. Table 14 shows the number of children committed to each type o f institution and the charge on which they were committed. Steal ing was the most usual charge (70 per cent) among boys sent to the State training school, whereas truancy (42 per cent) and its close second, stealing (39 per cent), were the most frequent charges for boys under care of the parental school. Owing probably to the smaller number of older boys committed to the parental school, the proportion of sex offenses in this institution (3 per cent) was much smaller than in the State school (10 per cent). An equal proportion (9 per cent) o f the boys in each institution were charged with being ungovernable. T able 14.— Per cent distribution of charges reported on which hoys and girls were committed to each type of institution in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Type of institution v Charge State training Parental school Private institu school tion Boys Girls Boys Girls Girls Per cent Per cent Per cent Per cent Per cent 100 100 100 100 100 70 9 10 9 2 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 3 5 80 12 39 • 42 3 9 2 5 13 12 24 19 17 15 5 8 51 11 14 11 57 PROVISION" FOR C H ILD REN IN T H E SIX COUNTIES Distinct differences were found also in the types of offenses for which girls were committed. The greatest contrast was between the charges of girls committed to the State training school and of those committed to the parental school, the percentage distribution of the charges o f girls sent to the private institution being about midway between these two. Sex offenses as the cause varied from 80 per cent in the State school to 24 per cent in the parental school. Stealing was a much less common offense than among the boys, the proportion of girls charged with stealing varying from 8 per cent in the State school to 13 per cent in the parental school. The num ber o f girls charged with truancy was somewhat similar to the number charged with stealing— 5 per cent in the State school and 12 per cent in the parental school. A larger proportion of the girls in the parental school were called “ ungovernable ”— 19 - per cent, as compared with 12 per cent in the State school. Dependent girls comprised 17 per cent of those sent to the parental schools and 14 per cent o f those sent to private institutions. Length of time in the institution. Table 15 shows the length of time the children had been in insti tutions at the end of the year or at the time of parole or release from the institution. These periods of care represent the total actual time the children were in the institutions, as all periods of parole or absence from the institutions were excluded. Since a large number of boys and girls who were in the institutions at the end o f the year had been under care only for a short time, it is the group placed on parole or discharged during the year that gives a better picture of the length of time that children actually remained in the institutions. T able 15.— Duration of time in institutions for delinquent children and number of children in institution or on parole or released from institutions of each type in the six counties during the year ended February 28, 1927 Children under supervision 11ype of institutio a Total State training school Time in institution Parental school Private insti tution pa In the On pa In the On pa In the On pa In the On role role role insti role or insti or insti or insti or re tution re re tution released tution leased 1 tution leased •leased 1 * Total......... ............................... 444 456 151 181 162 200 131 75 Less than 6 months______________ 6 months, less than 1 year_______ .. . 1 year, less than 2________________ 2 years, less than 3............................. 3 years, less than 4....... ........... ......... 177 118 96 36 10 4 2 1 45 207 138 40 10 2 4 10 62 49 33 6 1 6 99 65 9 68 31 38 15 6 3 1 23 87 48 24 9 2 3 4 47 38 25 15 3 1 1 1 16 21 25 7 1 i Includes 6 who escaped, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 2 1Includes I who escaped, 1 4 58 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON More than half the 456 paroled or released children had been in the institutions for less than a year. Most of the remainder had been given care less than 2 years, but a few had been under care for 2 to 5 years or longer. Only a small number of the children paroled or discharged from the State schools had been in these institutions for 2 but less than 3 years, whereas about onefifth of the children from the parental schools and one-eighth of the children from private institutions had remained in the institu tion for 2 years or more. THE CHILDREN AND THE COURTS JUVENILE COURTS AN D THEIR ADMINISTRATION JURISDICTION In four of the counties (Adams, Grays Harbor, Pacific, and Walla Walla) children’s cases were heard at special sessions of the superior court. In King and Spokane Counties a juvenile court had been organized as a separate branch of the superior court. The court hearing juvenile cases in Washington has exclusive original jurisdiction over all dependent and delinquent children under 18 years of age.47 This court also has charge of the adminis tration of the mothers’ aid law and has jurisdiction over parents, guardians, or other persons who by act or omission contribute to the dependency or delinquency o f a child. It does not have juris diction over cases of nonsupport or desertion or over cases of determi nation of paternity and support o f children born out of wedlock. Although the juvenile court has jurisdiction over all children under 18 years of age, a number of boys of 16 and 17 years of age had been transferred during the year of the study from the juvenile court to other courts. This practice was more common in the Spokane court than in any other, as a policy had been adopted in Spokane of having all delinquent children referred to the court, but of transferring back to the police court all cases of boys oyer 16 years of age charged with violating city traffic regulations. It is evident that in all the remain ing counties the police had handled, without referring them to the juvenile courts, many cases of children under 18 years of age who had violated traffic ordinances. No records of transfer of jurisdiction were obtained from other than the Spokane courts; but it was reported that a few children slightly under 18 years, who had com mitted serious offenses and who, the judge felt, would not profit from the care given by the juvenile court, had been remanded to the superior court in King and Walla Walla Counties. No reports were obtained of such transfers in the remaining counties. A total of 2,403 cases (1,871 delinquency and 532 dependency cases) had come before the juvenile courts during the year m five of the counties included in the study.48 O f the delinquency cases, 1,512 « See Analysis and Tabular Summary of State Laws Relating to Jurisdiction in Chil dren’s Cases and Cases of Domestic Relations in the United States, by Freda Ring Lyman (U. S. Children’ s Bureau Chart No. 17, Washington, 1930). . , 48 The probation work of the juvenile court of Grays Harbor County had been organized just a short time before it was visited by the agent of the Children’ s Bureau. Since access to the legal court records of delinquency cases for the part of the year before the appointment of the -probation staff was refused, information was not obtained in regard to all children who had come before the court during the year of the study. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 59 were boys’ cases and 359 were girls’ cases, and of the dependency cases 256 were boys’ and 276 were girls’ cases. There was much variation in the different counties as to the relative number of delin quency and dependency cases that had been heard. The dependency cases constituted one-fifth of the cases before the court in King County, more than one-fourth o f those in Spokane County, about onesixth of those in Walla Walla County, and nearly two-thirds of those in Pacific County. Only four delinquency cases and no dependency cases had come before the court in Adams County. Table 16 shows the number of cases dealt with in each of the counties. T able 16.— N u m ber o f delinquency and dependency cases disposed o f b y ju ven ile courts in five specified counties during th e y e a r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 1927 County Total______________________ King County.............. ......................... Spokane County- ____________ Walla Walla County_______ _ Pacific County_________________ Adams County_________________ _____ Total cases Delin quency cases Depend ency cases 2,403 1,871 532 1,743 582 36 38 4 1,390 433 30 14 4 353 149 6 24 COURT PROCEDURE Method of dealing' with cases. Only about one-third o f the entire group o f delinquency cases were official cases, an official case being one in which a formal petition is filed for adjudication by the court. Dealing with cases unofficially was much more common for boys than for girls. O f the 1,512 boys’ cases 1,078 were unofficial, whereas of the 359 girls’ cases only 1*57 were unofficial. The decision whether a petition should be filed was the responsibility of the chief probation officers in the King County, Grays Harbor County, and Spokane County courts; in the three smaller counties the prosecuting attorney or the judge received the complaints and filed petitions. The policies as to whether cases were dealt with officially or unofficially varied greatly in the different coun ties. In two of the counties (Adams and Pacific) all the 18 delin quency cases were official and were heard by the judge. There was no paid probation officer in either of these counties, although in Pacific County investigation and supervision of a few cases had been under taken by the county nurse appointed by the judge, as a volunteer pro bation officer. In King County three-fourths of the delinquency cases (1,049) were unofficial, as compared with slightly more than one-third (167) in Spokane. Nineteen of the 30 delinquency cases in Walla Walla County were unofficial. Most of the dependency cases in the counties had been handled officially, although 73 cases in King County and 28 cases in Spokane County had been adjusted without court hearing. A ll unofficial cases were heard by the chief proba tion officers in King and Spokane Counties and by either the district attorney or the probation officer in Walla Walla County. 54586°— 31------ 5 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 60 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON Source of complaints. Police, probation officers, school officials, or other agencies were responsible for entering the complaint in more than three-fourths of the delinquency cases, the rest of this group being brought into court by relatives or other individuals. In about half of the dependency cases the children were referred to the court by a relative or some other individual; in the other half they were referred by the police, probation officers, or other officials. Since all but 48 of the delin quency cases and 30 of the dependency and neglect cases Were from the Bang County and Spokane County courts, it is primarily the situation in these two counties that is shown by Table i f. T able 17.— Source o f complaint in delinquency and dependency cases dealt w ith b y ju ven ile courts in five counties during 28, 1927 Source of complaint the yea r ended F eb ru a ry Total cases Delin quency cases Depend ency cases 2,403 1,871 532 350 101 1,207 280 103 188 72 102 190 64 1,117 235 2l 110 55 79 160 37 90 45 82 78 17 23 The sources of complaint were the same in practically the sapie proportion of cases in the two counties. In both the counties close cooperation existed between the police department and the juvenile court. In King County the woman’s division and the juvenile di vision o f the police department had undertaken to adjust a large number of the juvenile cases without referring them to the court, but at the time o f the study a large proportion of the cases were being referred. In Spokane County all juvenile cases were referred immediately to the court. Study of the child. The thoroughness with which the social background o f the chil dren was investigated and the children themselves were studied va ried in different counties. In each of the four larger counties one or more probation officers had been appointed,49 but in practically every county these officers were carrying too heavy a case load to make possible intensive study of all cases. Investigations were made by the probation officers in all official cases, and in two counties (Grays Harbor and Spokane) in all unofficial cases.50 Physical examinations were always made in these counties when some definite need was seen. The King County court was the only coui;t which had available the services o f a child-guidance clinic for special study of individual children, although mental examinations were occasionally given by private specialists in particular cases in the other counties. 49 In Walla Walla County the probation officer was giving only part time to this work. 5ft Investigations were not made in cases of traffic violators in Spokane County, as these were transferred to the police courts. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PE0 VISION FOE CHILDEEN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 61 In the two smaller counties (Adams and Pacific) no definite pro cedure had been established to ascertain facts relating to the cases. Investigations had been made by the judge or by some volunteer, and their source o f information was largely personal knowledge of the child and his family. Although it was possible to provide for physical examinations of children, no resources were available for psychiatric or psychological study in these counties. Psychiatric and psychological study of the child should be made in at least all cases in which the social investigation raises a question o f special need for study and should be made before decision for treatment, but only by a clinic or an examiner properly qualified for such work. Provision for state-wide service or traveling clinics providing for psychological, psychiatric, and social study of prob lem children would be a most valuable contribution to the work of the court, especially in those counties having no large city in which such clinics are available. The appointment of probation officers with special training in psychiatric social work- would be of great assistance to the courts in dealing with difficult conduct problems. Hearings. A ll the judges in the different counties who were hearing chil dren’s cases at the time of the study were much interested in chil dren’s problems and were carrying out in their work the spirit of the juvenile court law. The hearings were private and very informal, being more in the nature of conferences. The general public was excluded from all hearings, only the court officials, relatives, and the necessary witnesses being present. In King County juvenile cases were heard in a special juvenile-court room in the juvenilecourt and detention-home building. In Spokane County the cases were heard in the living room of the detention home, and in the other four counties practically all cases were heard in the judge’s chambers. . DETENTION Provisions for detention in the six counties. In accordance with the provisions of the State juvenile court law for counties with more than 20,000 inhabitants, detention homes had been established in King and Spokane Counties, and a detention ward for juveniles had been provided in the courthouse in Walla Walla County. This ward was under the supervision o f the wife o f the janitor of the courthouse. Grays Harbor County, which also has a population of more than 20,000, had made no special provision for the detention of children. Children detained for the Grays Harbor County juvenile court were held in the women’s quarters of the Aberdeen city jail. Such provisions for detention are contrary to the law, which provides that the place of detention used for children under 16 shall be “ outside the inclosure of any jail or police station.” 51 The only provision for detention of chil dren in Pacific County (population less than 20,000) was in a county jail, the children being cared for in the matron’s quarters. How ever, only two boys under 16 had been detained in these quarters during the year. In Adams County it was reported that the jail was never used for detention of juveniles. No detention had been 61 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 1987—11. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 62 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON found necessary during the year for the few children coming before the court. • Although complete information could not be obtained as to the number of children who had been detained in Grays Harbor and Walla Walla Counties during the year, the reports of the persons in charge o f the places of detention indicated that in proportion to the number of children coming before the court the number detained was large. With skillful probation service it should be possible to reduce greatly the need for detention of children in these counties. The place of detention, pending hearing or disposition of the case, used for children who came before the courts in five o f the counties is shown in Table 18. In 987 cases the children were not detained; either they were left in their own homes or no detention was necessary, as disposition was made on the day they were brought into court. Since both the counties having large cities had provided juvenile detention homes, it is not surprising to find that detention homes either alone or in combination with other places of care were used for most o f the children needing detention. In a total of 59 delinquency cases boys were detained in jail or police station for a part or the entire time they were held. No girls were held by the juvenile court in jails or police stations pending hearing or disposi tion o f the case. (Three girls had been held in jail by the police but had been released and were not in jail at time of court hearing.) T able 18.— Place o f detention o f children pending hearing or disposition o f delinquency and dependency cases in five counties during the yea r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 1921 Place of detention of children Total cases Delin quency cases Depend ency cases 2,403 1,871 632 571 416 1,089 34 32 26 1 42 16 176 339 414 933 23 32 26 1 5 3 95 232 2 156 11 37 13 81 The percentage of cases coming before the courts in the five coun ties in which some detention care away from their own homes was deemed necessary for the children was large as compared with simi lar data obtained from 62 courts reporting statistics to the Children’s Bureau.52 In 58 per cent of the delinquency cases in Washington children were detained away from their homes overnight or longer, and in only 42 per cent of the cases reported by the group of courts were they so detained. In 48 per cent o f the dependency cases in Washington children were detained away from their homes, as com pared with those in 39 per cent of the cases reported by 53 courts reporting to the Children’s Bureau. MJuvenile-Court Statistics, 1928, pp. 14, 27. 200. Washington, 1930. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No. PROVISION- FOR CHILDREN IN TH E SIX COUNTIES 63 Children detained in detention homes in King and Spokane Counties. The detention homes under the direction of the juvenile courts of King and Spokane Counties served not only as places o f detention for children awaiting hearing or disposition of their cases by the court but also as a temporary shelter or home for children placed by the police department, social agencies, or other persons. Most of the children placed in detention homes for such care were de pendent or neglected children or runaways. A few problem chil dren had been received from parents or agencies for study or for discipline. Because of these circumstances, the number of admissions to the detention homes was considerably larger than the actual number of children detained for the court in such institutions as shown by the court records. In a total of 1,149 court cases the children were de tained in detention homes. There were, however,. 1,632 admissions reported by the detention homes during this period (exclusive of those cases disposed of the same day and not held in the detention home overnight). In very few cases were the children detained for more than a few days, although some detention periods extended to a month, two months, or even three months. Excluding those cases in which the child was not detained overnight, two-thirds of the periods of de tention were less than a week, the largest number in any one group being for only one day. More than one-fourth were from one week to one month, and the remainder (less than one-tenth) were from one to three months. The following list shows the length o f the periods of detention for children held in detention homes in King and Spokane Counties: Length of detention period Total. Cases of children held in detention homes ______ _ 2,0 93 Less than 1 day----- „ — ---------1 day__________ ; 1 -------- J i i » — 2 days------------ -----------------------i — 3 d a ys-_____ --------------------—4 days------------ -------------- ______1 — 5 days___________ ||----------------------- 461 437 236 136 105 83 Length of detention period 6 days— ---------------1 week----------------- 2 weeks__________ 3 weeks------— A — 1 month------------ -— 2 months---------------3 months and more. Time not reported. Cases of children held in detention homes _______________ 75 _______________ 269 _______________ 96 ___ ■ ' 57 l i . _____ 39 _______________ 7 ________________5 _______________ 87 Thirteen per cent (229) o f the children detained were detained more than once; 178, twice; 31, three times; 16, four times; and 4, more than four times. In a number of the cases in which the child was detained more than once, all the periods of detention were short. Five admissions were reported for a 14-year-old Chinese boy who came to the detention home of his own accord, usually be cause he had either missed his ferry or had no money to pay his fare. A. delinquent boy o f 15 was in the detention home seven times and in jail once during the year. The periods of detention for this boy ranged from a few hours to two weeks. He was first brought to the detention home by the school-attendance officer be cause of truancy and was sent home the same day. Later he was arrested by the police at different times for stealing an automobile, for larceny, for disorderly conduct, and for injury to a person. He was put on probation a few months before his final court ap pearance. On the earlier occasions the case had been dismissed https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 64 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON or closed after adjustment. The court finally committed him to the State training school. Following this he was detained in jail four days awaiting transfer to the institution. The police brought a 7-year-old runaway ward of the Washington Children’s Home Society to the detention home 15 times. On nine of these occasions he was not detained overnight, and only once was he kept more than one night. Children detained in jail. Jails were used for the detention of some older boys and girls during 1927. ^A total of 103 juveniles, all but 3 o f whom were boys, were held in jail awaiting court hearing or disposition or transfer to a State institution. Eleven o f the boys were detained in jail twice, making 114 cases o f jail detention. With the exception o f a 14-yearold boy held in jail one night for court hearing on a charge of steal ing an automobile, those detained in jail were 15 years o f age (10), 16 years (32), or 17 years (57). The ages of 3 were not reported. Table 18 shows that children had been held in jail pending hearing or disposition by the court in only 59 cases. A number o f the boys and girls held in jail had been committed to a State institution and were awaiting commitment or return to the institution from escape. A third group were those being detained for hearings in courts other than the juvenile court. The number of cases of jail detention in Spokane County was proportionately larger than the number in King County, probably owing to the larger number of commitments to State institutions, and to the number o f boys transferred to other courts. In the majority o f cases the boys or girls had been placed in jail by the police— 85 of the 114 cases; 27 were placed by the court (11 by the judge and 16 by a probation officer) and 1 by the school depart ment. In one case no information as to the person or agency respon sible was obtained. In only 10 of the 114 cases of jail detention was the boy or girl held less than 1 day ; 62 others were detained for less than 1 week, 26 from 1 week to 1 month, 5 for 1 month, and 1 for 2 months. The length o f time was not reported in 10 cases. CHILDREN ON PROBATION It was customary in all the counties visited to place on probation or under supervision all classes o f children who came to the attention o f the courts, delinquent, dependent, and neglected. Probation was seldom used for children whose cases were heard unofficially; as a rule they were released by the courts to parents or relatives after a warning or some other adjustment, no supervision being maintained over them. Although a much larger number o f delinquent than o f dependent or neglected children came into the courts during the year, compara tively few delinquent children were placed on probation. O f 495 children under supervision o f probation officers in King and Spokane Counties during the year covered by the study, 93 were delinquent (19 per cent) and 398 were dependent or neglected (81 per cent), the reason for supervision o f 4 children not being recorded. In both these counties the probation officers were placing both delinquent and dependent children in family homes under supervision as well as supervising children in their own homes. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 65 PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES Great as is the need for adequate protection and supervision of dependent and neglected children who must be removed from their homes or who are allowed to remain in homes that lack the essen tials of adequate home life, it is desirable that agencies other than the juvenile court should be provided for this purpose. The super vision of delinquent children is the immediate responsibility of a juvenile court, whereas the supervision of dependent children might properly be made one of the responsibilities of an adequately equipped county public-welfare agency. v The importance of helping children whose conduct^ is undesirable to readjust their activities and habits without removing them from their own homes is evident for the sake of both the children and the county. Probation work for delinquent children should receive ade quate support from the community, and enough thoroughly equipped officers should be appointed to give every child needing thorough, painstaking supervision in his own home a chance to make good under such conditions. DELINQUENCY CASES OF CHILDREN THE CHILDREN INVOLVED Race and age. A number of the children committing offenses had been before the court more than once during the year; therefore only 1,633 children had been involved in the 1,871 delinquency cases. A ll but 43 o f the 1,633 children dealt with by five courts for whom race was reported were white, 28 being Negro, and 15 Chinese, Indian, or Eskimo. Table 19 shows the age distribution of these children. As has been found in most studies o f delinquent children, a larger proportion of the girls than of the boys were in the upper age group. Forty-eight per cent o f the girls as compared with 39 per cent of the boys were 16 years of age or over. Washington is one o f the 19 States in which the juvenile court has jurisdiction over children up to 18 years o f age, and it is evident that this enables the court to be of greater benefit to children, since a large proportion of delinquent children are 16 or 17 years o f age. T able 19.— A g e s o f boys and girls w h en r eferred to the courts in delinquency cases in five counties during the yea r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 192 7 Children dealt with Age of child when referred to court Total ‘ Boys Girls * 1,633 1,300 333 65 132 252 493 654 37 59 120 218 372 496 35 6 12 34 121 158 2 The 65 children under 10 years o f age, who ranged in age from 4 years to 9 years, constitute an interesting group. Being ungovern able, truant, runaways, and committing acts o f carelessness and mischief were the charges preferred against many o f these children, but 28 were charged with some form of stealing. One of these https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 66 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON children was brought before the court twice during the year. The school department first brought him to court on a charge of truancy. The case was closed after adjustment, and the boy was returned home. About a month later his parents brought him to court, com plaining that he was a truant, beyond parental control, and had been stealing. The court then committed him to the parental school. Twenty of the sixty-six cases were official and 46 were unofficial. Most o f the cases o f younger children were closed after some adjust ment was made, but in 13,cases the child was committed to one of the parental schools; in 2 he was placed on parole, and one child was committed to an agency. W here living. That the home environment of a child is a significant factor in influencing his delinquency is generally accepted. Children in homes that are broken by family discord or through the death of one or both parents often do not receive the parental care given in the nor mal family home. The extent to which this factor enters into the situation in the cases of the delinquent children in Washington is shown in Table 20. A rather striking contrast is shown between the family situation in the homes of the boys and of the girls. O f the cases in which this information was reported, 63 per cent of the boys as compared with 38 per cent of the girls were living with both their own parents. Thirty-one per cent o f the boys as compared with 43 per cent of the girls were living with one of their own parents, some of whom had remarried, and 6 per cent of the boys and 18 per cent o f the girls were separated from both parents and living in foster homes or institutions. A somewhat smaller propor tion of the children before the Washington courts were living with both their own parents than o f the children reported to the Chil dren’s Bureau by 62 courts.53 T able 20 .— P lace child w as living w h en referred to court in the first case dis posed o f during the yea r fo r boys and girls dealt w ith in delinquency cases in five counties during the y e a r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 1921 Children dealt with Place child was living Total Boys Girls 1,633 1,300 333 1,395 1,141 254 883 131 41 258 82 764 97 26 195 59 119 34 15 63 23 23 88 13 10 104 14 49 6 8 82 9 39 7 2 22 Previous appearances in court. About one-fifth o f the children who were dealt with in delinquency cases during the year had been in court one or more times previous 88 Juvenile-Court Statistics, 1928, p. 11. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 67 PROVISION’ FOR CHILDREN" IN' THE SIX COUNTIES to the year o f the study. Previous appearances were reported to a greater extent for the boys than for the girls, 23 per cent as compared with 14 per cent; the number of times the boys had appeared pre^hmsiy ranged from 1 to 9 and of the girls from 1 to 3. The number A * “““ 111 • )Urt previously is shown in the following list: Number of previous court appearances T o ta l Number of children Number of previous court appearances 3 ___________ 4 ____________ 5 ________________ 6 or more________ Not reported___ N on e _______ ____ 1 ___ _______ 2 _____________ Number of children 40 15 9 6 8 REASON FOR COMPLAINT The charges most frequently reported in boys’ cases disposed o f officially were stealing and acts o f carelessness or mischief, and in girls’ cases sex offenses, ungovernable or beyond parental control, or truancy. No girls were charged with automobile stealing, robbery, or injury or attempted injury to the person, although these offenses were quite common in boys’ cases. The types of offenses most com mon in boys’ cases in the Washington counties were the same as those found in the study of cases reported by 62 juvenile courts in the United States Children s Bureau.54 In a much larger percentage of the girls’ cases in Washington than in the 59 courts reporting complaint was made because o f sex offenses and truancy, and the proportion of cases in which the girls were described as ungovernable or beyond parental control was practically the same. Table 21 shows what was the reason for complaint in boys’ and girls’ delinquency cases and whether they were officially or unoffi cially handled. T a ble 21.— R ea son fo r com plaint in b oys’ and girls’ delinquency cases disposed of officially and unofficially in five counties during the yea r ended F eb ru a ry 28 ^ 1921 Cases disposed of— Total cases Reason for complaint Officially Total Boys Total. Girls Total Boys 1,871 1,512 359 636 434 592 573 19 182 167 Automobile stealing______ Burglary or unlawful entry. Robbery________________ Other_______ ; __________ Not otherwise specified____ 173 76 4 230 109 173 75 4 216 105 1 51 33 14 4 Truancy_________________ _______ Running away__________ Ungovernable or beyond parental control............................ ................ Sex offense____________ _______ Injury or attempted injury to person] Act of carelessness or mischief__ ___ Violating liquor or drug law, or intoxi cation______________________ 148 182 112 120 181 135 11 484 44 22 72 Stealing or attempted stealing. other____ _____________ Not reported_____________ - — “ Juvenile-Court Statistics, 1928, p. 15. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Unofficially Girls Total Boys 202 1,235 Girls 1,078 157 15 410 406 4 51 32 1 122 43 122 43 89 9 79 5 10 4 141 100 137 100 4 36 62 63 38 45 23 18 15 85 144 67 97 18 47 106 31 11 474 75 104 60 22 10 84 54 84 67 29 1 399 46 9 1 390 21 20 10 114 106 10 85 42 20 23 2 2 49 17 2 19 16 2 5 1 27 20 53 26 18 18 1 2 35 1 14 0 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON 68 s . ^ DISPOSITIONS That many of the offenses committed by the children were not considered serious is indicated by the large number of cases that were disposed o f unofficially. The three types o f offenses that were usually dealt with as official cases were ungovernable or beyond par ental control, sex offenses, and injury or attempted injury to per sons. More than four-fifths o f the cases of carelessness and mis chief and more than two-thirds o f the cases of stealing or attempted stealing were disposed of unofficially. Table 22 shows that almost three-fifths of the delinquency cases dealt with by the court in the five counties were dismissed or closed after some adjustment had been made. A ll but a few of these cases were treated as unofficial, the probation officer to whom the case was referred making whatever investigation and plan were needed to adjust the difficulty. T able 22.— D isp osition o f b o ys’ and girls’ delinquency cases dealt until officially and unofficially by the cou rts in five counties during the y ea r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 1927 Cases disposed of— Total cases Unofficially Officially Disposition Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls 1,871 1,512 359 636 434 202 1,235 1,078 157 Dismissed or closed after adjustment.. 1,077 Jurisdiction maintained but no super 60 vision given______________ ______ 7 Restitution or reparation ordered....... 69 Transferred to other court--------------- 966 111 50 38 12 1,027 928 99 47 6 69 13 1 60 7 69 47 6 69 13 1 62 7 62 7 62 7 62 7 137 92 45 136 91 45 1 1 24 15 9 17 11 6 7 4 3 25 111 56 8 20 70 47 8 5 41 9 Total______________________ Child placed under supervision of probation officer------------------------Child placed under supervision of individual or agency.——................ Child committed to institution for delinquent children--------------------- 281 166 115 281 166 115 State training schools---------------Parental schools----------------------- 100 121 60 77 89 23 32 60 100 121 60 77 89 23 32 60 Child committed to other institution or institution not specified-----------Child returned home--------------------Other disposition----------------- --------Not reported_____________________ 33 116 58 9 22 73 48 8 11 43 10 1 8 5 2 1 2 3 1 6 2 1 1 The cases dealt with officially were the more serious offenses, as the disposition of the cases in Table 22 shows. Only 50 such cases were dismissed or closed after adjustment, and 60 were continued indefinitely on good behavior, these two groups constituting about 17 per cent of the official cases. In a large proportion of official cases the children were committed to institutions for delinquents (44 per cent) and in a small proportion they were placed on probation (21 per cent). These dispositions are in marked contrast to the dis- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 69 PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES positions in official cases reported by 61 juvenile courts, which showed that 16 per cent were committed to institutions and 43 per cent were placed on probation.55 As the majority o f the delinquency cases in the five counties were dealt with by the courts in the two large cities, it is probable that the public provisions made in these cities for the care of delinquent children as well as the attitude o f the court influenced the disposi tions made. The probation staff o f the courts in both cities was small, and in addition to investigating most or all of the cases re ferred to the court, the officers were supervising a large number of children referred for dependency and neglect. Both these cities had parental schools for the care of delinquent children, and institutional commitment seemed the easiest method o f treatment. In Spokane, where the parental school was small, a large number of commitments were made to the State school. DEPEN D EN C Y, NEGLECT, A N D OTHER CASES THE CHILDREN INVOLVED Race and age. A ll but 25 of the children before the court for reasons other than delinquency were white; 11 were Negro, and 14 Chinese, Indian, or Eskimo. As some o f the children had been in court more than once during the year, the 532 cases dealt with because of dependency, neglect, or other reasons represented 521 children (249 boys and 272 girls). These children were not limited to those of any par ticular age. Almost as many cases o f children 12 years of age and over as of children under 6 came to the court. The ages of the children when referred to court are shown in the following list: Age o f child when referred to court Number of children, Age of child when referred to court Number of children Total---------------------------------- 521 8 years, under 1 0 _______________ 10 years, under 1 2 ____ 55 55 Under 2 years,___________________ 2 years, under 4_________________ 4 years, under 6 _____ ___________ 6 years, under 8 _________________ 75 53 51 70 12 years, under 14____ 14 years, under 16_:_________ 16 years, and over_______________ Not reported_____________________ 60 62 26 14 Where living. The majority of the dependent or neglected children were living with one or both parents in their own homes when brought before the courts. One hundred and one (20 per cent) of the children for whom information was obtained were with both parents; 22 (4 per cent) lived with own parent and a step-parent; and 218 (44 per cent) lived with mother or father only, the other parent being dead or absent because of separation, desertion, or divorce, or the par ents were unmarried. More than twice as many of the children from broken homes were living with their mothers as with their fathers when referred to court in the first case disposed of during the year, as is shown by the following list. Nearly one-third of the children were living in institutions or family homes other than those of their parents when referred to the court. ^Juvenile-Court Statistics, 1928, p. 18. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 70 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON Whereabouts of child Number of children Total______________________________1 ____ :i!— — — — ----------- 521 W ith both parents_____________ a— ------- ----------------------- — --------W ith mother and stepfather_______________ ---------------- ----------— ------ 16 W ith father and stepmother------ ------------------------------ -------------------6 W ith mother only____ _____ ___— ----------- --------------- —.Iw'lL— 157 W ith father only__________‘1 ----------------------- -1----------W-------------------- 61 In adoptive home— --------------- -------<.!— - — ------------------------ — --------5 In other family home____ — ---------- &------------------- — — ■ 4 4 - - 1 0 9 In institution___________________________ ,— --------------------- --------- — 69 2 Other________________________________ ------------------ -i--------------------------Not reported------------- 1— ------- — — — — ----------------- — _ 25 Previous appearances in court. Only 42 of the 521 children brought into court in dependency, neg lect, and other cases were known to have been dealt with by the court for similar reasons previous to the. year of the study; 32 had been in court once, 7 twice, 2 three times, and 1 four times. REASON REFERRED TO COURT Dependency and neglect of children are problems that usually affect all the children in a family. The 532 cases which included 47 children referred for commitment to the State custodial school came from 337 families. Each family was counted once for each time it was referred to the court on a new charge that might involve one or more children. Although financial need may have been a factor in causing the dependency or neglect of the children in many of the families, it was considered the primary reason in only 16 families. Improper or insufficient care by parents was given as the charge in the largest group of cases. Table 23 shows the reason for the child’s being brought to the courts, as given in the records. T able 23.— R eason fo r referrin g individual cases and fam ilies to the courts fo r dependency and neglect in the five counties during the yea r ended F eb ru a ry 28, 1921 Reason referred Oases Families 532 337 92 23 290 22 10 183 12 50 11 167 16 8 73 12 i including 47 children referred for commitment to an institution for the feeble-minded or epileptic. DISPOSITIONS Table 24 shows that only about one-fifth of these cases were heard unofficially as compared with one-third of the delinquency cases. Although the reasons for bringing the children to the court was common to all the children in the family, the type o f care provided for each child might have been different from that of the others. Placement under court supervision was the most usual disposition made by the court, especially in official cases. Included in the 157 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 71 PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES dependent and neglected children under supervision of the court were 65 children placed in adoptive or other family homes under supervision of the courts. Only a small number o f children were committed to institutions for dependents ; most of the children com mitted to institutions for delinquents were sent to the parental schools maintained by the school departments in Seattle and Spokane. Com mitment to private agencies for family-home placement was used to a considerable extent. Comparatively few cases were dismissed or closed without any adjustment or action being taken. Most of the unofficial cases were closed after adjustment or the children were returned home. T able 24.— D isp osition m ade in dependency and neglect cases dealt w ith officially or unofficially b y the courts in five counties during the yea r ended February 28, 1927 Disposition Total cases Official Unofficial cases cases Total________________________________ __________ - ________ 532 431 101 Jurisdiction retained, but no supervision ______________________ . Child placed by court under court supervision____________________ .. . Child placed under supervision of individual______________________ Child committed or referred to agency_____________________ . _______ 103 58 157 26 57 99 30 58 139 26 54 92 73 For dependent children____________________________________ _ _ For delinquent children______ . . . _ _____ ________________ . For feeble-minded or epileptic children________________________ . 42 3 47 7 35 3 47 7 7 31 1 31 1 Not reported_____________________ ______ __________ ____________ 18 3 7 ADULT CASES INVOLVING CHILDREN FAMILY SUPPORT THROUGH COURT ACTION Provision has been made in Washington under an act popularly known as the “ lazy husband’s act ” for the employment on public roads or highways o f men sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for failure to support their families. It is provided also that a payment of $1.50 a day shall be made to the families from county funds.56 This law had been put into effect in only two of the counties visited (King and Spokane). Jail sentences were used more frequently in Spokane County than in King County. In Grays Harbor County and in Walla Walla County, where a few cases had come before the courts during the year of the study, no appro priation had been made by the county commissioners for support of families, and no men had been sentenced to jail. No cases had come before the courts in Adams and Pacific Counties. Cases of nonsupport and desertion were heard in the justice’s courts in King and Spokane Counties, in the superior court in Walla Walla County, and in both the superior and justices’ courts in Grays Harbor County. During the year 259 cases of nonsupport and desertion, involving 546 children under 16 years of age. had come before the courts in these four counties. These cases were 59 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 6909, as amended by Laws of 1927, p. 725. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 72 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON" distributed as follows: King County, 184; Spokane County, 56; Grays Harbor County, 12; and Walla Walla County, 7. Only 177 o f the 259 fathers were apprehended; these included only 108 in King County, all o f the 56 in Spokane County, 10 in Grays Harbor County, and 3 in Walla Walla County. The de cision of the court in regard to the fathers who were apprehended is shown in the following list: Disposition of case Number of fathers T o ta l__________ _______ 259 Father apprehended___________________ 177 Committed to stockade or ja il_____ _________________________ 41 Sentence suspended________________ >1'.______________________ ;__28 Court order to pay or agreement to contribute to family__67 Dismissed_______________ ________ ¿¡Ci__________ K S ^ . vj ________ 21 17 Other disposition______________________________________________ Pending_________________________________________________________ 3 Father not apprehended__________________________________________ 77 Father’s apprehension not reported______________________________ 5 The records of the court showed that, although some men failed to make the full payments ordered by the court or agreed upon, most of them, including those whose sentences were suspended, made their payments regularly. In addition to the cases brought before the justice’s courts or superior courts on charges o f nonsupport or desertion, orders for support of children placed in institutions or foster homes were made by the juvenile courts. In King County, where separate records of such orders had been made, it was found that during the year o f the study 52 orders to pay had been filed. The amounts stated in the orders varied from $5 to $30 a month. Only 22 of these 52 fathers ever made any payments on the basis o f these orders. The child or children in 31 of these families were sent to the parental school, 8 children were sent to other institutions, 7 were placed in family homes, and 6 were committed to the Washington Children’s Home Society for placement. OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN The juvenile court in Washington has been given jurisdiction over parents, guardians, or other persons who by act or omission have contributed to the dependency or delinquency of a child, such persons being guilty of a misdemeanor.57 This jurisdiction was seldom, if ever, exercised in the courts visited. A person charged with an offense that constituted a felony could be heard only in the superior court. Practically all the cases of offenses of adults against children, even those in which the charge was “ contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” were heard in the justice’s court or in the superior court. Records were obtained of 130 cases of offenses against children that had come before the courts in five of the counties, 107 of these being in King County, 11 in Spokane County, 7 in Grays Harbor County, 3 in Pacific County, and 2 in Walla Walla County. No such cases had come before the court in Adams County. Fortythree cases had been heard in the superior courts (20 cases of con67 Remington’s Comp. Stat. 1922, sec. 1987 (17). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PROVISION FOR CHILDREN IN THE SIX COUNTIES 73 tributing to delinquency, 21 of miscellaneous statutory offenses, and 2 of vagrancy), 85 in justice’s courts (63 cases of contributing to delinquency and 22 of miscellaneous statutory offenses), and 2 in the juvenile court (both cases of contributing to delinquency). With a few exceptions these cases were concerned with sex offenses. Con sidering that girls under 18 years of age were involved in practically all the cases in which the charge was “ contributing to delinquency,” it is surprising that in only 2 of these had action been brought in the juvenile courts, since the juvenile court has the same jurisdiction as the justice’s court. Some action was taken in 74 of the 130 cases of offenses against children, 36 cases were dismissed, 8 were pending, and the disposi tions of 12 were not reported. Sentences to the State penitentiary or reformatory for periods varying from six months to life were given to 11 men. Sixty men were sentenced to jail, the sentence being suspended in 27 cases. Payment o f costs or costs and fines were imposed on three men not otherwise sentenced, as well as on many of the men whose sentences to jail had been suspended. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Social Resources of the Six Counties ADAMS COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION Adams County, located in the eastern part of the State, had, in 1920, a population of 9,62s.1 Ritzville, the county seat and the largest town, had a population of 1,900. W heat is practically the only farm product raised in the county. Many of the ranches are large, ranging from 12,000 to 15,000 acres in size. Id the western section of the county the soil is very light, and some years it has been blown away over large areas, leaving the fields unproductive. However, special effort has been made through improved methods to cultivate this lighter soil, and a few large ranches have been improved successfully. Nearly one-fourth of the acreage in the county was unimproved, some of the eastern section being too rocky and the extreme western part too dry for cultivation. The use of irrigation had been started, and the only real dairy farm in the county was on irrigated land. Many of the farmers had no gardens because it was impossible to raise garden stuff on their land. There were no industries in the county. The only employment available, aside from farming and the usual business pursuits of the small village, was in small flour mills in two villages! and at the division points of the trans continental railroads, where there were shops and yards. Practically all the harvesting was done by cooperation among the farmers, and large gangs were not needed. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN The greater part of the family-relief work in the county was being done by the three county commissioners, each of whom was responsible for public relief in the district which he represented. The commissioners met three days each month to transact business and were paid only for the time they were in session. One of the commissioners impressed upon the agent of the Children’s Bureau the fact that Adams County was particularly lucky in regard to the indigent poor, in that there were very few families in need of assistance. The commissioners were allowed to collect the expenses incurred in visiting families, but as a matter of fact they seldom did so. It was im possible to obtain information in regard to families receiving poor relief, as no records were kept other than stubs of the orders. The county auditor re ported that only four families in which there were children had received aid during the year covered by this study. The auditor’s list of the people being aided was brought up to date monthly and was pasted in front of the order book. The county had no poor fa r m ; old people in need of care were boarded in family homes. In one of the localities visited it was found that a member of the women’s club was assisting the county commissioner for that district in his poor-relief work and made it a practice to keep track of the families receiving assistance. Applications for mothers’ aid were made to the prosecuting attorney or the county commissioners, and regular application forms were filled out. The county commissioners made an investigation and brought in a report, which was entered on the application form. Although the forms were comprehen sive, it was found that the entries that had been made were rather meager. The warrants were mailed to the mothers every month, and no data were obtained regarding the family after the initial investigation, except that once 1 Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, vol. 3, Population, p. 1087. Wash ington, 1922. No estimate was made by the Bureau of the Census for 1926, the year of the study, because the population decreased between 1910 and 1920. In 1930 the population of the county was 7,719. 74 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- ADAMS COUNTY 75 a year the judge went over the list and usually cited the mothers into court to check up on the situation. In approving or disapproving the allowance the judge usually acted upon the decision of the county commissioners who made the investigation. During the year of the study seven mothers had received aid and one new application had been filed, but upon investigation it was found that the mother in this case was not eligible. The county commissioners did not make a practice of supplementing mothers' pensions from poor-relief funds. Practically all the private relief work done in the county was handled through the county chapter of the American Red Cross. This organization also helped some transient ex-service men. The secretary reported that prac tically all the relief work was done during the winter months. An average of $50 a year was given to each family receiving relief. The county had only one woman’s club, and this organization did not undertake any child-welfare work. It did, however, give some relief to needy families, as did the churches in the various communities. The county had no local organization providing for children. Only four children from the county were under the supervision of the state-wide child placing agency, and, as far as the agent was able to ascertain, no children from the county were in institutions for dependents. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN Adams County had no special juvenile-court organization because of the small number of cases of juvenile delinquency. Very few girls had been brought into court on delinquency charges, and the judge interviewed, who had been on the bench for Id years, said he did not remember having sent more than one girl to the State training school since he had been in office. The prosecuting attorney settled a number of delinquency cases informally, without filing a complaint before the judge. As it was his business to sign all complaints in juvenile cases, the decision as to whether the cases should be taken to court rested with him. The court had no pro bation officer, and the judge placed the child on probation to himself, to the prosecuting attorney, or to some one especially designated in individual cases. The county superintendent of schools, a woman, sometimes served as probation officer, especially in girls’ cases. The county had no detention home, and children were not held in the county jail. In practically all cases the child was trusted to come to court when notified to appear. Three boys from the county were in the State training school during the year of the study. Very few cases of dependent children had come before the court, and the judge almost without exception committed such children to the Washington Children’s Home Society. HEALTH PROGRAM The tuberculosis league had paid the salary of a nurse for two months during the year preceding the study. A petition had been sent to the county com missioners by the tuberculosis league, and indorsed by the county school directors, asking them to employ a county nurse. Their decision was dependent upon the crops, and it was the general opinion at the time of the agent’s visit that everything was favorable to a “ bumper ” crop and that the request would be granted. • During the two months that the nurse was at work in the county she visited the schools in a number of districts, examining the pupils and sending notices to parents. She gave health talks at many of the schools, gave a talk on personal hygiene to the Camp Fire Girls, and held a preschool clinic and a baby clinic. She talked before the county school directors and asked their coopera tion in getting the appointment of a county nurse. In the year prior to the study only seven children in the county were not enrolled in school because of physical or mental handicap. RECREATION PROGRAM There was one public library in the county, located in the county seat and maintained in part by the Carnegie endowment. The county seat had also a city park with an excellent outdoor swimming pool. 54586°— 31------ 6 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 76 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON The only troop of Boy Scouts was in the county seat and had a membership of 18 boys. It was affiliated with the Spokane council, although not an offi cially organized troop, as the council refused to charter a troop without a trained executive. The troop was very active, and the leader considered that they were doing very good work. Nowhere in the county was there any supervision of public commercial dances. In one of the communities visited a member of the woman’s club expressed great concern over the recreation problem, particularly in regard to the dances given at the auditorium. During the winter these dances were held once a week, and the member of the woman’s club interviewed did not consider them suitable functions for girls to attend. The schools held spring community athletic meets, with both educational and athletic contests. The county was divided into 14 community groups, and the winners in each group were later entered in a county contest. During the year before the study 170 children were enrolled in the 4-H clubs located in five towns and one rural district. The county farm agent had charge of all the work in connection with both the boys and the girls for these clubs. He had found considerable difficulty in getting leaders to help in this work. SCHOOL PROGRAM A t the time of the study the county had 10 consolidated school districts. Provision had been made for the transportation of pupils to accredited high schools in the county. In one locality it was reported that some children traveled 22 miles each way to school. Some of the districts provided homes for the teachers; others fitted up living quarters in the school buildings for their use. The county had one parent-teacher association. Because of the need of the children’s help during seeding time, it had been customary to grant temporary permits or excuses for children to work at home. A regular permit form was supplied by the State board of education for this purpose. The length of such absences usually amounted to from 5 to 10 days. The teachers had cooperated in helping the children to make up their work by giving them extra time after school hours. The county seat had a large Russian-German population. The parents in many of these families continued to maintain old-world standards and had not cooperated with the school au thorities in regard to school attendance. The superintendent reported that with the exception of the children from this group they had very little trouble with nonattendance in Adams County. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION Grays Harbor County is particularly rich in natural resources. The pro duction of lumber is its chief industry, and with practical reforestation and adequate Are prevention the supply is said to be inexhaustible. Grays Harbor, the chief port between Puget Sound and the Columbia River, has a steadily increasing business and its lumber shipments are extremely important. In addition to the lumber industries there are iron and steel foundries; salmon, crab, and clam fisheries; and vegetable and berry canneries. In the rural sections farming, dairying, fru ;t growing, potfltry raising, and bee culture are carried on extensively. Dairying predominates because of the mild climate, winter and summer, the long pasture season, heavy silage, and root and hay crops. Mineral and oil deposits are known to exist but await development. Grays Harbor County has expended large sums in docks, warehouses, cargo handling equipment, and the dredging of its channels. ' The Federal Govern ment also has expended a great deal on the development of the harbor. Be cause of these improvements Grays Harbor is. rapidly taking its place as one of .the principal ports of the Northwest. It is the port of call of seven steam ship lines operating in intercoastal trade and as many in the trans-Pacific trade. The growth within recent years has been quite remarkable, the ton nage of water-borne commerce having trebled during the period 1917-1923, and many new industries have been developed. The total population at the time of the study was 50,900, as estimated for 1926. Aberdeen and Hoquiam, the largest cities, had populations of 21,600 and 15,000, respectively. Although these cities are located but a few miles apart, there was considerable rivalry between them, and each community had its own activities. There was no other town in the county with a population of more than 5,000 inhabitants. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN Public relief in the county, both poor relief and mothers’ aid, was under the supervision of a charity commissioner appointed by the county commis sioners. A t the time of the study this official had held the position for 20 years. It was apparent that incomplete investigations were m ad e; but as there were no records, it was difficult to form an accurate opinion as to the commis sioner’s actual knowledge of the families receiving assistance. Very little supervision or follow-up work was undertaken, and no services other than relief and some medical care were given to the families in either poor-relief or mothers’ aid cases. The charity commissioner followed the usual practice in the State in granting aid, giving either groceries or fuel, but never cash. In case of illness in the families receiving or applying for assistance, the services of the county doctor were given, or, if necessary, hospital care was provided at county expense. Upon recommendation of the county nurse, special rates or free care was obtained by the charity commissioner for chil dren needing correction of defects. The charity commissioner was not pro vided with an automobile and had to depend upon the railroad or bus service for transportation in the rural districts. He seldom visited a family living outside Aberdeen or Hoquiam except when he could accompany the sheriff on trips into rural sections. No records were kept of the visits. The administration of the mothers’ aid law was under the juvenile division of the superior court, but the investigation and supervision were done by the charity commissioner rather than by the probation officers. The investigation seemed to be concerned more with determining the mothers’ eligibility for aid than with obtaining information that would be of assistance in formu lating a plan for the family. In this county the mothers’ aid law had been interpreted as being applicable only for the assistance of children whose III https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 78 C H IU ) WELFARE IN’ W ASHINGTON fathers were dead, totally incapacitated, or confined in a prison or hospital for the insane. Children whose fathers had deserted or whose parents were divorced were not considered eligible for aid. Mothers’ aid was granted for six months or a year at a time, at the end of which time the mother was required to make a new application and appear for a hearing before the judge. The charity commissioner stated that he visited once a year the mothers receiving a id ; these visits were probably made at the time of reapplication. All checks were mailed, but the mothers were not required to make any report of their expenditures, and there was no check-up on the attendance or progress in school of the children or on their health and general welfare. It is possible that in many cases there was no contact with the families from the time a grant was made until it was neces sary to make a new application. The only records were the formal court records filed in the office of the clerk of the court. These consisted o f the application and in some cases the report of the investigation and the court order allowing the grant. I f the grant was reconsidered subsequent to the original grant, similar papers appli cable to the time of reapplication were included in the record. During the year of the study 87 mothers with dependent children had received this type of assistance. Court records were obtained for 22 dependent children who had been re ferred to the court during the year; 10 of them were committed to the Washington Children’s Home Society, 3 to institutions (including 1 feeble minded child), 1 was placed under supervision of an individual, and for the other 8 no action was taken or the type of action was not reported. Before the appointments of the special probation officers, which were made during the year of the study, the charity commissioner served also as proba tion officer and handled all cases of dependent and delinquent children. The county commissioners refused to give up their work with dependent children, and at the time of the study the charity commissioner was still caring for a large proportion of the dependent children without referring them to the juvenile court. Because of the lack of records, it was impossible to determine the entire number and the type of cases that had been cared for by him dur ing the year. Grays Harbor County had no institutions for dependent children; for some time before the study it had been the policy of the charity commissioner to send dependent children to a private institution in an adjoining county. From information obtained at this institution it was found that 89 children from Grays Harbor County had been cared for during the year of the study. A report made by the institution to the charity commissioner in April, 1927, stated that 36 children from Grays Harbor County were in the institution at that time. A s the county commissioners had made a lump-sum appropriation to this institution, payable at the beginning of the year, they apparently felt justified in sending as many children as possible to the institution, regardless of the actual needs of the children and the possibility of keeping them in their own homes. The general opinion seemed to be that any parents could be relieved, temporarily at least, of the responsibility of their children by making application to the charity commissioner. In addition to these children four others from Grays Harbor County were in institutions in the other counties visited. During the year of the study 14 children were under the supervision of child placing agencies. Nineteen children were given for adoption in the county during the year, 6 being adopted by relatives; 4 of these 6 were adopted by step-parents, 1 by his own parents, and 1 by other relatives. Only 1 of the 19 had been under the supervision of an agency before the filing of the petition. Six children from Grays Harbor County were in the State institution for the feeble-minded on February 28, 1927, and 1 had been released during the year. The private relief work in the county was carried on by the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and several fraternal organizations. Although none o f the communities had a social-service exchange, the various organizations were co operating in their effort to avoid duplication of work. The Red Cross chapter in Aberdeen was the only private agency in the county with a trained so cial worker. The chapter limited its relief work to the city, but visits were made to families in outlying districts at the request of social agencies in other communities. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY 79 PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN Some attempt had been made to specialize the court work in connection with juvenile cases, although a separate department of the superior court had not been established. The juvenile probation work of the court, which had been organized only a few months before the study, was divided among four part-time officers who were receiving a total of $225 a month for their services. The chief probation officer (receiving $85 a month) and a woman assistant (receiving $60 a month) were doing the bulk of the work and were devoting as much time as was neces sary, regardless o f their small salaries. The two other officers received $40 a piece and were doing only a small amount o f work in special localities. The chief probation officer had had previous juvenile-court experience, and one of the assistants had been engaged in boys’ work for a number of years. Their plan was to settle as many cases as possible out of court. A special time had been set for hearing juvenile cases, and the court procedure was very informal. The only special provision in the county for the detention of juveniles was in the women’s quarters of the city jail in Aberdeen, under the supervision of the police matron. Both dependent and delinquent children were detained; the former were held for the charity commissioner and not for the probation offi cers. No segregation of girls from women, and very little segregation of boys was possible. Records were not available for a whole year; the matron re ported that 137 children under 18 (72 girls and 65 boys) had been detained during a little more than 10 months. This number included children who were detained for only a few hours awaiting disposition by the probation officers. Dependent children were sometimes held for several weeks. Occasionally boys over 16 and “ girls under 18 ” were held in the county jail. The girls as a rule were those involved in cases of adults charged with sex offenses. Thirty children from Grays Harbor County were in State schools for delin quent children on February 28, 1927, and 3 were in private institutions for delinquents; 14 were on parole from State institutions. In addition to these 13 were released during the year (10 from the State institutions and 3 from private institutions). Thirty-two children were before the juvenile court because of delinquency during January and February, 1927.a All but 5 of these cases were adjusted informally by the probation officers. Regular criminal procedure was followed in the prosecution of adults charged with offenses against children. The probation officers were trying to get the sheriff and the prosecuting attorney to report to them immediately upon arrest or filing of complaint all cases in which girls under 18 were involved. The plan was for the probation officers to make the investigations on behalf of the girls in these cases and for the woman probation officer to be present when the girls were given preliminary hearing or brought into the attorney’s office for questioning. H EALTH PROGRAM A fairly adequate health program was being carried out in the county through the cooperation of various local organizations. The county health officer and the local health officers in six of the largest towns were employed on a part-time basis. Their chief concern was sanitation and control of contagious disease. They were paid for each visit made to county charges in case of sickness but gave little time to this work. There was no special coor dination of the work o f the county health officer and that of the local health officers. This county also supported a public-health nurse. It was felt that one of the urgent health needs was a more adequate nursing staff for the school health work. The county had no school doctor, and only the two cities, Aberdeen and Hoquiam, had school nurses. For four months of the school year a nurse was employed by the county tuberculosis league to examine children in the rural schools. Monthly county wide child-welfare clinics had been held by the Aberdeen chapter of the American Red Cross, in cooperation with the child-hygiene division of the State board of health. Occasionally the services of a specialist from Seattle * These were the only months for which complete record data were available. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 80 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON were secured for these clinics through the State board. Preschool clinics had been held in some of the rural sections of the county, sponsored by the parent-teacher association, with the assistance of the county nurse. The county nurse who worked throughout the county took some part in the maternity and infancy work and in work for preschool children, although she put special emphasis on antituberculosis work. The county home demonstra tion agent, in cooperation with the county nurse and the school nurses, con ducted the nutrition program in the clinics and in the cities throughout the county. A dental survey was made in 1926 under the auspices of the tuber culosis league. School children in typical sections of the county were exam ined but, though many were found to be badly in need of dental work, no follow-up work was done. The county tuberculosis sanitarium, during the year prior to the study, had cared for 29 children from 6 to 14 years of age. Monthly chest clinics were held that reached children in all parts of the county. The superintendent of the tuberculosis sanitarium made the examination at these clinics. Three general hospitals took children in need of hospital treatment; some of these children were cared for free and others were paid for by the county. Crippled children were sent to the orthopedic hospital in Seattle, four beds being maintained there for Grays Harbor children by various organizations. RECREATION PROGRAM The county abounds in natural resources for outdoor sports, and the mild climate makes it possible to enjoy these sports almost every day in the year. In addition to having a number of beach resorts, the county affords ample opportunity for hunting, fishing, and camping. A number of the schools outside the two cities were used as community centers, and there were four other community centers, two of which were used also as school gymnasiums. No organized recreation program and no community playgrounds were found in any community outside the two princi pal cities. About 150 Grays Harbor County boys and girls were enrolled in the 4-H clubs organized by the home demonstration agent and the county agricultural agent. There were 21 Boy Scout troops, between 15 and 20 Girl Scout troops, and 10 groups of Camp Fire Girls. The Boy Scouts had a paid county executive, but the girls’ organizations were trying to keep their work up to standard with only volunteer leadership. One of the outstanding recreational projects in Aberdeen was the natatorium-gymnasium, completed only a short time before this study was made. This was available for school children as well as for the community as a whole. Most of the communities visited had halls where public dances were given from time to time. Licensing of dance halls by the county commissioner and supervision by the sheriff were required. The dance-hall problem appeared to be well handled in both Aberdeen and Hoquiam. A license was required for each dance, and a police matron was on duty during the entire evening. There was no special police supervision of pool halls and card rooms, but the regular police tried to keep the young boys from frequenting them. Aberdeen drew a large number of 16 to 20 year old boys from the near-by logging camps, and the chief of police considered it better to allow them in the pool rooms than to leave them to their own devices on the streets. During the summer months a daily average-of 300 to 400 children used the one equipped playground in the city of Aberdeen. The supervisor was on full-time duty during the summer and on part-time duty during the school year. Efforts were being made to obtain more playgrounds and more play supervision. One of the men’s clubs, under the auspices of its child-welfare committee, was giving some assistance in carrying out the recreational program of the community. Hoquiam had a public playground which had been donated to the city for the purpose shortly before the study was made. No supervisor had been provided, but the grounds were in charge of a resident caretaker. This plan had not proved satisfactory, and the park board had been advised to close the playground if a supervisor could not be obtained for duty during play hours. Some play supervision was provided at two of the school play grounds in Hoquiam during a part of the summer before the study. The schools o f the county held an annual county play day, the program consisting almost entirely of athletic contests. Neither the Aberdeen nor the Hoquiam schools had physical-education programs in the grade schools, but in https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY 81 Hoquiam the Young Men’s Christian Association secretary had given some time to supervising this work during the year before the study. The high schools in both cities had gymnasiums, and athletic directors were provided. In Hoquiam the Young Men’s Christian Association was particularly active and was providing recreational activities for a large number of boys. Aberdeen had no Young Men’s Christian Association. Aberdeen, Hoquiam, and at least one other town had public libraries. SCHOOL PROGRAM Aberdeen had a full-time attendance officer and Hoquiam a part-time officer (who was also Young Men’s Christian Association secretary). The county superintendent of schools acted as attendance officer for the other school districts. A total of 45 physically or mentally defective children ■çrere reported through out the county who were neither enrolled in schools nor being provided for in institutions. Twenty-two of these children were feeble-minded, 9 were physically defective, and the type of defect of 14 was not reported.^ Aberdeen had one special class for mentally defective children in which 24 children were enrolled in charge of two teachers. Children whose intelligence quotients were less than 70 were assigned to this class. Aberdeen was one of the three cities in the State that had a part-time school. The city was maintaining a night school also. The 18 schools in the city included an industrial training school, a junior high school, and a senior high school. Free transportation in school busses was provided for children from the outlying sections of the city. Aberdeen and Hoquiam each had two deans or advisors for the boys and two for the girls. Parent-teacher associations had been organized in the two cities and in a number of localities outside the cities. The chief activities of these groups were furnishing hot lunches in the schools, sponsoring preschool clinics, and assisting the 4-H clubs. No definite child-study program had been under taken by any of the groups. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis KING COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION King County, containing Seattle, the largest city in the State, had, according to the 1920 census,8 a population of 389,273, more than three-fourths of which was in the city of Seattle. Although the county outside Seattle had a population of about 100 ,000 , much of it is rural and some communities were very inaccessible by either train or automobile. Most of the towns are near Seattle; the largest, with a population of less than 5,000, was within 30 miles of the city. Several of the towns are in reality suburban communities under local administration. The county borders on Puget Sound on the west and extends eastward to the Cascade Mountains. Some sections of the eastern part of the county are rugged and in places heavily timbered. Seattle is reported to be growing rapidly. The city is delightfully located, built on the hills overlooking the sound, and has within its limits Lake W ash ington, which affords many miles of wooded shoreline, and ample beach facilities within easy access of almost any part of the city. W ith its deep-sea harbor Seattle has become one of the important ports of the Pacific Northwest, both in shipping and in passenger service. Practically all oriental passenger lines put in at Seattle harbor, and freight is carried to all parts of the world. The city is the freight and passenger terminus for a number of transcontinental railroad lines. The seasonal nature of much of the employment both in the city of Seattle and in the surrounding country affects the dependency problem in King County. Seattle is the center to which the unemployed from the lumber camps and from the fishing ports drift during the slack seasons. According to the 1920 census about one-fourth of the. population of Seattle was foreign born. Scandinavians, Canadians, Japanese, and English were the largest groups. Pine truck farms have been developed extensively, mostly by the Japanese, in the vicinity of Seattle, and the public markets of the city are exceptionally well stocked with fresh vegetables. Seattle has excellent educational facilities in both its public and its private institutions. The State university is located in the city. The Cornish School of Art includes music and drama in its curriculum and furnishes much cul tural entertainment through its student concerts and plays. The people of Seattle are very proud of the city’s symphony orchestra. Several islands in Puget Sound belong to the county. Vashon, the largest of the islands, although extensively used for truck farms and poultry raising, still has much wooded area. Two large camps are located on the island— the Seattle Young Men’s Christian Association camp and the camp of the Camp Fire Girls. Excellent ferry service to both Seattle and Tacoma makes the island practical both for residence and for farming. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN MOTHERS' AID Aid to mothers with dependent children was administered in King County by the juvenile court through a specially organized department, with offices in the juvenile-court and detention building. The staff consisted of a super visor, an investigator, three visitors, and an office secretary. The mothers were required to make application in person if they were physi cally able to do so. The supervisor considered all applications. In most cases 11No estimate was made by the U. S. Bureau of the Census for 1926, the year of the study. In 1930 the population of the county was 463,517. 82 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL. RESOURCES— KIN G COUNTY 83 it,™ \0 d« v f fou5 to six weeks elapsed between the time of application and the rormal filing of the petition. During this period a careful investigation was made as to the mother’s eligibility. I f the parents had been divorced, the fa th ers lawyer was consulted; if a mother had been deserted, a pension was not granted unless she had sworn out a warrant for her husband’s arrest. A s the three visitors were responsible for the supervision of more than 500 ^ “ llll.es hving in 7 arious Parts of the county each worker had too heavy a case load to permit good supervisory work. The visitors tried to visit the families at least every six weeks, but this was not always possible. No reguWa! fixed f.or. the mothers to call at the office, but the supervisor met r , o ^ i hf r^ bL+a^ ? 0 intii.ent lf any difficulty arose that the visitors considered needed authoritative attention or if a revocation was considered. The mothers were free to go to the office to see the workers whenever they wanted to. offiro nn were required to call for their checks at the auditor’s .o a * fe first of the month in person, but checks were mailed to mothers ™ i vei some distance from Seattle. The visitors took the checks to had hsmal7 children th° Se m the laSt months of Pregnancy, and those who the limi-ted grant Permitted by law, most of the mothers found it necessary to engage in some gainful occupation either at home or away from m nH W o w d? r t0 maintain a proper standard of living. No objection to a s having^ several boarders or roomers— either men or women— was made bUt 0ne of, the requirements of the department was that she should ^ i n i,° ne man boarder. I f a mother failed to comply with this restricWaS b<rld Up temPorarily as a w arning; and if she continued to disregard it, her pension was revoked. The mothers’ pension department was-somewhat more liberal in regard to e m others savings and home ownership than are administrative agencies in Tbe mothers were encouraged to own their own homes and were allowed to own or to have equity in property to the value of $3,000.4 When money was left from the father’s insurance, the mothers were urged to invest it in a home. They were allowed also to have savings of as much as $300 in cash. I f they had even larger amounts invested, that for some reason they could not dispose of to advantage, the pension was not refused for this reason. Although ®te-jBOTthem were not encouraged to take out insurance for themselves or the children, they were not required to give up any they already had unless the amount was excessively large. ,, school attendance of children in mothers’ pension families, as well as their behavior and progress in school, was checked by means of a form sent semiannually to the various school principals by the mothers’ pension department- The mothers aid workers visited the schools in their districts and conlerred with the teachers of children in the families under their supervision. As the pension stopped automatically when a child became 15, it was not possible to continue aid in order to allow a child to remain in school. Children who wished to continue their education were encouraged to do so, and in a few cases scholarships or other kinds of assistance were obtained for them. Fifteenyear-old boys were helped in finding part-time work, and some of the 15-year-old girls were placed out in family homes where they received their room and board and possibly a small sum of money in return for their services after school hours. A few mothers had been granted assistance so that they could attend special vocational courses that would enable them to be self-supporting. Aid was sometimes granted a mother who was not able physically or mentally to care for her children, provided the family was living with a relative or some other person who was responsible for the care of the children. In some cases, how ever, this plan had not worked out satisfactorily because of the incompetence of the relatives supervising the children. The mothers’ pension department paid considerable attention to the health needs of the families under its supervision. The mothers were required to have all remediable defects corrected if a pension was to be granted or con tinued. Close cooperation was maintained with the public-health nurses and the clinics. The visitors made arrangements for mental tests of the mothers and the children whenever they considered such tests desirable. * In a few cases found in tbe records this amount was exceeded. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 84 CHILD WELFARE IH W ASHINGTON In the opinion of the supervisors, the homes in which the pensioned mothers lived compared favorably with those of the average wage earner. The amount of rent paid varied greatly, depending upon whether or not relatives were helping the family. As a general rule the mothers’ aid families were paying higher rents than were the families receiving relief from the county or from the Social W elfare League. Pensions were not granted to mothers who lived in undesirable neighborhoods. Living in the down-town section was prohibited, because it had no playgrounds for children and it was too near the motionpicture theaters and questionable rooming houses. In one case the department went so far as to revoke a mother’s pension because she refused to move out of a dark, damp basement. The mothers and children were encouraged to take a certain amount of recreation. Mothers were advised to buy books for the children, and maga zines were furnished either by the department or by interested friends. Sev eral summer camps were available for members of mothers’ aid families through the cooperation of local organizations. Children were encouraged to join clubs and other recreational groups. I f they were interested in music and the mother was willing to take the responsibility of buying an instrument, even a piano, the supervisor usually approved. Several years before this study was made the mothers’ aid visitors started a fund to be used in providing families under their supervision with some of the things they needed but could not afford to buy from their allowance. This fund was known as “ the juvenile-court spirit fund ” and was made up of money solicited by the workers from private individuals and organizations. A t one time approximately $100 a month was spent from it, but_ since the establishment of the community chest it has not been possible to solicit money for this fund, and a somewhat smaller amount has been available. In addition to the money appropriated specifically for mothers’ aid families by the county, county funds were available for such families from two other sources. Thè first of these funds was known as the juvenile-court allowance and was established by a former judge of the juvenile court to provide assist ance for mothers who were not eligible for a grant from the regular appropria tion because they failed to fulfill the residence requirement but who were other wise qualified and desirable beneficiaries and for whom the period of waiting would entail unusual hardship. The cases of the few mothers who received money from this fund were investigated by the mothers’ aid workers and super vised in the same way as those of other mothers receiving aid until they were eligible for the regular grant. The second fund was a special appropriation made by the county department of public welfare to supplement the mothers’ aid funds. For several years it had been customary for the department to grant supplementary aid to individual families, but on account of the delay involved in the department’s making its investigations, on January 1, 1927, a lump-sum appropriation of $3,000 was made to the mothers’ pension department. The visitors could give orders for food, fuel, and clothing from this fund. The mothers’ pension department had a very complete set of record forms. The records were considered confidential, and all except the supervision sheets were filed for safe keeping in another part of the building. The supervision sheets did not give a complete picture of the happenings in the families, as the visitors did not dictate reports of their visits but attached brief notes regarding them to the records. These notes covered only such general statements as “ family arrangements same,” “ fam ily well— conditions the same.” Little or no information was given about the individual children. POOR RELIEF The department of public welfare, created by the county commissioners, administered poor relief in King County. The staff consisted of a commissioner, an assistant, two visitors, and a stenographer. Practically all members of the staff were political appointees without previous social-service training or experience. During the year of the study 204 families with children had received aid from this department. Because the appropriation for public relief was inadequate and the department had been obliged to curtail its relief work considerably, it was the department’s policy not to extend public aid to a number of Seattle families with children but to refer them to the Social W elfare League. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES— KING COUNTY 85 FAMILY RELIEF BY PRIVATE AGENCIES It was impossible to study any private agencies in the county except those in Seattle. Several agencies in the city were engaged in family-relief work but there was no federation of social agencies. A community fund had been in operation, however, for six years. More than $600,000 was raised during 1928 for the work of 25 institutions and agencies. The organizations receiving support from the fund^ included family-relief agencies, child-placing agencies, maternity homes, institutions for dependents, institutions for delinquents missions, a day nursery, and a humane society. A brief description of some ot the most important agencies follows. The Social Welfare League. The largest of the private agencies in Seattle engaged in family-relief work was the Social W elfare League. The staff of this organization consisted of a secretary, an assistant secretary, 6 district supervisors, a psychiatrist 11 visitors, 10 visitors-in-training, and 9 clerical workers. The Social W elfare League made a careful investigation of all its cases and cleared all cases with the social-service exchange. The case load of the visitors, except during the winter months, was not heavy, and frequent visits to the family could be made. The agencies’ records were very complete and were kept up to date. The bulk of the financial support of this organization came from communitychest funds. The only other contribution was from “ trust fu n d s”— money from individuals and organizations interested in particular families or in special projects, all of which was spent for designated purposes. The total budget for the fiscal year 1926-27 was approximately $120,000. The league was doing some placement work of children in need of temporary care, but this branch of work was to be discontinued as soon as provision was made for some other agency to do it. The Hebrew Benevolent Society. The Hebrew Benevolent Society was a small organization with a staff of two workers, a secretary who was an experienced family case worker and an office assistant. Volunteer service had been well organized under a group of friendly visitors who assisted in the supervision of families under care. Considerable attention was given to meeting the health and recreational needs of the families as well as providing many other services in addition to giving material aid. Children were placed in the Seattle Children’s Home or in board ing homes if temporary care away from their own homes was needed. Children coming to the attention of this agency needing permanent placement were referred to the juvenile court. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The relief work of the Catholic churches had been organized under the St. Vincent de Paul Conference in 10 of the 23 parishes in Seattle. These local conferences were affiliated in a central council which functioned as a distribut ing agent of the community-chest allotment and had charge of the special activities undertaken. A committee of two was appointed to investigate each case, weekly visits were made to the families under supervision, and reports of work done were made at weekly conference meetings. The work was car ried on by volunteer service of the members of the organization, all of whom were men. The society was responsible for two special pieces of work for children. It sponsored a representative in the juvenile court who gave volun teer service as a probation officer assisting in cases o f Catholic boys, and it maintained a medical and dental clinic for children attending the parochial schools. The Salvation Army. A central office and six district corps carried on the work of the Salvation Army in Seattle. The staff consisted of three, workers in the central office and one in each of the six districts, who handled the relief work in connection with Micir general duties. None of the staff was experienced in social-work methods. This organization undertook relief work for families over long periods in addition to a great deal of emergency work. Necessary medical care in connection with the relief work was furnished by a volunteer medical staff of eight physicians and surgeons. Assistance was given in finding employment when https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 86 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON necessary for members of the families applying for aid. A recreational pro gram through the boys’ and girls’ clubs had been undertaken, and during the summer of 1927 a camp was available for boys and girls and one for mothers. The Fruit and Flower Mission. The original purpose of the Fruit and Flower Mission had been changed from that of carrying fruit and flowers to the sick to supplying special food for families in which there was illness or a special problem of malnutrition among the children. The work of the mission also included the distribution of a large amount of clothing. The majority of the families aided were referred by other agencies whose help was supplemented by the mission. The organization was entirely voluntary in its membership, and the women were divided into eight circles, each of which specialized in one particular form of service. The relief work was done by a committee of 33 investigators under the direction of a chairman of the committee. The mission had not joined the community chest but raised all its funds through entertainments or donations. During 1926 nearly $ 10,000 was spent in relief work, about two-thirds of which was for milk, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. The Seattle Good Will Industries. The Seattle Good W ill Industries was an interdenominational organization which helped needy families by providing employment in its industrial plant. Its social-service department had a staff of five visitors, who visited the homes of persons employed. In addition to the industrial plant the Good W ill Indus tries maintained a club house for stranded men and boys, a working girls’ and women’s home, and a farm. Branches of this organization had been established in four communities of King County outside of Seattle and in neighboring coun ties. The organization received a small allotment from the community chest, but was almost self-supporting from the sale o f products. NONSUPPORT AND DESERTION Nonsupport and desertion cases were heard and disposed of in the justice courts. This work had been delegated to one justice, and his court was desig nated as the domestic-relations court. Many of these cases were handled informally without any hearing and adjustments were made, the father often agreeing to pay support money. Payments were made through the office of the clerk, and a record was kept of all money paid. No provision was made for enforcing payment through a probation officer or other worker. Records were kept of all nonsupport and desertion cases, both those heard in court and those settled informally, but these records contained little social information about the family. One hundred and eighty-four cases of nonsupport and desertion, involving 361 children, came before the courts during the year ended February 28, 1927. Fifty of the men were ordered to pay, 18 men were committed to stockade or jail, in 19 cases the sentence was suspended, and 8 cases were continued; 12 cases were dismissed, in 1 case the defendant was not in court, and in 76 cases no action was taken as the men were not apprehended. Com paratively few men were sentenced to jail for nonsupport. Provision was made, however, for the payment of $1.50 a day to the families of men sentenced to the stockade. CHILD PLACING During the year covered by the study, 239 children from King County were under the supervision of child-placing agencies. The general headquarters of the Washington Children’s Home Society was in Seattle, and this organiza tion was actively engaged in child placing throughout the county. This society had made a ruling that all children received from King County had to be committed by the court. The only other agency in King County organized especially for child-placing work was the Seattle Council of Catholic Women. The majority of the children accepted by this agency were those who had been released for adoption by their parents. Two Catholic hospitals turned over to this agency all children coming to their attention who were eligible for adop tion. Some children in need of temporary care were accepted provided their parents were able to pay their board in family homes. Boarding-home care was provided at the rate of $20 a month for children over 1 year of age and $25 for those under 1 year. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- KING COUNTY 87 The court placed both delinquent and dependent children in family homes. The orders for such placements were usually made for a period of three months at a time. The court frequently paid board on general county orders for the care of dependent children in their own homes, and it paid also for the care of children committed to the Washington Children’s Home Society on temporary commitments. During 1927 about $2,000 from county funds was expended for these purposes. In addition to the two child-placing agencies children were placed for adop tion by the city hospital, a maternity home, and a protective agency. During the year ended February 28, 1927, 217 adoptions were granted in the county. O f these children 58 had been under the care of an agency previously and 159 had not. Sixty-three of the 217 children were adopted by relatives, 53 by step parents, 3 by their own parents, and 7 by other relatives. The division of child welfare of the Seattle Department of Health and Sani tation was responsible for inspecting and licensing boarding homes in the city. One of the difficulties with which this division had to contend was that there was no supervision or inspection of boarding homes in the countv outside Seattle. The need for some State legislation regulating boarding homes has recognized, as this is the only way in which existing evils may be rem edied. During the 10 months ended November 1 , 1927, applications were re ceived for licenses from 96 boarding homes in Seattle; 80 licenses were granted including 48 renewals. ’ INSTITUTIONS FOR DEPENDENT CHILDREN Eight private institutions, all but two of which were located in Seattle were caring for dependent children. The Seattle Children’s Home which was under the auspices of a private organization (the Ladies’ Relief Society) accepted girls 3 years of age or over. It had facilities for caring for about 70 children. Each of the other institutions had some special feature or gave a specialized type of care. The Sacred Heart Orphanage, a Catholic institution and the largest of the local institutions, had accommodations for 300 children and cared only for girls 7 years of age or over in its main department. The year before this study an infants department had been added, and both boys and girls from infancy to 7 years were cared for. The building for this department was separate from the girls section and was ultra modern in its equipment. The Briscoe School at Kent (also under Catholic auspices), with a capacity of 150, cared for boys between 7 and 14 years. Although caring for dependent boys, it was conducted much more as a boarding school than as an institution Many of those under care were from other counties. The Theodora Home was* unique in its services, providing a temporary home for working mothers and their children who had been left without support bv the death or the desertion of their husbands. This institution was conducted by a private agency in order to provide care for mothers until they could become self-supporting or be reestablished in their homes. Employment was obtained by the home for the mothers who were unemployed at the time of admission and frequently scholarships were obtained for special training in business Thè average numbers under care were 20 mothers and 48 children. Children were mtys^ e^ 1Vel Wi th t^ ir mothers- an<i there was no age limit for admission. The Mother Ryther Home, the enterprise of a private individual, cared for both boys and girls over 3 years of age and conducted a day nursery in addition Boys were released from the institution at 14 years, but there was no age limit for girls. The capacity of the home was 100, but this was often exceeded The Medina Baby Home served both as a receiving home for children ac cepted for permanent placement by the Pacific Protective Society and as an institution providing temporary boarding care. It had facilities for caring for 35 children under 3 years of age. The following classes of children were given shelter : Babies of unmarried mothers ; those whose mothers or fathers had deserted; those whose mothers were ill and temporarily unable to care for th em , and those whose mothers were mentally incompetent or otherwise unfit. Although the agency did no work toward rehabilitating the home it encouraged mothers to keep their babies. In addition to providing a kindergarten for day pupils, the Japanese Kin dergarten under Catholic auspices was giving boarding care to a few “ needy” Chinese and Japanese children, usually not more than 10 or 12. A t the time https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 88 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON of the study the quarters were not suited to institutional care of children, but an old house was being remodeled for this purpose. One institution located outside Seattle and conducted by a private individual was far below the accepted standards of institutions in physical equipment, care given, and methods of raising funds. Children were not placed in this institution by local social agencies, although a few were received from their parents or relatives. Four of the eight institutions in Seattle received financial assistance from the community chest. Annual appropriations, paid monthly, were made by the county to the same number of institutions. These allowances were in addi tion to the board paid on a per capita basis for children placed by the juvenile court. These lump-sum subsidies were not made on a per capita basis for the care of county wards in the institutions and were applied by the institutions toward the care of any children for whom no support was received from other sources. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN JUVENILE COURT The juvenile court in King County was ,a specially organized department of the superior court and as such was presided over by one of the superior-court judges assigned particularly to this work. The juvenile-court and detentionhome building was a well-equipped modern brick building erected for the purpose for which it was being used. The probation staff consisted of the chief probation officer, three other probation officers, an investigator, and clerical workers. The St. Vincent de Paul Society was sponsoring the services of a priest as a volunteer probation officer for work with Catholic children. Occasionally the court used students from the University of Washington as volunteer probation officers under the supervision of the paid probation officers. One man and two women physi cians were employed for part tim e ; girls were always examined by the women During the year 1,743 children’s cases were disposed of by the court. Children were brought into court by the city or county police, school-attendance officers, social-agency workers, parents, or other individuals. The complaints were received by the chief probation officer, with whom rested the decision in regard to filing a petition and serving notice on the parents. The parents were given oral notice to appear in court; if they failed to come, they were summoned by a written notice. A ll cases in which a petition was filed were investigated, and some of the informal cases were investigated, though no definite policy was followed regarding such cases. The school-attendance department in Seattle cooper ated very closely with the juvenile court. Its investigations were frequently accepted for children referred by them to the court. One of the attendance officers attended most of the court hearings. Visits were made to the child’s home and school, information was obtained also in Seattle from social agen cies, and in some cases the confidential exchange was used. Physical examinations were not given to all children coming to the attention of the court, but only to children whom the judge or probation officer con sidered in need of such examination and to girl sex offenders. Mental exami nations were given to the majority of the children by the Seattle public-school child-study laboratory. The court also had some assistance from the con sulting psychologist of the Bailey Gatzert Foundation Clinic at the University of Washington. # . The judge discussed the case with the probation officer or investigator before the court hearing. The judge had a very kindly interest in the chil dren, and the hearings were strictly private and quite informal, in the nature of conferences. The child was always interviewed by the judge privately before parents or relatives were called in. Police never attended the hearings, and attorneys seldom attended. Witnesses were seen in the course of the investigation, and a report of the interview made to the judge by the probaI ,lu ll U lllU C i . , _ . . The chief probation officer, or sometimes the judge, assigned the cases of children placed on probation. The general plan was to assign boys’ cases to the man officer and girls’ cases to the two women officers. An effort was https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES— KING COUNTY 89 made to assign an equal amount of work to each of the officers. One of the women officers had a car, and so far as possible she did most of the work in the county outside Seattle; the other woman, who was a Catholic, handled much of the work with the Catholic children. The staff was quite inadequate for the amount of work to be done. Plans had been made for the appoint ment of two additional full-time officers to the staff. During the year covered by the study 380 children were on probation tc the court. The court used probation less often in delinquency cases than iD cases of dependency and neglect; only 77 of the children on probation came before the court on delinquency charges. The court apparently had no fixed rule in regard to visiting delinquent children on probation in their homes. An effort was made to visit dependent and neglected children under court supervision once a month, and some were visited as often as once a week. Practically none of the children were required to report to the probation officer, though office visits could be made by the children. Children were usually brought into court in order to be released from pro bation by the judge, though the probation officer had authority to release them without having them come back to court. i• v " r e p o r t was made to the judge, and an annual report was pub lished. A card file was kept which, in addition to certain facts such as name age, sex, and status of parents, gave a chronological history of the case and its disposition, and a statement as to whether or not there was a court order. Case records also were kept containing an outline of the investigation,’ a description of home conditions, school reports and recommendations or sugges tions of probation officer, and a copy of the formal petition and formal court order. Supervision sheets, which were brief write-ups of the probation offi cer s visits, were kept by the individual probation officers. A ll the records were kept in a fireproof vault and were considered confidential. The super vision sheets were not even open to other social workers; all other record« were accessible to them with the approval of the chief probation officer. An appearance docket was kept by the clerk, which gave dates of petition, hear ing, and disposition. ’ The detention home had separate living rooms and dining rooms for boys and girls, and single rooms and dormitories were provided for both boys and girls. The detention home was used extensively as a shelter, particularly for overnight care for girls brought in by the women’s division of the police de partment^ and for longer-time care for children of women being held in jails i°^iK0r cbddren of medical care or mental observation. There were arv 528a? 4 7 i*“ ^ detoenti01i llome during the year ended FebruO ^ J 8’ 492 7’ than 2 weeks, and 138 for 2 weeks or m ore; in 3 cases the length of detention was not reported. rarffiv f ° r the detention of boys under 16, and rarely for girls 16 or 17, though separate quarters were reserved for boys or girls 161or 17 years of age whose conduct was such that it was considered unwise to keep them in the detention home. The juvenile court was notified of all cases of boys under 18 who were arrested, and if they we™ deta 1 nld h i In 6 Wltb the approval of the court. During the year covered b^ tbe study there were 62 cases of jail detention of juveniles In 26 case« the detention was for less than 2 days and in 36 cases for 2 days or more5 " Qril n ^be city of Seattle two divisions of the police department— the juvenile and humane division and the women’s protective division— cooperated with $ 3 codrt in children’s cases; the juvenile division d e S t with boys and the women s protective division with girls and women.6 The women’s division consisted of a chief and eight women officers. The juvenile and humane division had a staff of three workers and handled no adult cases except o d men found on the streets. Most of the boys referred to hifdehlro0USht ,1° by the men in tbis division. A ll juvenile cases in which arrests had t W i i J S f r 6 fWere 5 eP?rted to one or the other of these divisions, which had the power to make investigations and to adjust cases informally or to w ifi t0 the 3u„VeniIe court- F ot the ended M e m b e r 31, 1926, 1,100 children were referred to the juvenile court by these divisions This group represented only about half the juvenile cases coming to the !h,tte&- Bureau Publication No. 141, Washington, 1925). https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis g’ PP* 4<5, 48 (U- 8. Children’s 90 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON tion of the police department during the year. Seattle is one of the few cities having a juvenile court in which juvenile cases are dealt with by the police department. INSTITUTIONS Four local institutions were providing care for delinquent children and were an important factor in keeping the number of commitments to the State schools at a minimum. The two parental schools, one for boys and one for girls, were a part of the Seattle school system, but children from the entire county were eligible for admission. The county paid for the care of children who resided outside the city at the rate of $10 a month for each of the first 20 children and $5 for each child in excess of 20. Although the schools were primarily for truants, children were committed because of other delinquencies, and some dependent children were sent to these institutions. Admission was through commitment by the juvenile court in the majority of cases, but a few children were accepted directly from the school-attendance department or from parents. The schools required that all children committed should be given a mental examination, and none was accepted whose intelligence quo tient was less than 70. The Boys’ Parental School was located on a 180-acre tract on Mercer Island in Lake Washington. The school had accommodations for 150 boys in dormitories of 25 beds each. There were three 2-story resi dence cottages, a hospital, two portable 1-room school buildings, an auditorium, and a laundry. The buildings were all of frame construction, but had ample fire protection. The school for girls was much smaller than that for boys, having accommo dations for only 50 girls. The Girls’ Parental School was housed in one large building situated on a 10-acre tract in a good residential section on the out skirts of the city. More than half the girls had private rooms; the others were provided for in three small dormitories. The institution was somewhat handicapped by lack of space for its school work. A t the time of the study it was necessary to use the dining room and two small basement rooms for this purpose. The boys paroled from the parental school were placed under the supervision of the school-attendance department, which was already overburdened with its regular duties and was unable to give time to adequate supervision of these boys. Girls paroled from the girls’ school were supervised by the superin tendent, who because of the comparatively small number was able to give close supervision. The Ruth School for Girls, a small private institution under the auspices of the Protestant Evangelical Church, cared for about 30 girls. This institution was occupying the property used formerly by the Girls’ Parental School. The main building, which was of frame construction, had undergone extensive repairs and at the time of the study was in fairly good condition. A 1-story addition to the building had been erected for use as an assembly room. The other buildings were a 1-room portable school and a laundry building. The atmosphere of this institution was homelike. The girls had regular school work and some household duties but ample time and opportunity for other activities. The work of the school was preventive rather than corrective, and the majority of the girls committed might be classed as predelinquent. Only girls from King County were eligible for admission. Girls between 14 and 18 years old were received, although most of those in the institution were 16 or 17 years old. This was the only institution studied (for either dependents or delinquents) which had a field worker attached to the staff. The duties of this worker included the necessary work with the girls’ families to make suitable readjustments for their return and the supervision of the girls after their release. Girls from all over the State might be admitted to the House of the Good Shepherd either through court commitment or from individuals or agencies. The junior department cared for girls from 10 to 13, the senior department for those 14 years of age and over. A large number of girls were received directly from parents; these girls were required to remain in the institution a year. The institution, which was equipped to care for 175 girls, was used extensively by the court for local care for the more serious cases of delin quency. It was housed in a large 3-story brick building. The girls slept in three dormitories, the largest of which had 63 beds. . No space was available for isolation, although a small infirmary and a quarantine room were pro vided. No maternity cases were received. The only outdoor recreation space https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL EESOUECES---- KIN G COUNTY 91 was a walled-in yard. Girls in the senior department had little time for recreation, as girls under 16 were required to work in the tea-packing room or at the household duties during the half day they were not in school, and the older girls worked in the laundry. Girls who had completed high school worked all day. A new superintendent o f the institution had been appointed shortly before the visit by the Children’s Bureau agent. Plans were being made to provide more adequate recreational facilities and some training in household economics. The Catholic worker attached to the juvenile court cooperated closely with the institution and kept in touch with all the girls committed by the court. The Ruth School for Girls and the House of the Good Shepherd both re ceived contributions from the community chest. The former received also a lump-sum appropriation from the county in addition to board paid on a per capita basis by the juvenile court for its wards. The Everett Smith Cottage, one of the projects carried on by the Young Women’s Christian Association, was another resource available to the court for the care of predelinquent girls. This was considered a club for girls rather than an institution. Girls were received only through the court. Of the 570 children from King County under supervision of institutions for delinquents during the year of the study, 89 were in State institutions, 362 in the parental schools, and 119 in private institutions. Two hundred and seventy-seven children were in institutions on February 28, 1927; 170 were on parole, 119 were released during the year, and 4 escaped. Two maternity homes, 2 institutions providing care for mothers and chil dren, 4 hospitals, and 1 protective agency in Seattle were providing care for unmarried mothers. Most of these organizations received girls from all- parts of the county as well as some from outside the county. Since Seattle is the largest city in the State, it might be expected that a large number of unmarried mothers, especially from the western part of the State, would come to Seattle for confinement. This was not the case to any appreciable extent, however, as in 1926 only 84 children were born out of wedlock in Seattle (and six others in the remainder of King County) the illegitimacy rate per 1,000 total live births in' the county being only slightly higher than in the State as a whole. In Spokane County quite a different situation existed; the illegitimacy birth rate there was more than three times as high as for the entire State. Only 14 cases of action for the establishment of paternity were reported in King County. HEALTH PROGRAM Up to the spring of 1927 the staff of the county health department consisted of a doctor and six nurses. Their work was limited to the county outside Seattle. Although this staff had not been considered adequate, the county commissioners dismissed the entire staff and appointed in their places a health officer, an assistant physician, and only two nurses. This reduction in the number of nurses was deplored by local workers, particularly in connection with the health inspection in the public schools. The State law provided that first-class school districts might have their own health departments At the time of the study Seattle had a medical director and an assistant (a woman physician) and 21 school nurses. From 1914 to 1920 the Seattle School Medical Department maintained a medical clinic and a dental clinic. Because of opposition to the expenditure of school funds for medical and dental work, a law was passed prohibiting the schools to oper•ate clinics. The Junior Red Cross took over the clinic and at the time of the study was operating it primarily for school children. No child was cared for at this clinic who did not have a card from a school nurse. The antituberculosis league was carrying out the nutrition program in the schools. The work of the school nurses was restricted to the prevention of communicable diseases. They were permitted to make preliminary diagnoses and to exclude children from school. They gave an annual physical inspection to all children in the grades, the report of this inspection forming part of the child’s permanent school record. Not all the high-school pupils were given routine inspections but only those children reported by teachers as needing care. Under a strict interpretation of the law, no follow-up home visits were allowed in connection with the correction of defects. 54586°— 31------7 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 92 CHILD WELFARE IN' WASHINGTON The medical department cooperated with the physical-training department of the schools, and no child was permitted to take part in school games without a physical inspection. There was close cooperation between the medical department and the attendance department, the attendance officers reporting all absences due to illness. The two parental schools were under the supervision of the school medical department; the man physician visited the boys’ school once a week and the woman physician the girls’ school. The dental work for the boys’ school was done by a dentist who went to the school one day a w eek; the girls were taken to a dentist in the city. Every school had a milk station, and children who could not afford to pay were given milk free of charge. The doctors and nurses were stressing preventive work in their health talks, putting especial emphasis on the care of the teeth. Preschool clinics conducted by the school medical department were held usually during May and June, and an effort was made to have all defects corrected before the child entered school in the fall. The parent-teacher asso ciation groups were responsible for getting the children to the clinics, and the nurses helped with the follow-up work. The Seattle Department of Health and Sanitation had eight main divisions, one of which was the child-welfare division. The department staff consisted of a commissioner of health, a deputy commissioner, 3 part-time consultants, 20 part-time paid physicians, and 23 volunteer physicians. Three of the divi sions had nurses working in the field or supervising the work. Five field nurses and one supervisor were connected with the child-welfare division. The child-welfare division rendered five distinct types of service: (1) Clinics for the examination of infants and preschool children; (2) medical and surgical care to children whose parents were unable to pay for such service; (3) follow-up nursing service in the homes for the education of mothers in the feeding and general care of children; (4) free milk or milk at reduced rates for needy children (a special fund for this purpose was pro vided by the city council) ; (5) inspection and licensing o f boarding homes for children. The city hospital and dispensary was another division of the health-depart ment work. This hospital had 16 beds for children, and most of the children were provided for free of charge. Special clinics were held for children— ear, eye, nose, and throat, tuberculosis, and dental clinics. A weekly prenatal clinic also was held. Two nurses with public-health training visited the homes of patients applying for free care at either the hospital or the clinics. The follow-up work was done by the Red Cross visiting nurses. Fifty of the one hundred and seventy beds in the city tuberculosis sani tarium were for children. Admission to the sanitarium was through the tuberculosis division of the city board of health. Although adults with pul monary tuberculosis only were admitted, children with tubercular trouble of any kind were cared for. Three nurses were employed by the city for the purpose of discovering new cases of tuberculosis and Carrying out measures for its prevention and control. The only organized nutrition work in the county was being done by the antituberculosis league. During the year prior to the study, eight nutrition classes were started by this organization in the county schools outside Seattle. These classes were carried on by the local parent-teacher association groups. Seattle had nine nutrition classes that reached 384 children. The antituber culosis league held a nutrition camp each summer for children who were 7 per cent or more underweight. The American Red Cross Visiting Nurse Service employed six full-time nurses doing field work, two part-time nurses, and a supervisor. The Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, one of the few children’s hospitals in the State, accepted any child in the State under 14. A t the time of the study this hospital had 118 beds, but improvements were under way that would increase the number to 180. Although intended primarily for orthopedic cases, provision was made for general medical or surgical cases with the exception of tonsil and adenoid operations, which were not undertaken be cause of limited space. The hospital maintained an out-patient clinic with a trained social worker. During the year ended February 1, 1927, the total number of children treated was 802. More than two-fifths of the patients were given care free of charge, only about one-fourth paid full price, and the others made some partial payment. The hospital was supported largely https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES— KING. COUNTY 93 by private contributions, though a number of individuals and organizations throughout the State had endowed beds. During a recent year Alaska appro priated $6,000 for a 2iyear period for the care of its children in this hospital, and the various counties in the State made some payment for their children who received treatment. The public-school system provided three full-time grade teachers, a substitute high-school teacher, and a manual-training teacher for the children in the hospital. RECREATION PROGRAM Although the Children’s Bureau agents did not obtain complete information as to the recreational facilities of King County, it was evident that in such facilities the county was not unlike other counties comprising a large city (the estimated population of Seattle was 362,183 in 1926), several smaller cities, and a number of more or less rural communities. The natural re sources of the county provided ample opportunity for a variety of outdoor recreational activities. A large number of boys and girls were members of national organizations. Some of these were interested primarily in recreation, and others were en gaged in some phase of recreational activities in addition to their other work. Several of these organizations had provided excellent camp facilities for their members. About 2,500 boys in Seattle were members of Boy Scout troops, 2,000 girls, were Camp Fire Girls, approximately 3,200 boys were members of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and 776 girls were members of the Young Women’s Christian Association (Girl Reserves). The Boy Scout troops included 4 made up entirely of Japanese boys, 1 of Chinese, and 1 of Negroes. Approximately 300 boys were enrolled in 38 Boy Scout troops outside Seattle and 500 girls were enrolled in Camp-Fire groups. The Young Men’s Christian Association work for boys in the county outside Seattle had been started only about a year before the study. During that time vocational-guidance groups of boys 17 and 18 years of age had been organized in five small towns. The chief recreational activity had been teaching boys to swim. Interest had been aroused among the business men in the smaller towns, and it seemed prob able that through their, cooperation additional work for boys would be under taken. Several private organizations in Seattle were sponsoring boys’ and girls’ club work in connection with their other activities. The police department was authorized to license and supervise dance halls. The matrons employed to supervise the dance halls were under the direction of one policeman who was technically attached to the boys’ juvenile division of the police department. Two members of the staff of the women’s protective division also cooperated in supervising dances. During 1926, 71 dance-hall licenses were, granted and 2 were refused. The number of dance permits issued was 787, and the number of visits to dance halls was 1,777. Twelve dances were stopped because no permit had been obtained.6 SCHOOL PROGRAM King County had only one first-class school district— Seattle. All the other cities or large towns were in second-class districts, and the rural sections were third-class districts. A yearly school census was taken in Seattle by special census enumerators and in the rest of the county by the clerks of the school districts. It was reported that there were 141 feeble-minded and 25 physically handi capped children in the county outside Seattle who were not, in school and not in institutions. No information was obtained as to the number of children of these two classes in the city of Seattle, but it was reported that all children with intelligence quotients below 50 were debarred from the public schools. The functions of the child-study laboratory in Seattle were : ( 1 ) Giving intelligence tests, both group and individual, in grade schools and high schools ; (2) diagnosing the difficulties of problem children; (3) making surveys. In addition the laboratory had supervision over the special classes for the correc tion of speech defects and the classes for mentally retarded children. 6 For State laws and city ordinances regulating public dances and the administration of these regulations in Seattle, see Public Dance Halls : Their Regulation and Place in the Recreation of Adolescents, by Ella Gardner (U. S, Children’s Bureau Publication No. 189, Washington, 1929), https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 94 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON The staff consisted of a director, four assistants, a secretary, and a clerk. Most of the children examined were Seattle children; those from outside the city were taken to the Gatzert Foundation, a psychological clinic at the University of Washington. A ll elementary-school children in Seattle were given four group tests in the following grades: First, fourth, sixth, and eighth. Individual tests were given at the laboratory at the request of teachers, parents, physicians, and social workers. These examinations were not limited to publicschool children. Although the laboratory was equipped to diagnose the child’s difficulties, it had no one to see whether its recommendations were carried out. The special classes over which the laboratory had supervision were for mentally retarded pupils, including children with intelligence quotients from 50 to 75. Seventeen special classes had been organized— 12 primary classes in the elementary schools and 5 special-class centers that served children up to the seventh grade. The work in the class centers was departmentalized and in charge of 22 full-time and 2 part-time teachers. None of the schools outside Seattle had special classes for retarded children. Each of the nine high schools in Seattle had a dean or advisor for girls, and some of them had similar officers for boys. The Seattle schools had 4 full-time attendance officers (1 of whom was a woman) and 1 part-time officer, a woman. The workers were all so overloaded with cases that they were unable to handle their work satisfactorily. One of the officers of the attendance department was assigned to the 44 parochial and private schools in the city not under the public-school system. Attendance reports were received from these schools, but very little follow-up work was done With their children. Boys paroled from the parental school were under the supervision o f the attendance department for one year. A preparatory visit was usually made to the home; but follow-up visits were seldom made unless the boy got into further trouble. The police were allowed to interview children in the office of the attendance department, one of the attendance officers always being present ; but the attendance department had ruled that the police should not take a child from a school nor talk to a child at the school, and that no child should be turned over to the police by the school department without the consent of the parents. Employment certificates were issued by a special worker of the school-attendance department who did placing in connection with the vocational work and the part-time school. The county schools outside Seattle had only one full-time attendance officer. No figures were available as to the number of cases of truancy in the county. Investigations in most cases were made by local school superintendents and teachers, but it was reported that the attendance officer investigated 48 cases of truancy throughout the county during the year before the study. In addi1 tion to these cases, the officer referred 21 families to the welfare department, 89 children to the university child-welfare clinic, 5 to the Seattle' Child Study Clinic, and 32 to the county medical department. During the year ended June 30, 1927, the county attendance officer filed 57 petitions in the juvenile court; in 32 of these cases the children were committed to institutions for delinquents or feeble-minded, and in 25 they were sent home under the super vision either of their parents or of the court. Parent-teacher association groups were active in various communities, one of their main projects being the supplying of milk for underweight children. The schools throughout the county were used quite extensively* as community centers. All the larger schools had auditoriums, and some of the smaller ones had gymnasiums. In addition to the elementary schools and the high schools, Seattle had in its public-school system vocational schools, part-time schools, night schools for adults as well as for children, special classes for mental defectives, sight saving classes, and* classes for deaf children. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis PACIFIC COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION Pacific County was the smallest in area of the six counties visited, but it had at the time of the study in 1926 an estimated population of 16,500. The county had excellent transportation facilities— railroads, busses, and ferries. Not only does this county have for its southern boundary the Columbia River, but also its two principal cities (South Bend and Raymond) have excellent harbors on W illapa Harbor. These towns, with a combined population of about 8,000, located only 4 miles apart, are the population centers for nearly the entire county. Ocean Beach Highway, connecting Portland and Seattle, crosses practically the central part of Pacific County. This is a State high way and furnishes good road facilities for a large part of the county, as prac tically all the towns of any size are on it. A small section of the county is a peninsula about 25 miles long, varying from 3 to 5 miles in width, stretching between the ocean and W illapa Bay. Lumber is the largest resource of the county; fishing and dairying are also important industries. Along the coast extensive cranberry bogs are found; this section is one of the few in the United States in which cranberries are raised successfully. In the coast towns considerable employment is available for women and older children in the canneries, and a number of children in one of the larger towns are employed during the cranberry-picking season. The county has a fairly large foreign population. One of the important farming sections of the county is populated almost entirely by Finns. In other sec tions Swiss, Scandinavians, Italians, and Greeks make up the foreign population. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN Mothers’ aid was administered by the superior court through the prosecuting attorney’s office. For six months before the. time of the study all investiga tions and supervision of mothers’ aid families had been done by the county nurse. A s the nurse, who was not a trained social investigator, had been drafted to serve as case worker for poor-relief, mothers’ aid, and court (juve nile) cases, in addition to carrying on her own health work, it was obviously impossible for her to devote very much time to the individual families. Be fore the nurse took over this work no investigation had been made in connec ting with the applications for mothers’ aid, nor had there been any super vision of the families after the allowances were granted. The usual procedure had been for the mother to fill out an application blank; this was concerned more with her eligibility for aid than with social facts regarding the family. The judge seemed to think that any mother who was a widow or had been deserted by or divorced from her husband had a right to a pension if she. had children under 15 years of age dependent upon her for support. Fifty-two mothers received aid during the year, 39 of whom were receiving aid on February 28, 1927. Poor relief was administered by the three county commissioners, each being responsible for his own district. The county nurse had been asked by the commissioners to assist in making investigations, but they were still doing much of the work themselves. The only case work done in connection with the dis tribution of poor relief had been that undertaken by the nurse in the cases re ferred to her during the six months she had been assisting. No records were kept, but from the brief information available it was apparent that when aid was given to a family it was fairly adequate to meet the need— not a mere dole. The usual method was to allow the families credit to a certain amount at near-by grocery stores. These bills were sent to the commissioners and approved for payment by the county auditor. In some sections of the county seasonal employment in connection with the fishing and cranberry bogs was 95 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 96 CHILD WELFARE IN' W ASHINGTON responsible for a large floating population and a certain amount of dependency during tbe winter months. The commissioners did not undertake to provide for dependent children; all such cases were referred to the court. During the. year covered by the study it was found that only 23 children in the county had been in court because of dependency. Ten of them had been sent to institutions, and four had been committed to child-placing agencies. The judge had been sending dependent children whom it was necessary to re move from their homes to an institution in a near-by county for temporary care. The county nurse after visiting this institution gave an unfavorable re port and endeavored to persuade the judge to discontinue this practice. The county had no local child-caring organization, but in some localities men’s clubs were taking an active interest in child-welfare work. No children from Pacific County were being cared for in any of the institutions in the counties visited, although 9 children were under the supervision of child-placing agencies outside the county, 2 were in institutions for the feeble-minded, and 9 in insti tutions for delinquents. Five children in the county had been adopted during the year. In three of these cases the adoption was granted the same day the petition was made, and in two only two days elapsed between petition and grant. The records gave no social data, and it was impossible to determine how long the children had been in the adoptive homes. Three cases (involving two children) were found of adults who were before the court during the year charged with having com mitted offenses against children. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN Pacific County had no specially organized juvenile court. The judge of the superior court, who was also judge for an adjoining county, heard the juvenile cases as they, arose. He seemed particularly interested in the juvenile cases and was undertaking to carry on this work in accordance with the most approved juvenile-court practice. The judge frequently'. placed children on probation to himself, requiring them to report to him at his chambers, and for several months prior to the study the county nurse had been acting as probation officer. She had also been present at the hearings in juvenile cases. Although her services had been enlisted more frequently in dependency than in delin quency cases, she had attended the hearings in all cases of delinquency in which girls were involved. Practically all of the 14 cases of juvenile delinquency that came before the court during the year were reported directly to the court by the police. In some localities it was said that little effort was made to enforce the laws, especially those in regard to minors in pool rooms, drunkenness, and the curfew. Six boys and three girls had been in the State training schools during the year, three of whom were released prior to the end of the year. C hildren a w a itin g cou rt h ea rin g or d isp osition b y th e c o u rt w ere usu ally perm itted to rem ain in th eir ow n hom es. T w o ch ild ren w ere detain ed elsew h ere du ring the yea r o f the study, and the p la ce o f care o f tw o w a s n ot reported. O ne o f these, a 16-year-old boy, w as h eld in ja il on ly overn igh t ch a rged w ith tru an cy and bein g b eyon d p a ren ta l con trol. HEALTH PROGRAM The county had only one part-time health officer who received $25 a month for his services. Three of the towns had local city health officers, also on a part-time basis. The county nurse, paid by the county commissioners, did the school health work, conducted child-welfare clinics, and assisted in the tuber culosis clinic. The Red Cross maintained a car for her use and with the cooperation of the tuberculosis league paid the salary of an assistant to ex amine school children for four months during the year before the study. The Red Cross also provided supplies for the nurse’s office and clinics and furnished milk for a few needy children. ......................... The county nurse cooperated with the child-hygiene division of the State board of health distributing pamphlets and literature prepared by that divi sion. She cooperated also with the State tuberculosis league in securing the services of specialists to conduct chest clinics. A ll the grade-school children in the two largest towns and most of the children in the county outside these towns were examined by the nurse. I f the parents of children having de- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES— PACIFIC COUNTY 97 fects were unable to pay for tbe necessary treatment, arrangements were made for payment by the county. The county had no special hospital for children, but the two general, hospitals took children in cases of emergency. Consider able constructive work had been dpne by the nurse in securing care for crippled children at the Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle. Part of the expenses for such treatment had been paid by the county. One of the men’s clubs (in Raymond) had maintained a bed at the hospital for two years for Pacific County children. The county tuberculosis league also maintained a bed at the Orthopedic Hospital. RECREATION PROGRAM The peninsula section of Pacific County is called “ Pacific County Playland,” and the beaches are advertised as “ The queen of northwest beaches.” People in many parts of the county appreciate the opportunity for outdoor life and avail themselves of the near-by woods and beaches. The county has practically none of the urban problem of congestion; even in the towns the problem of available play space is not serious. However, none of the towns had any supervised playgrounds, and only a few of the school yards were equipped, with play apparatus. Several of the schools, in addition to those in South Bend and Raymond, had gymnasiums, usually in buildings detached from the school building. In a number of localities the school buildings were used as community centers. The county athletic assQciation was organized a year before the study and included grade-school children as well as those from the high schools. County athletic meets had been held, and the school children had exhibits at the various local community fairs. A number of communities had Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Camp Fire Girl organizations, and a few 4-H clubs had been organized under the supervision of the county agent. t There was no supervision of commercial dance halls in the county. A license from the county commissioners was required to operate a dance hall or to give a public dance, and the sheriff was supposed to supervise those out side the towns. The only dance hall in the county that might have been considered a commercial enterprise was open one night a week (in Raymond). In South Bend and Raymond dances were frequently given by local organiza tions or clubs and were open to the public at popular admission prices. During the summer commercial dances were held at Long Beach. There were numerous road houses, many of which were open for dancing twice a w eek; some of them were in the vicinity of logging camps and were reported to be very “ wild.” Practically every little town had its pool rooms. South Bend had three, and also two card room s; Raymond had “ lots of them,” according to a local official. SCHOOL PROGRAM Considerable progress had been made in school consolidation in the county, 12 of the 18 districts having consolidated schools. Transportation was provided for children living at a distance. Only a few districts provided homes for the teachers, known as teacherages. In Raymond one of the teachers acted as dean of the girls and another as dean of the boys. One of the teach ers was designated as attendance officer and gave whatever time was neces sary to that work. Difficult cases were referred to the court. A number of parent-teacher associations were found in connection with the schools in dif ferent parts of the county. Their principal activities were in connection with health and nutrition work. Some of the schools were quite isolated— in lum ber camps accessible only by a branch railroad into the camp. One district school (Brooklyn) was accessible from the county seat only by going into the adjoining county (Grays Harbor) and back into Pacific. This district, al though entirely rural, had splendid community spirit, and community pro grams were held in the school building. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SPOKANE COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION Spokane County, in the eastern part of the State, had in 1926 an estimated population of 142,600. The county abounds in natural resources, including timber and minerals, and many of its varied manufacturing industries center around these. Many lakes add to the natural beauty o f some sections of the county. The soil is fertile, and the crops are both abundant and varied, espe cially in the river valleys. The Spokane River and numerous large lakes afford ample water for both power and irrigation purposes. Five transcontinental highways pass through the city of Spokane and 6 transcontinental railways and 12 branch lines furnish ampié transportation facilities. Spokane is an important railroad, manufacturing, and distributing center not only for eastern Washington but for northern Idaho and northwestern Montana. An equable climate in a large part of the county and a long growing season favor the pro duction of abundant crops of grain, fruit., and vegetables. The Spokane Valley, extending eastward across the State from Spokane into Idaho, is an exceptionally rich and fertile area. W heat was its principal crop until irrigation was introduced about 20 years ago. Since that time numerous orchards have been planted, and truck farming has been introduced on a large scale. ; PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN M O T H E R S ’ A ID Aid to mothers with dependent children was administered by the juvenile court through two special workers. The supervisor made all the investigations and did all the visiting. She was carrying a case load of nearly 200 families. Her assistant served as office secretary. A mother was required to make appli cation in person and to give as references four persons, ¡other than relatives, who had known her for at least two years. Whenever possible, statements were verified from records, but it was not customary to see all the persons given as references. No budget plan was in use, but the mothers were required to keep an expense account. They were required to bring their accounts to the office, unless they lived outside the city, were sick, or had young babies. The worker was not able to visit the mothers in their homes regularly. I f the mother’s resources, including the aid granted under the mothers’ pen sion law, were insufficient and the mother had young children or was physically unable to work, either the county commissioners or a private agency was asked to help. In some cases the mothers’ aid worker obtained the cooperation of neighbors in caring for the children of mothers who went out to work, and a few mothers found work they could do at home. Mothers were not allowed to keep one man boarder, but no objection was made to their boarding several men or men and women. Working children living at home were asked to give their mothers half their earnings, and some of the older children contributed more than that. Mothers were encouraged to own their own homes, and if the father left any insurance they were advised to invest it in a home. A mother having an equity of more than $2,500 in her home or savings amounting to more than $100 was not eligible for aid. The mothers’ pension department in the city of Spokane had not limited its service to mothers to the granting of allowances. Through the cooperation of a number of local organizations a variety of services had been rendered. The outstanding piece of work was the organization of the Mothers’ Home Association. The county commissioners set aside $5,000 as a rotating fund from which cottages could be constructed and sold to the mothers at cost. The Kiwanis Club had sponsored this project, and with the cooperation of individuals and organizations nine houses had been completed at the time https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- SPOKANE COUNTY 99 of the study. Services of all kinds, as well as material to aid in the con struction of the houses, had been donated. Each mother occupying one of these houses was required to pay $15 a month from her pension money into the revolving fund until the house was paid for. After the final payment covering the actual cost of the house was made, the mother was to be allowed to occupy the house as her own until her death, when it was to revert to the association. It was planned to erect these houses throughout the county accord ing to the needs of the mothers. The ultimate goal was 25 homes, with the plan that eventually a scholarship fund should be provided from the income from the houses to enable promising children in mothers’ aid families to continue their education beyond high school. A number of the members of the Kiwanis Club were serving as “ big broth ers to boys in mothers’ pension families. The Catholic Daughters of America were cooperating in carrying on activities of one of the 4-H club groups made up entirely of boys and girls from the mothers’ aid families. A private agency was helping to finance a mothers’ sewing club, and some of the mothers had been attending Americanization classes, business courses, or night-school classes. The mothers were encouraged to take vacations, and local organizations were helping to provide recreational activities of various kinds for the mothers and children. The mothers’ pension workers received reports on forms prepared by the department from the teachers of children for whom assistance was being granted. One school principal had cooperated with the workers by obtaining scholarships for a few boys to enable them to continue in school. The mothers’ pension workers urged the mothers to carry out the recom mendations of the school nurse in regard to the health of the children, and in a few cases the pensions had been withdrawn because of the mother’s failure to cooperate with the school nurse. Provision was made for the removal of tonsils, for dental work, and for glasses, either free of charge or at a low rate. POOR RELIEF Poor relief was administered by a county commissioner of charity (a man) appointed by the county commissioners and a woman assistant. The commis sioner had been engaged in this work for a number of years, and the assistant had had some experience as case worker with the Social Service Bureau, the local family-welfare agency in Spokane. The commissioner and the Social Service Bureau cooperated in providing for needy families, and special effort was made to rehabilitate the families coming to their attention. Special attention was paid to the health needs of the families, and special diet was provided, particularly in families in which there was tuberculosis. Requisi tions for supplies for the families were issued to the stores, and if the father of the family was physically able he was required to split and pile wood in payment for food and fuel. The city park board furnished employment for men referred by the county commissioners or the Social Service Bureau, allow ing them $2.50 a day in supplies. A brief record of each family was kept, giving certain social data as well as a record of the relief given. NONSUPPORT AND DESERTION The justice court, which in Spokane County handled practically all nonsup port and desertion cases, had not made provision for collecting payments ordered in such cases. In case of complaint of failure to pay, a bench warrant was served and the man was returned to court for another trial. Unless the justice had a very definite assurance in nonsupport cases that the man would make a monthly payment to his family if ordered to do so, the policy had been to commit him to the county jail for six months, during which time he had to be put to work. In Spokane County men who were sentenced to the county jail might be put to work on the public roads and their families paid $1.50 a day. These sentences were suspended in only a few cases. FAMILY RELIEF BY PRIVATE AGENCIES Nineteen private agenciesi and institutions were affiliated in the Spokane Community W elfare Federation and received support from the community chest, which was coordinate with the federation. These included the various agencies for recreation, health, and the so-called character-building organiza- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 100 CHILD WELFARE IN WASHINGTON tions as well as the agencies doing relief work with dependent families, the child-placing agencies, and institutions * caring for adults and children. In addition to the financial and educational program in connection with the com munity chest, the federation was continually working toward better standards in the general-welfare program in the county. The work was carried on by a full-time executive secretary and two office assistants. Five private agencies were doing family-relief work in Spokane, but little private-agency work was done outside the city. The Social Service Bureau, the principal family-welfare agency, was rendering many services to the families under its care, in addition to giving material assistance. Every effort was made to assist the family to become self-supporting. The health program was emphasized and much medical care provided. This organization administered some public relief for the city, $500 a year being appropriated for this purpose and office space being provided in the city hall. During the year covered by this study, 445 families with dependent children had received assistance m some form from the Social Service Bureau. The staff numbered 7 and included a superintendent, 4 case workers, and 2 office assistants, all of whom were trained and experienced workers. The American Legion administered the soldiers’ and sailors’ indigent fund for the benefit of men who served during the period of the W orld W ar and their dependents. Continuous residence .of six months in the county and one year in the State was required to make a person eligible for this assistance. The average number of families aided varied from 20 a week during the summer to 45 a week during the winter. The work for families done by the Salvation Army and the Volunteers ot America was largely in emergency cases. Both these organizations provided assistance to transient single men, but referred transient families to the Social Service Bureau. The fifth agency was the Catholic Social Betterment League, a small church organization with one paid worker. This organization had been hampered in its work because of lack of adequate funds. The only report available was for the year July, 1925, to July, 1926, during which time 127 families came to the attention of the league. This organization had also undertaken some child placing. C H IL D P L A C IN G The child-placing department of the juvenile court had become the recog nized child-placing agency of the county. One of the maternity homes referred gjl placement cases to the court", the other made its own placements but called upon the court to make the investigation of the prospective foster homes. The public and private family agencies referred to this department all cases for permanent placement and most of the cases for temporary placement. Both these agencies, however, placed some children in boarding homes for temporary care. , „ Children were placed by the court for adoption and for temporary care m boarding and free hom es.' Both dependent and delinquent children were placed for temporary care. Very careful investigations were made prior to all place ments In adoption cases a trial period of three months was required. Appli cations were received, investigated, and approved before the prospective foster parent was allowed to see the child. Adoptions of older children were not favored by the placing department. A few children were placed out in homes in Idaho Although the homes were not very far from Spokane, the disad vantages of placing children outside the State were recognized, and an effort was made to keep such placements at a minimum. Good standards were maintained by the court in the investigation and super vision of boarding homes'. No licensing of such homes was required either by State or by local regulations, but the juvenile court kept on file a list of approved homes. , . , ™ ~ • .l District headquarters of the Washington Children’s Home Society for the northeast section of the State were in Spokane, and some placement work was done by. this organization in the county. The work of this organization in this district had not met with approval in past years, and at the time of the study it was not functioning in close relationship to the dependency problems of Spokane County. A trained worker had recently been placed in the district but had not had time to develop the work in the county. Some child placing was being done through a worker affiliated with one of the hospitals. It was carried on independently of any of the other agencies https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- SPOKANE COUNTY 101 and entirely according to the standards of the individual. The Catholic Bet terment League (primarily an agency for family relief) was also incorporated as a home-finding society, but its work with children was not extensive. The placement work was largely in finding working homes for children so that they might continue in school. The superior court, which has jurisdiction in adoption cases, sometimes re quested the juvenile court to make an investigation of an adoptive home before the granting of the adoption. This policy was not carried out consistently, however, as reports of investigations were found for only 25 of the 70 adoptions granted during the year of this study. This number, no doubt, included some made at the request of the maternity home. The superior court had no policy requiring a period of trial placement as the juvenile court had. Seventeen of these children had been adopted by step-parents and six by other relatives. Fifteen children had been placed for adoption by agencies.' In these cases the investigations and periods of trial placement had been in accordance with the standards of the agencies. INSTITUTIONS Three private institutions— the Hutton Settlement, the St. Joseph’s Orphan age, and the Spokane Children’s Home— were caring exclusively for dependent children in Spokane County. Each had accommodations for about 100 children. The Hutton Settlement was under the personal direction of its founder and financial benefactor, and admission to the home was restricted to full orphans. The children became the personal wards of the director and remained at the institution until they had completed their education. Children might be re ceived from any part of the country. The requirements for admission, other than that of full orphanage, were rigid, and the children in this institution represented a carefully selected group. No records were obtained of children in this institution. St. Joseph’s Orphanage is under Catholic auspices and the Spokane Children’s Home under an organization incorporated as the Ladies’ Benevolent Society. The majority of children cared for by these institutions were from Spokane County, although St. Joseph’s Orphanage might receive children from any part of the State. Children were accepted directly from parents or relatives as well as from the juvenile court and other agencies. The investigations made by these institutions prior to admission were inadequate, and little was known of the history of the children except those received from the court or agencies that made their own investigation. Even in cases received from the court, the institutions did not require or ask the court to send any social data except a few identifying facts such as age and parents’ names. No work with the child’s family was carried on by the institutions, and no investigations were made before release. The children at St. Joseph’s Orphanage were permitted to visit relatives occasionally but had few other outside contacts, as the school was conducted at the institution. Children from the other home attended public school and a neighboring church and were permitted to go home to visit. Little effort was made by either institution to collect payment for care from parents or relatives who might be able to pay. A ll children committed by the court were considered county charges, and, if any support was received from parents, the court was responsible for its collection. Payment to the insti tutions for county charges was made under a lump-sum grant of $150 a month. This amount was paid regardless o f the number of county charges in the institution each month. The Salvation Army home, in addition to its maternity hospital, was equipped to provide temporary care for a few dependent children. No children were accepted unless placed there through the juvenile court or by the Social Service Bureau. The institution was most frequently used for the care of transient or other dependent families, both children and mothers, or for children alone during the illness of the mother. The House of the Good Shepherd also accepted dependent girls, although primarily an institution for delinquents. One of the receiving homes of the Washington Children’s Home Society, with a population of about 25 children who were awaiting placement in family homes, was located in Spokane. This home was being used for children from all over the eastern part of the State. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 102 CHILD WELFARE IN W ASHINGTON PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN J U V E N IL E COURT For a number of years it had been customary for the judge of the superior court who was presiding judge for the year to be assigned to the juvenile-court work. The judge who was presiding over the juvenile court at the time of the study, however, had been doing this work for several years with the con sent of the other judges. During his first year as juvenile judge he became very much interested in the work and, realizing the disadvantages of the annual change of judges, asked that he be allowed to continue. It was stated that he had done much to build up the standards of juvenile-court work. The probation staff consisted of a chief probation officer (who was also charity commissioner) and 3 assistants, 1 man and 2 women. None of the staff had had any special training in juvenile work before becoming probation offi cers, but all of them had had a number of years’ experience in this court. Children were brought to court by the police, the probation officers, parents, or school authorities (especially attendance officers). Formal written notices were served on parents, but warrants were seldom issued for the child. The police cooperated in bringing boys and girls under 18 to the juvenile court, but boys from 16 to 18 who had committed serious offenses, or were repeaters, or had had considerable institutional experience, were usually turned cWer to the police or justice courts. The juvenile court did not handle any cases of traffic violators over 16 years of age, but remanded them to the police court or the justice court. Such offenders were usually fined; very few were com mitted to jail. ’ , H , A ll cases were investigated before being brought to court, the child s home and school were visited, and any available information in regard to the fam ily was obtained from social agencies. Children with obvious physical defects Were examined by the county physician. A ll children charged with sex offenses were examined by the board of health. I f a child showed signs of mental defect, he was examined by a private specialist. L | A A ll hearings were conducted informally in the living room of the detention home The witnesses were not sworn except in particularly difficult cases, and the child was seldom required to take oath. Dependency and delinquency cases were heard in practically the same way. The judge conferred in a friendly way with the child, his parent, and others concerned with the case. Probation cases were assigned to the probation officers on a geographic basis to some extent, though a man handled all cases of delinquent boys. The officers stated that they made as many visits to the homes of children on probation as the cases required. Children were required to report to the probation officers every two weeks or oftener, if the circumstances seemed to warrant it. No definite term of probation was specified, but the child was formally notified when his probation had terminated, and notice was also sent to the judge. A large proportion of the cases were adjusted unofficially by the probation officer. Occasionally a probation officer settled the case in the child’s home when he went to make the investigation. Girls were seldom put on probation; and unless the probation officer thought some commitment was advisable, their cases were adjusted without being brought to. court. Legal records of juvenile cases were kept in the county clerk’s office— formal petitions, commitment papers, etc. A “ long history ” was kept in the probation office for all official cases, and a “ short history” for all unofficial cases, except such as were adjusted without any special investigation. The investigations were written up briefly. Practically no entries were made to show subsequent work on cases in which the children were under court supervision. T h e ju ven ile-d eten tion hom e, a 3-story b rick bu ild in g m uch in the style o f a la rg e residence, w a s loca ted im m edia tely b a ck o f the cou rth ou se and n ex t to the cou n ty ja il. T h e ju d g e held cou rt in th is bu ildin g, an d th e p rob a tion officer h ad h is office there. A lth ou gh all the w in d ow s ex cep t th ose o f th e proba tion office w ere covered w ith a coarse-m esh w irin g, th e h ouse w a s quite attra ctive and h a d a hom elike atm osphere. Sep arate d orm itories w ere p rovid ed f o r dependent an d f o r delinquent children , and every effo rt w a s m ade to keep them apart, bu t it w a s difficult ow in g to th e arran gem en t o f th e b u ildin g. A h osp ita l room w a s loca ted in th e basem ent o f the detention hom e. T h e Spokane sch ool b oa rd p rovid ed teacher's, and the you n ger ch ild ren o f sch ool age w ere requ ired to atten d sch ool m orn in g and a ftern oon , th e old er ch ildren fo r on ly h a lf a day. C hildren being detain ed becau se o f depen den cy w ere https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- SPOK ANE CO U N T Y ' 103 allowed to play out of doors after school. The staff was composed of a S S l f S ’ aa asf lstant matron, a cook, and a night man. The detention home was temS0rary cayelof dePendent children awaiting placement as well as of those awaiting court hearing. Attendance officers sent children to the m 0Jd e r . t0 discipline them, and parents sometimes placed children there for a few days to give them a scare.” Boys 16 and 17 years or Were detained ^ the ja il i f th eir offenses w ere serious tn T h I r t g i , i e ir Presence in the d etention hom e w ou ld be d etrim ental f o r ^ i n ^ d a yb o o k 11^ 1611' T h e d etentlon ‘ hom e record s w ere k ept in d ock et INSTITUTIONS fnT i L P1 fent^ Sch00l aad th.e House of the Good Shepherd were available pLJnfoi couri , f °r institutional care of delinquent children. The Parental School was entirely under the supervision of the city school author ities and supported by school funds, only boys of school age from the city of Spokane being accepted. W ith capacity for only 26 boys, the school was |Ccfnhg if° r m?re i h„an that number under crowded conditions. The w a slo cated on a tract of 80 acres about 5 miles from the center of the city. The main building was of brick, with dining room kitchen and recreation and reading rooms on the first floor. One large dormitory on the second floor provided sleeping quarters for all the boys. There was a f ^ arate frame school building, and each boy was required to attend school farm i L i ? ach b° y WaS also certain work assignments on the farm. Most of the boys were committed to the school by the court, the period commitment being for six months, at the end of which time he might be ^_|:iu™ ed h.°me or placed in a family home under parole supervision. The court considered this institution primarily for dependents, but a study of the court records showed that it was problem children, mostly habitual truants, w ho w ere com m itted th ere b y the court. y a The House of the Good Shepherd accepted girls from anywhere but preference was given to accommodating those from Spokane County and the State of Washington. Girls were frequently received upon application of their parents or relatives and were sometimes placed there only for a brief time to be disciplined.” It was not the policy to accept girls under 12 years f A g6A ,and glrls^ were generally released at 18, although they could be held K u r t 'w a T d s 6 The C° Unty Paid $5° a m° nth t0 thiS ins«tutton for S This institution was occupying an old-fashioned 3-story and basement con gregate building, erected to house 75, but with a population of about 100 at the time of the study. There were a few small rooms for the youngergirls but most of them slept in dormitories accommodating about 40 girls No maternity cases or girls with venereal diseases were accepted. Three maternity homes and the maternity wards of one general hospital were providing for unmarried mothers in Spokane County. All these insti tutions received girls and women regardless of their place of residence. The large number of illegitimate births in the county (107 during the year of the study) may be attributed to the fact that many girls from Idaho and Mon tana, as well as from neighboring counties in Washington, come to Spokane SjK)kane.nement insti^ i o n reported that very few of the girls came from HEALTH PROGRAM The local health departments, the clinics, and the health associations worked independently of each other. The local well-baby, sick-baby t u b S culosis and dental clinics cooperated with the child-hygieie division of the State department of health and the local tuberculosis league. On the other hand, the city health department (Spokane) and the county health depart ment were entirely separate. The city health department was doing the venereal-disease work for the county. g THE COUNTY OUTSIDE SPOKANE T h e cou n ty health departm en t em p loyed a n urse an d tw o fu ll-tim e phvsicm ns, one o f w hom look ed a fte r con trol o f con tagiou s disease alm ost en tirely T h ree in corp ora ted tow n s h a d pa rt-tim e deputy h ealth officers p a id fr o m loca i https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 104 CH ILD W ELFARE IN' W A SH IN G T O N town fu n d s; these officers were not under the supervision of the county health department. Children in need of surgical treatment whose families could not afford to meet the full expense were cared for in a city hospital which made a very small charge, paid by the fam ilies; the county physician performed the operations. The county nurse had been conducting preschool health conferences, with the assistance of the parent-teacher association. She had been trying also to include some tuberculosis-prevention work in her education program. She also did the health work in the schools. Suspected tuberculosis cases in both city and county were referred by the teachers to the city tuberculosis nurse (employed by the tuberculosis league), who had the children examined at a clinic. The superintendent of the county sanitarium gave his services free for these clinical examinations. The total number of children under 18 examined at the clinic during 1926 was 126. Fifteen children from the county were sent to the State tuberculosis sanitarium during the year. CITY OF SPOKANE The Spokane Board of Health had a staff of four full-time physicians and five public-health nurses. The school health work was being done by a physician, five nurses, a dental hygienist, and an office assistant, who were assisted by a surgeon, a dentist, and a nurse employed by the Junior Red Cross. Physical inspections were given in all the grade schools twice a year by the school nurse. In the high schools the nurses examined only those boys and girls who had been referred to them by the high-school teachers and who showed signs of having defects that needed remedying. An effort was being made by one of the nurses to show the need for thorough medical inspection in the high schools. The health education in the schools was handled by the teachers, and in the schools where there was a physical-education teacher she had charge of the health )and habit work. The Shriners’ Hospital for Crippled Children (having 20 beds for children under 14) and three general hospitals received Children. One of them had a special children’s ward, and another had 10 beds for crippled children. In addition to these health agencies two private organizations in Spokane were carrying on some health work— a family-relief agency that conducted prenatal and infant-welfare health centers with two full-time paid nurses and the volunteer assistance of three doctors, and a health agency organized to educate mothers in the care of infants and young children. Two organizations of men were providing funds for surgical and hospital care for crippled and disabled children unable to meet the expense of private treatment, one of these organizations, as has been stated, confining itself to the support of orthopedic work for children under 14. The other provided for children of all ages needing ear, eye, nose, throat, and special dental work as well. Physicians and surgeons, members of the clubs, gave their services free of charge. A third organization of men was interested in raising funds for an infirmary for the Spokane Children’s Home. RECREATION PROGRAM The county outside Spokane had no public playgrounds other than school grounds, and few of these were equipped with play apparatus. Several schools had gymnasiums and a number had tennis courts. The schools throughout the county were used as community centers, and there were seven other such centers and a number of Grange halls. Fourteen Boy Scout groups, with 200 members, and 18 groups of Camp Fire Girls, with 380 members, had been organized outside Spokane. The public dance halls outside the city of Spokane were investigated by the sheriff and licensed by the county commissioners. The pool rooms were investi gated by the sheriff and supervised by local town officials or the constables. Regular attendance by an officer was not provided, but frequent visits were made by the sheriff or his deputy. It was impossible to obtain information as to the number of dance halls, but the aggregate number of licenses, including some issued for only one evening, was 225. A number of the dance halls oper ated only during the summer months, and licenses for some were issued quar terly or semiannually. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- SPOK ANE CO U N T Y 105 The 4r-H clubs had come to be an important factor in the community life throughout the county. The clubs had been organized in 20 communities, each club being sponsored by some local group or committee. The purpose of the committee was to keep up the interest of the community in the work, to find leaders, and to work up projects. The age limit for club members was 10 to 20 years. In the year before the study was made 12 community fairs were held in the county by the 4 -H clubs. In one community four-fifths of the children available were enrolled in the clubs. One of the policies of the city of Spokane park board was to have a park or a playground accessible to every neighborhood. The city had 43 parks and playgrounds comprising 2,200 acres (including 8 supervised playgrounds, 4 swimming pools, 38 public tennis courts, baseball and football grounds, golf courses, and skating ponds). During the summer months a full-time playground supervisor was employed with 15 full-time assistants. During the summer the grounds were open and supervised from 9 a. m. to 9 p. m., seven days in the week. It was estimated that the annual attendance at the various playgrounds was about 1,000,000. The three swimming pools were open to both children and a du lts; two of them had life guards in attendance at all times. No instruc tion in ’swimming was provided, however. . The license inspector in Spokane had charge of issuing all kinds of licenses including dance-hall permits. Fifteen dance halls and five dancing schools had been licensed by him during the year before the study. The dancing schools were required to have health permits also, and individual permits were required of all organizations giving a dance. A city ordinance prohibited the attendance at public dance halls of girls under 18 and of boys under 21 alone. Most of the city dance halls were closed during the summer months when those at the near-by resorts were open. The public dance halls were under the super vision of a policewoman, but it was obviously impossible for one woman to supervise such a large number. She sometimes visited three or four in an evening. This was the only supervision provided. The only supervision of the pool rooms and bowling alleys was that furnished by the police in their regular i1*1? f duty- In the year before the study the city had 39 licensed pool rooms and two bowling alleys. Minors under 21 were not permitted in pool rooms. * Facilities for indoor sports were provided by the 19 school gymnasiums (4 for high-school boys and girls and 15 for grade-school children) and 3 others under the auspices of the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Young Women s Christian Association, and the Salvation Army. Physical education in the city schools was being carried on by a staff of 20 instructors—-12 in the high schools and 8 in the grade schools. A ll the high schools had athletic directors. s The 56 Boy Scout troops had a total membership of approximately 1100 boys. One thousand four hundred girls were enrolled in the 72 Camp Fire Girl groups. Approximately 650 boys and 500 girls were members of the Young ri?-n iS T?hnStiai1 Association and the Young Women’s Christian Association (Girl Reserves), respectively. Six summer camps were available for boys and five for girls of the citv of Spokane One of these camps (operated by the American Association of Uni versity Women) accepted families referred by the Social Service Bureau arid the mothers pension department. The Salvation Army had a boys’ club organized especially for the underprivileged and for those unable to pay the dues or supply the equipment necessary in some other recreational groups. SCHOOL PROGRAM , county was divided into 155 school districts. There were 16 consoli dated districts and 5 joint districts; that is, a union of a district in Spokane County with an adjoining district in another county. The county outside bpokane had 22 high schools, 3 of which were union high schools. Spokane employed a full-time attendance officer. The county superintendent was responsible for this work in the rest of the county. During the year of the^study not more than five cases of truancy had come to his attention. No special work was being undertaken for children with conduct problems except in the city of Spokane, where one visiting teacher was employed. In the_ city high schools and in six o f the county high schools, teachers were acting as deans or advisors to the girls. No similar service was being pro vided for the boys. * https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 106 CH ILD W ELFARE IN W A S H IN G T O N It was reported that nearly 100 physically or mentally handicapped boys and girls were neither in an institution nor enrolled in school. A special school (the Horace Mann School) with a principal and four teachers was provided by the public-school board in Spokane for mentally defective children. The enrollment was 75 in the year of the study, but because of limited space the school w as not providing for all children who should have been enrolled in a special school. The principal of this school did whatever mental testing was done in the public schools. Two of the regular grade schools had special classes for defective children. Special work with deaf children was being carried on as a part of the work of the Horace Mann School; 14 deaf children were receiving special instruction. In Spokane glasses were provided sometimes by the school board for children unable to pay for them. No other relief was given. *> > « 1 ' About 50 parent-teacher groups had been organized in the county, A5 of them being in the city of Spokane. The Spokane groups had adopted the Horace Mann School as their special work. They had also parent-training classes and preschool circles and lectures. The city parent-teacher association council had equipped clinics in two of the girls’ junior high schools. Several of the groups out in the county were serving hot lunches in the schools, and one had fitted up a clinic room for the county nurse. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis WALLA WALLA COUNTY GENERAL DESCRIPTION W alla W alla County, located in the southeastern part of the State, is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the United States. The total popula tion in 1920 was 27,539,T o f whom approximately three-fourths were living in the city of W alla W alla. The western part of the county, known as the flats, is very sparsely settled. The fertility of the soil and the long growing season (218 days a year) assure an abundance and diversity of crops that are handled to advantage through well-organized marketing organizations. W heat is the principal crop, but large quantities of all kinds of fruit and vegetables are raised. Considerable manufacturing is carried on, much of which is related to the agricultural products and natural resources of the county. The ranches; are large, and many of the owners and tenants live in the towns and go out to their ranches daily during the busy season. The tenants as a rule stay only one or two seasons and then move on. Most of the men who come in for farm labor during the busy season are single, and the majority of the married men who come do not bring their families. The city of W alla W alla, in the southern part of the county, is the social and economic center of an area 50 by 100 miles, extending into Oregon and Idaho Ninety per cent of this area is drained by the W alla W alla and tributary rivers forming the great W alla W alla Valley. Ample railroad and bus trans portation facilities make the educational, health, and economic opportunities of the city available to a large part of the county. A large settlement of Russians in one section of the city of W alla W alla was responsible for one of the outstanding welfare problems of the citv. Although these people were as a rule industrious, law-abiding citizens" many of whom owned their own homes, they had not adapted themselves to American ways to any great extent, and many problems were arising partic ularly in connection with the children. A large majority of the mothers went out to work and made no provision for the supervision of the children during their absence. It was hoped that the kindergarten in the public school of the district, obtaihed through the efforts of the parent-teacher association council, would help this situation. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN Most of the work in connection with provisions for the care of dependent children m W alla W alla County was being undertaken by the juvenile-court probation oflicer. He was administering poor relief under the countv com missioners and investigating and supervising families receiving mothers’ aid tor the superior court. As no records of poor relief were kept except the stubs of the orders, it was impossible to determ ne the extent of this type of assistance to families in which there were children. One person familiar with the situation said that the relief work amounted to small doles because of the inadequacy of the appropriation for this work and the limited vision of the county commissioners. An effort had been made to get the countv commissioners to register poor-relief cases with the confidential exchange that had recently been started in the city, but they refused on the ground that it was too public.” As in the other counties in the State, very little cash was given the families; the relief was usually grocery orders or fuel, and occasionally rent was paid. One year’s residence in the county was required in order to make a family eligible for relief. The commissioners had definitely excluded three study. made by the U. S. Bureau of the Census for 1926, the year of the In 1930 the population of the county was 28,441. e 54586°— 31------ 8 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 107 108 CH ILD W ELFARE IN W A SH IN G T O N types of families from those eligible for assistance: (1) Tourists or transients, (2 ) families of men sent to jail for bootlegging, (3 ) families coming to W alla W alla so as to be near the fathers who were in either the State penitentiary or in the United States Veterans’ Hospital. A ll applications for mothers’ aid were made to the prosecuting attorney. I t was the duty of the probation officer to make the investigation and to -•supervise the families, but he depended very largely on the prosecuting attor ney’s or his own knowledge of the family. After the pension was p a n ted , it w as customary to visit the mothers in their homes only once or twice a year. Mothers living in the city of W alla W alla were required to call at the audi tor’s office for their checks, but mothers living outside the city received their checks by mail. No particular effort was made to do any constructive work With the mothers’ aid families. The county provided free of charge any special treatment that the school nurse reported as necessary for families receiving aid, but no effort was made to learn anything of the children’s special needs. . The mothers’ pension records were quite incomplete; the only social records were on small cards and gave the address, number of children under 15 in the family and their whereabouts, and the family income. The official mothers’ aid records in the county clerk’s office contained copies o f the appli cation, the petition, and the court order. Sometimes these records included forief, informal notes on facts obtained in the investigation of the family. Practically all cases of nonsupport and desertion were settled in the prose cuting attorney’s office, and it was very unusual for one of these cases to come to court. It was found that the mothers usually withdrew the com plaint, or the fathers went across the State line, and there was considerable sentiment against furnishing funds for extradition. The prosecuting attorney had been trying to get the county to comply with the law in regard to paying prisoners for their work on the county roads. He claimed that until this was done and the money became available for the families, there was little point in sending men to jail for nonsupport. The community chest was organized in November, 1926, and the greater part of the $32,580 raised was allotted to organizations interested primarily in recreation and health activities. The community chest was not backed by any federation of social agencies, as is the case in most cities, but the money had been raised by a group of business men who wanted to be relieved of the frequent solicitations of various organizations in the city. Three private organizations in the county were doing a limited amount of family-relief work, and a number of churches and fraternal organizations were assisting needy families, but no method of cooperation or o f avoiding duplication had been worked out. . , _ t- , The county commissioners, through the juvenile court, provided either tem porary or permanent care for dependent children in institutions or family homes or placed them with the Washington Children’s Home Society. The Stubblefield Home, located just outside the city of W alla W alla, was a private institution for dependent children. It was equipped to care for about 25 children. It was restricted under the provisions of its establishment to the care of full orphans from either W alla W alla County or Umatilla County in Oregon. However, during the last few years, children with one or both parents had been given care. Also, some children from other counties in Washington had been received, but the majority of the children in the home came from W alla W alla County. No children under school age were accepted. The majority of the children were received from parents or relatives; only a few were committed by the juvenile court. Occasionally the official adminis tering poor relief placed a child in the institution without court commitment. The year before this study an appropriation of $1,000 had been made to the home by the county. This amount exceeded the cost of care of children com mitted by the court and was applied toward care of any children in the in stitution for whom no support was received from other sources. The Odd Fellows Home, the other institution in the county caring for de pendent children, was maintained entirely by the fraternal organization and received no financial support from the county. Only children of members of the lodge were eligible for admission, but the institution served the entire State. A t the time of the visit to the home 52 children were being cared for. This institution did not bear a close relationship to the problem of dependency in the county. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES— W A L LA W A L L A C O U N T Y 109* Only six dependent children were before the court during the year o f the study; one of them was committed to an institution and five cases were dis missed or otherwise disposed of. Cases of adoption were heard in the superior court. There were 10 such cases during the year. The city police matron or protective officer in W a lla W alla had been asked to make the investigation in a few adoption cases, but no definite policy had been established in regard to such investigations. PROVISION FOR THE CARE OF DELINQUENT CHILDREN The judge of the superior court, who was also the judge of the juvenile sessions, had been in office only a few months at the time of the study. The court hearings were quite informal, being in the nature of conferences, and were usually held in the judge’s chambers; only occasionally was a case heard in the official court room. Children were brought into court by the pro bation officer, and all complaints and petitions were signed by the prosecuting attorney. The probation officer had been engaged in poor-relief work for 17 years and had done the mothers’ aid and the probation work for several years. Because of the number of his duties, he found it impossible to make investigations in all cases brought to this court, but he usually investigated all cases given formal hearing. Children on probation were required to report to his office in the courthouse once a month, but he apparently did not visit them in their homes. Children were placed on probation for an indefinite period; although they were notified when the probation period terminated, they were not brought back to court for formal release, and no report in regard to children on probation was made to the judge. Very few children who came to the attention of the court were given either physical or mental examinations. Boys who showed outstanding physical defects were examined by the county doctor and girls by a local woman phy sician. The only mental examinations were made by a local physician in the city of W alla W alla, who was not a specialist in this line. Eleven of the thirty cases of juvenile delinquency brought before the court during the year were referred to the judge for formal hearing, and 19 were adjusted informally. The policy of the juvenile court was to waive jurisdiction in cases of boys 16 and 17 years o f age who were brought in on serious charges and for whom commitment to the State reformatory was thought advisable. Only 2 o f the 30 children before the court during the year because of delinquency were placed on probation, 6 were sent to institutions, and the others were returned to their homes following adjustment or their cases were disposed of in some other way. The majority of the juvenile delinquents that came to the attention of the court or were known to the probation officer were from the city of W alla W alla, as in the small townsi conduct problems were usually handled by the local school authorities. The juvenile detention quarters were in the basement of the courthouse, and the wife of the janitor acted as matron. The matron at the time of the study had been in charge for only a few months, and her predecessor had left no records as to the number of children detained. The probation officer stated that there was no definite policy as to detention. On the basis of the amount expended for detention care and the number of days of detention during the year 1926, it seems quite probable that practically all children who came before the court must have been held in the detention home, many of them for extended periods. The matron allowed the girls to spend their time in her home during the day ; the small boys were given the freedom of the halls and were seldom locked in their rooms. Apparently no provision was made for recreation. No cases of truancy in the city o f W alla W alla were brought into court during the year preceding the study. The truant officer was also the super visor of school buildings and grounds and had had no particular training for juvenile work. It was reported that during the year before the study he made 206 calls in connection with absences and picked up 27 children and took them to school. The “ protection officer ” in the city of W alla W alla, better known as the ‘ police matron,” was particularly interested in giving protection to girls in need of help and in doing what she could to prevent delinquency. During 1926 she made 230 calls in the homes of girls who came to her attention. She had urged the need for a more constructive recreational program and for more work https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 110 CH ILD W ELFARE IN W A S H IN G T O N in the Russian quarter of the city, from which many of the problems among girls arose. The one public dance hall in the city of W alla W alla was under the super vision of the protection, officer, and she visited dances given by private organ izations at which an admission fee was charged. The dance, halls outside the city of W alla W alla were not under any supervision. As her jurisdiction did not extend outside the city, it was impossible for her to respond to the numerous calls from outside that came to her for assistance. Pool rooms in the city were licensed and supervised by the regular police as a part of their work. HEALTH PROGRAM The health work had been much better organized than any othesr welfare work in the county. A ll ’the health work for the county (including the city of W alla W alla) was under the direction of a full-time paid health officer. This arrangement had been in effect for only a few months at the time of the study. The city paid 40 per cent of the expense of carrying on the work. Besides the health officer, the staff consisted of a sanitary inspector, a dairy inspector, a county physician (on a part-time basis), a county nurse, and a statistician who did all the clerical work and was also registrar of vital statistics. Only one town besides W alla W alla had a local health officer. The county nurse worked in cooperation with the child-hygiene division of the State board of health. The school district of the city of W alla W alla employed a full-time school nurse and a school physician. A ll children in the grades were examined once a year and a permanent record entered on their health cards. A system of notifying parents of physical defects and of following up cases had been adopted. Parents had cooperated very well in seeing that the children received the necessary treatment. Milk was sold to underweight children at cost and was furnished free of charge to children who were unable to pay. Health lectures had been given, and preschool and infant clinics and nutrition classes had been established in a number of the smaller towns of the State. A num ber of families in need of constructive case work were found by the health workers. A health center had been organized in the city of W alla W alla only a few months before the time of the study and had received financial assistance from the community chest. The center had cooperated with the county nurse in establishing a confidential exchange in which all county families were regis tered. The director of this health center was particularly interested in estab lishing a social-service department in connection with the health work and of extending the work to include the health activities of the entire county. The families of prisoners in the State penitentiary and of men in the United States Veterans’ Hospital (for tuberculosis)— both of which institutions were located in W alla W alla— presented difficult problems to the health workers as well as to other social workers. In addition to the general problems of de pendency, much preventive work was necessary, especially in the families of men in the veterans’ hospital. This was particularly necessary, as the men were permitted to visit their families frequently, and there was some risk o f exposing the children to tuberculosis. RECREATION PROGRAM The recreational activities of the city of W alla W alla were more extensive than those found in most cities of the same size. They included two city parks, two supervised playgrounds, two swimming pools, a gymnasium, 10 Boy Scout troops with 225 members, 24 groups of Camp Fire Girls with 281 members, a Young Men’s Christian Association with 450 paid memberships of boys under 18, and the Young Women’s Christian Association (Girl Reserves) with 120 members. Two near-by summer camps were available, one for boys and one for girls. The Carnegie Public Library had a special children’s depart ment. The curfew regulation in W alla W alla required that children under 16 be off the streets at 9 o’clock unless accompanied by adults or en route to their homes from the “ movies,” or other places. There was no special enforce ment of the law except that officers sent children home when found. The Young Men’s Christian Association director supervised the physical education in the grade schools. The high school had an athletic director who had charge https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis SOCIAL RESOURCES---- W A L L A W A L L A C O U N T Y 111 of the junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps of 300 cadets in addition to his other activities. Ths county agricultural agent had charge of the boys’ and girls’ club work throughout the county. In the year before the study 175 boys and girls were enrolled in the 4-H clubs. The farm bureaus or granges were active in some communities, as were also a number of parent-teacher association groups. A number of the towns outside W alla W alla had Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Camp I! ire Girl troops. The lodges and the churches were responsible for much of the social life in the smaller towns and were cooperating with the various boys and girls’ clubs. Some of the smaller communities had made unusually good provision for both indoor and outdoor recreation— parks, equipped play grounds, and gymnasiums. Dance halls, motion-picture theaters, and other forms of commercial recreation were found in a number of communities. SCHOOL PROGRAM The city of W alla W alla has come to be looked upon as an educational center. In addition to the public schools, it had 3 schools under church auspices, 2 colleges, 3 music schools, and a business college. It was stated that at least one-fifth of the 1,209 children enrolled in the high school in W alla W alla were nonresidents. The schools were not undertaking special work for problem children, and no data were available as to the number o f physically and men tally handicapped children in the county not enrolled in the school. Fourteen of the schools in the county were organized as community centers. The city of W alla W alla had seven parent-teacher association groups, and three others were at work outside the city. o https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis