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U N ITED STATES D E P A R T M E N T OF LABOR FRAN CES PE RK IN S, Secretary C H I L D R E N ’ S BUREAU K A T H A R IN E F. LEN ROOT, Chief + Child-Welfare Services Under the Social Security Act Title V, Part 3 Development of Program, 1936-38 Bureau Publication No. 257 For sale by the Superintendent o f D ocum ents, W ashington, D. C. - https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Price 15 cents https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis CONTENTS Letter o f transmittal_________________________________________________ General review of accomplishments________________________________ Conference on State child-welfare services__________________ ____________ Current reporting and monthly reports on child-welfare services_________ Training o f child-welfare workers.______________________________ I_______ State summaries________________________________________________________ Appendix 1.— Text o f the sections of the Social Security Act relating to grants to States for child-welfare services, as amended by the Social Security Act Amendments o f 1939____________________________________ Appendix 2.— Federal funds available to States for fiscal year ended June 30, 1939, and Federal payments to States for fiscal years ended June 30, 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939___________________________________________ in https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis y 1 6 7 jq 21 80 82 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Letter of Transmittal U nited States D epartment of L abor, C hildren’ s B ureau , Washington, July 15, 1940. M adam : There is transmitted herewith a bulletin entitled “ ChildR Welfare Services under the Social Security Act, Development of Program, 1936-38.” This bulletin includes a brief general review and State summaries of the major developments during the initial period of this pioneer program of Federal and State cooperation in extending social services to children in rural areas. The report covers the period ended June 30, 1938. In all States great progress has been made since that time. Respectfully submitted. K atharine F. L enroot, Chief. Hon. F rances P erkins, Secretary of Labor. v https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1 9 3 6 -3 8 General Review of Accomplishments The public-welfare agencies of the 47 States,1 the District of Colum bia, Alaska, and Hawaii, which were cooperating on June 30, 1938 with the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor in administering child-welfare services under the provisions of title V, part 3, of the Social Security Act, were requested to prepare brief summaries of the significant developments in the program for childwelfare services in their States. To give greater perspective to the individual reports on State developments, it has seemed desirable to sketch in a background, in broad outline, of the national picture. When the Social Security Act was passed 11 States had made no provision for general State-wide services for children. In 2 States a child-welfare division was organized at about the time the Social Security Act became effective. In 10 States there were limited childwelfare services but no divisions within the State organizations giving special emphasis and supervision to child-welfare programs. Alaska and Hawaii were making limited provisions for public services for children. The remaining States (25) and the District o f Columbia had child-welfare divisions within the State departments administer ing public-welfare services. These divisions were— and are— re sponsible for programs which vary considerably from State to State. Local services for children in rural areas were for the most part limited to juvenile-court procedures, relief, mothers’ aid programs, and foster care, either in family homes or in institutions. Title V, part 3, of the Social Security A c t 2 made it possible for Federal funds allotted by the Children’s Bureau to the States to be used to help States establish, extend, and strengthen child-welfare programs and to assist local communities in providing services for the care and protection of children and for the prevention of depend ency, neglect, and delinquency in selected areas predominantly rural, where for the most part there has been a greater lack of resources than in urban areas. Neither the language o f the act nor the amount o f the appropriation anticipated complete coverage of all rural sub divisions on an equal basis of service. 1 The first Wyoming plan for child-welfare services was approved December 4,1939. 2 See text o f the act, p. 80. 1 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 2 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 In February 1936, therefore, the Children’s Bureau found itself with the legal responsibility for administering child-welfare services within the terms of title V, part 3, of the Social Security Act and with $1,500,000 to be allotted annually to the various States upon the basis of plans developed jointly by the cooperating State welfare agency and the Bureau. And somewhere out on the prairies, in isolated mountain districts, scattered over the desert, down along the swamps, on the border, up hill and down dale, off beaten paths were the children for whom a paragraph of legal language provided a mechanism whereby government would attempt to provide a greater measure of opportunity. The term “ child welfare” encompasses many activities. As ad ministration must be based upon a philosophy, the Child-Welfare Division o f the Children’s Bureau, guided by the provisions of the Social Security Act and the advice and counsel of the Children’s Bureau Advisory Committee on Community Child-Welfare Services, attempted to define child-welfare services as a basis for interpreting to the States the purposes for which Federal funds might be spent in order to achieve the broad objectives outlined in the act. The concept upon which the administration of child-welfare services is based is that child welfare in its broadest sense is a composite of the social and economic forces in community life which make it possible for a child’s own family to nurture him through the years o f childhood; and of the instrumentalities, both public and private, which supplement the capacities and resources of a child’s natural family in such measure as may be necessary to insure wholesome growth and development. Child-welfare services within the provisions of the Social Security Act, therefore, must be regarded as an integral part of a total childwelfare program within a State rather than as an isolated and un related service. In administering State and local services, the chil dren’s workers in rural communities do not limit their activities to treatment a fter a child’s own home has failed him and provision for him must be made elsewhere. Instead they attempt to work with children before tragedies occur, and to cooperate with other individuals and groups in developing community resources which will tend to pre vent the dependency, neglect, and delinquency of all children.3 Experience has shown that any system of remote control is in effective insofar as preventive and protective services for children are concerned. When disaster overtakes a child the State itself or the social forces of the community may be roused to action, but often it is then too late. Therefore, the backbone o f the legal provisions for grants-in-aid to the States for child-welfare services and of the ad ministration of the law is the development of resources for the care 3 C. W . S. Information Bull. No. 1, issued in December 1935, sets forth in concrete terms the types of services that might be included in State plans for child-welfare services. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis General Review o f Accomplishments 3 and protection of children where they live, as a part o f the local public-welfare unit where one exists. In view of the existing differences in State and local programs for child care and protection, it is obvious that State plans for childwelfare services cannot be identical, even though they have to be consistent with the provisions of the Federal act. Thus the reports from the States show considerable variation. On January 1, 1939, 709 persons, paid in whole or in part from Federal funds, were providing professional social services for rural children belonging to families representing a wide range in social and economic status. Of this number 19 workers in 8 States were Negroes. As the money made available to States can be used only for service, it is evident that the persons employed must be qualified by both formal training and actual experience to undertake a child-welfare program. Because of great emphasis in the majority of the States upon residence and the limited number of well-qualified children’s workers available in many parts of the country, educational leave has been granted by 35 States and Hawaii to a total of 257 persons since February 1936 to enable them to attend professional schools of social work. Case consultants and training supervisors on State staffs have given professional stimulation to workers already on the job through supervision, case conferences, institutes, and so forth, in an effort to improve the quality of treatment provided for children referred to the public-welfare agencies. (See Training o f Child-Welfare Workers, P 10.) During June 1938 more than 43,000 children in approximately 500 counties, from Aroostook County in Maine to Riverside County in California and from Pembina County in North Dakota to St. Charles Parish in Louisiana were given some form of service by workers whose salaries were paid in whole or in part from Federal funds allotted to the States. Most of these children lived in rural areas in which local services for children had been unknown until State welfare depart ments ir ugurated demonstrations of effective local work as a part of their p' »rams of public welfare. The eed for care and protection of children who were neglected or mistr: _ ted or who were born out of wedlock predominated among the problems coming to the attention of the child-welfare workers. Next in number were children who were in danger of becoming delinquent because o f their environment or whose conduct was a source of trouble in school or community. More than 1,200 children accepted for service during the month were in need of special care or treatment because of physical handicaps— children who were crippled, blind or with defective vision, deaf or hard of hearing— or were suffering from various types of illness. Almost 600 of the children received for care were mentally defective or were in need of diagnosis to determine https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 4 Child-Weliare Services, 1936—38 their mental condition and to obtain for them the protection and training needed. In two or three States the urgency of problems relating to children who had been provided for by county officials away from their own homes made it necessary for the workers to devote the greater part of their time to improving the quality of care given, to the exclusion of preventive service. Where this pressure did not exist, and particularly where the program was developed from the ground up, provision for care o f children away from their own homes comprised a relatively small part of the services reported. This was true in a large majority of the counties for which reports were received. The services given by child-welfare workers to the 38,803 children included in the active cases reported on June 30,1938, were distributed as follows: Percent of children T o children in their own homes____________________________________________ 82 By child-welfare worker alone____________________________ ____ j__ 61 — B y child-welfare worker in cooperation with— Division o f aid to dependent children________________________ 8 Public-relief agency or division_______________________________ 7 Health agency_______________ 2 Crippled children’s services____________________ 4 To children in foster care__________________________________________________ 18 Provided by county— __ In county institution________________________________________ 1 In boarding home__________________________ 8 In free home__ __________________________________ 1__________ 4 In trial adoption home__ „ _____________________________ 1 In work or wage home_____________________ ;_________________ 1 Provided by other agency or institution, but jurisdiction retained by county_____________________________________________________ 3 On the basis of these figures it appears that in the counties where cooperative Federal, State, and local programs are in operation, emphasis is being put upon the job of keeping children in their own homes. Nothing positive happens to a child through the mere process of being counted. Thus it seemed wise to delay formal statistical reporting by the States to the Children’s Bureau on the number of children reached through local programs of child-welfare services financed in whole or in part by Federal funds until after certain other steps toward relating reporting to content o f treatment had been taken.4 In each of the 11 States which had made no provision for services to children up to 1936 a beginning has been made and State and local funds have been made available for part of the total cost. There is * Experimentation is this field has been carried on for the past 18 months, and a summary on philosophy and method o f reporting, prepared by the Assistant Director o f the Child Welfare Division, will be found on p. 7. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis General Review o f Accomplishments 5 increasing acceptance of the fact that services to children are an inte gral part of a public-welfare program, and that an investment in service may make expenditure of public funds for assistance and foster care unnecessary in many cases. There is also new awareness of the right o f every child to be under stood and of the fact that the economic independence of a family does not necessarily carry with it the skill required to cope with the stress and strain of growing up. Thus the children’s workers are often asked to give service to children showing symptoms o f social maladjust ment whose families are not dependent. The story of development of services for children in rural areas, since February 1936, is a kaleidoscopic record of rural America. The excerpts from the reports prepared by the States which form the body of this report give some of the details of this record. The local workers, like the children with whom they are working, often face environmental conditions and handicaps which make the phrase “ predominantly rural” something more than mere legal phraseology. Most of the workers are young and eager to meet the challenge of pioneering in a new phase of public service for children. The question may be raised as to what purpose is served by having a children’s worker go into a community where child neglect, depend ency, and delinquency for the most part spring from basic economic problems about which the worker can do nothing. The answer, it would seem, is that through the efforts of the worker the children living under such conditions can be made “ visible,” as Miss Lathrop once said in referring to juvenile courts and their objectives. And only as our children are made visible do we have the evidence which is needed, if, as a Nation, we are to attack the basic causes which produce child dependency and neglect. On the positive side it can be reported that the files of State and local public-welfare offices contain the stories of children and families that have been helped to help themselves because a worker was near at hand “ to do something” when their own social and economic resources were not enough to carry them through the stress of a particu lar situation. Such case material obviously cannot be included in this report. Furthermore, the processes by which positive results in reconstructing human behavior are achieved cannot be outlined with mathematical precision. What the worker herself contributes is only one element in the treatment process. Certain things happen because of her; and other things happen in spite of her. Reference has been made to the number o f Negro workers in local units. Delinquency among Negro children has been o f more concern to communities than dependency and neglect, but through efforts to prevent delinquency the realization is growing that a preventive approach to this problem involves dealing with Negro children in their https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 6 Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 own homes and communities. Both white and Negro child-welfare workers attached to county departments of public welfare are reaching dependent and neglected children who are in danger of becoming delinquent. It is significant that local communities have visualized this phase of the work as an area of need among Negro children and are giving full cooperation in the program. In addition to local services for Negro children, special services have been made available to a number o f institutions, particularly correctional institutions, through provision in State plans for employing Negro workers to be assigned to institutions on a demonstration basis; and through the policy of the Children’s Bureau whereby the special consultant on Negro child welfare on the staff of the Child Welfare Division may be assigned to States for temporary service. The States in which special services for Negro children have been provided through Federal funds are Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. The summaries on activities within the States do not reveal the full extent to which State and local advisory committees have been de veloped as a means of promoting community interest in the welfare of all children. This has been, however, one of the important aspects of the expansion in public services for children which the Social Security Act has stimulated. As more citizens have become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of community forces affecting children, they have assumed greater leadership in communal efforts to provide a more satisfactory and wholesome “ design for living” for every child. Brief glimpses of how States and local units are attempting to put the old wine of long accepted child-welfare principles into new bottles of public administration are given in the following pages of this report. To those who believe that people should have freedom to make their own choice and that “ the duty of leadership is to see that that choice is available” 5 there is meaning in a public-welfare program designed to foster the development of personal stamina and inherent capacities in children in spite of social and economic disaster and to help them to live in a democracy which still safeguards the right of choice. Conference on State Child-Welfare Services On April 4-6, 1938, 115 children’s workers and executives from 44 States and the District of Columbia attended a conference6 on State child-welfare services, called by the Chief of the United States Chil dren’s Bureau. The members of the Children’s Bureau Advisory Committee on Community Child-Welfare Services also attended the 5 A Southerner Discovers the South, by Jonathan Daniels, p. 71. Macmillan Co., New York, 1938. 6 See Proceedings o f the Conference on State Child-Welfare Services. U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication N o. 255 (Maternal and Child-Welfare Bull. N o. 3). Washington, 1938. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Current Reporting and M onthly Reports 7 conference. The committee had one meeting on April 5 exclusive of the conference sessions. This conference, devoted largely to the content of child-welfare programs in rural areas, was the second called by the Children’s Bureau since the social-security legislation became effective. The first was in June 1936, when programs for child-welfare services were being administered in only 33 States and the District of Columbia. The increased number of persons attend ing the 1938 conference and the larger number of States represented reflected the increasing spread o f children’s services through the rural sections of the country. The program material presented by State and local workers reflected a concept of child welfare that has extended social horizons and is not bounded by foster care. At the request of the 1938 conference a committee on case record ing was appointed for the purpose of redefining what should be the content of a social record in a public agency providing service as well as assistance for children. The committee and the assistant director of the Child Welfare Division have worked on this project during the months since the conference and material is being prepared for the use of State supervisors of child-welfare services. Current Reporting and Monthly Reports on Child-Welfare Services Cooperative Study o f Practicable M ethods o f Reporting. During 1937-38 the Child Welfare Division of the United States Children’s Bureau participated with State welfare departments in experimental study of the mechanism whereby information with social significance might be obtained in regard to child-welfare work in county units and other local areas. The approach to the study has been made from the point of view of record keeping as a tool to be used in social treatment and in interpretation of child-welfare problems rather than for purely statistical purposes. The study, therefore, began with a form for recording applications of “ intake” which was used to obtain a cross section of cases coming to the attention of child-welfare workers in demonstration areas for the month of January 1937. The experiment was tried out mainly for the purpose of pointing to the need for and suggesting a primary method of obtaining intake data as the first step in developing current reports on activities and as a basis for studying the problems dealt with. This was followed by the preparation, after consultation with cer tain State welfare departments, of a preliminary form for monthly reports by local child-welfare workers. Through personal consulta- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 8 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 tion and correspondence there has been an exchange of ideas with more than 30 States actively working on the problem of formulating a practicable system. On the basis of tentative forms suggested by the various States, another monthly report form was prepared early in 1938, which was a composite o f what appeared to be the best features found in the State forms as developed up to that time. This was sent to all States with the suggestion that its practicability be tried out by obtaining on this basis reports for the month of June 1938 in all counties or other local areas in which Federal funds were used for childwelfare services. The results indicated that uniformity could be attained with respect to certain fundamental items, even though in many States the present development of child-welfare work necessi tates a great deal of ground work in the field of child-welfare-service processes before such reports can have much social or statistical value. In most States the development of local child-welfare work is still in a pioneering stage and State-wide development on a uniform basis will be slow in growth. State welfare departments are thinking in terms of programs that will promote the welfare of all the children in the State who are in need of care or protection, and are consider ing their demonstrations o f child-welfare services in rural counties or other areas as a means of working out effective procedures that will be applicable to all counties or other local units throughout the State. Therefore, the joint experimentation by the States and the Child Welfare Division o f the Children’s Bureau, although necessarily limited to a large extent to areas in which child-welfare work has been aided by Federal social-security funds, has been carried on with the objective of developing a practicable method of obtaining com parable data for all counties in a State as soon as the character of the local work makes this possible. Differing methods of work and organization o f child-welfare services in the various States, and sometimes in local areas within a State, make it necessary to adapt reporting systems to actual situations, so that absolute uniformity for all States is neither practicable nor desir able. However, there are certain problems and procedures which are common to child-welfare work in all localities having any organized child-welfare service. It has been the purpose of the joint study to discover what they are and how they can be defined so there may be a nucleus of significant social data in each State which may be ex panded when conditions make it desirable and practicable to do so. Purpose o f Local Reports on Child-W elfare Services. Child-welfare case records serve as a basis for intelligent case treat ment. Monthly reports on child-welfare problems and methods of dealing with them likewise provide a picture of community responsi https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Current Reporting and M onthly Reports 9 bility and the adequacy or inadequacy o f available social resources. The primary purpose of monthly or other periodic reports on public child-welfare services is to afford a means of analyzing child-welfare problems coming to the attention of the local public-welfare depart ment and the methods used in dealing with them. As with individual case records, the importance o f periodic reports on problems and activities lies not primarily in the factual data obtained but in the interpretation of the data in terms of their social meaning as the basis for “ treatment” by means o f community action. In suggesting items to be included in monthly reports on child-welfare services in local areas, it is necessary, therefore, to have in mind that such reports should furnish information pertinent to: 1. What the worker needs to know in order to understand her job. 2. What the local welfare board or officials and the community need to know about child-welfare problems and how they are dealt with, the adequacy of provisions made for meeting childwelfare needs, and community action required to supply unmet needs. 3. What the State welfare department needs to know about work in local units in order to promote the establishment of adequate child-welfare services. Before requiring such periodic reports, it is essential that the State welfare department encourage and assist the local welfare departments to build up a system of recording and interpreting social data for the primary purpose of guiding the local work. Reports by local depart ments to the State department will then be the result of, and not in lieu of, development o f case records and compilation of socially sig nificant data in the community itself. The experimental use of the tentative form in June 1938 showed that State welfare departments need to give more attention to defining procedures in child-welfare work and relationships to other publicwelfare activities before it will be profitable to undertake any extensive collection of information. In many localities present necessities require such undifferentiated service that a worker could not report on child-welfare services without the expenditure of an undue amount of time and effort to distinguish such services in her general case load. Usually this means that very little attention is being given to childwelfare needs because of the pressure of other work. In any case it would obviously be undesirable in such situations to attempt to obtain definite information on activities which are at best indefinite in prac tice. The efforts of the State welfare department may be applied more profitably toward developing adequate child-welfare service in such counties; reporting should wait until the character of the work done warrants expenditure of time for special child-welfare reports. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 10 Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 Training of Child-Welfare Workers Report to A dvisory Committee on T raining and Personnel, January 29, 1939 The Children’s Bureau report on developments in the program of training for children’s workers through the use of Federal funds made available to the States for child-welfare services under the provisions of title V, part 3, of the Social Security Act has been prepared in two sections. Section I will pertain chiefly to administrative policies and to certain questions growing out of the experience of the past 3 years. Section II will be devoted to: (a) A presentation of what has been done by the States to improve the quality of service to children through strengthening supervision of workers responsible for treatment and through developing greater understanding of the functions of a childwelfare program on the part of other members o f staffs having contacts with local public-welfare units;7 and ( b) A summary of expressions of opinion by students receiving educational leave through Federal funds as to the strengths and weaknesses of their school experience. SECTION I As has been previously reported to the Advisory Committee on Training and Personnel, the residence restrictions adopted by many States, together with a lack of professionally qualified children’s workers who by experience and temperament were suited to the peculiar demands of a rural program, made it necessary to include development of personnel as part of the administrative policy of the Children’s Bureau. The States, therefore, were encouraged to include in their plans for child-welfare services one or more of the following procedures: 1. Granting educational leave to qualified persons for attend ance at recognized schools of social work. 2. Improving quality of service through providing more ade quate supervision of workers. 3. Using specially staffed local units for orientation of new workers; for periods of intensive supervision of workers brought into the unit from other counties; and in some instances, for a limited number of students of schools o f social work, usually those regarded as potential child-welfare workers in the particular State. 7 In this connection, see The Meaning of State Supervision in the Social Protection o f Children. U. S. Children’s Bureau Publication No, 252, Washington, 1940, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Training o f Child-Welfare Workers 11 4. Granting occasional leave of absence to persons to enable them to go to a selected specialized agency for several months as a means of improving their case-work practice. The selection of personnel for leaves of absence has been largely limited to those persons who have had full professional training but have been out of school for a considerable period or who have not had recent experience in a children’s agency. In 3 years a total of nine persons have been given leave of absence for the purpose of working in children’s agencies. 5. Arranging conferences, institutes, or discussion groups for the entire child-welfare staff for a limited period and providing a leader from outside the staff for whose services payment is made. In no case has this been regarded as anything other than a means of getting perspective on the job and of “ refueling” the workers professionally. Educational Leave. Since February 1,1936, plans for child-welfare services have included provisions for educational leave for 256 persons from 35 States and Hawaii. Plans for 35 States and for Hawaii for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1939 include provision for educational leave. The number o f students from any one State has varied from 1 to 12. The amount o f money set up for educational leave in the 35 States and Hawaii for the fiscal year is $92,735— out of a total of $1,701,786.22 included in the budgets for child-welfare services for these States and Hawaii. The amounts paid by the States to persons on educational leave have varied from State to State. The Children’s Bureau has stated that the maximum amount for educational leave paid an individual should not exceed $110 per month, but that the States themselves should make the financial arrangements with workers to be given educational leave exactly as is done in employing staff. Generally, workers selected for educational leave are those who have not had an opportunity to complete their professional education and who will return to local jobs. The experience gained in selecting students according to the general policies adopted in July 1937 indicates that, although some mistakes have been made, the States have been conscientious in their efforts to choose the most promising workers and have taken the responsibility of selection very seriously. The staff of the Child Welfare Division of the Children’s Bureau has advised the States, particularly in those instances when special problems were involved, but the final decision has rested with the State agency as to selection and, of course, with the school as to acceptance. This policy is in line with the philosophy upon which the cooperative relationship between the States and the Children’s Bureau has been 2X2629°—40----- 2 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 12 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 developed, namely, that the State agency is the administrative unit and therefore must assume responsibility for details of administration incident to carrying out the plan for child-welfare services, which is only a part of its total public-welfare structure. In all of the plans for educational leave for the fiscal year 1939 provision is made for at least 2 quarters’ work. In the original statement of the Children’s Bureau policy on educational leave it was indicated that in most instances a worker should not be given more than 2 quarters’ leave at any one time. Emphasis was placed also on selecting only those workers who had already had 1 quarter or 1 semester at a professional school. Specific questions on policies pertaining to educational leave will be raised for consideration later in this report. Training Supervisors. Fourteen States use funds for child-welfare services in whole or in part to employ a supervisor or director of training as a means of improving the quality of service for children in local communities. In States in which plans for child-welfare services do not include special provision for a training supervisor as such, the child-welfare supervisors and case consultants are attempting to provide training for workers through supervision of case-work practice and through regional or staff meetings. The quality of this service varies from State to State and is undoubtedly “ spotty” within the same State due to variations in quality of personnel and to the pattern of organiza tion into which the services for children must be fitted. Training Units. Nine States have made provision for training units in their plans for child-welfare services for the fiscal year 1939. Depending upon the legal structure for administration of public-welfare services, these units are either part of the regular local public-welfare units or are local child-welfare units. In every instance these units are first of all providing services for children in the community. In addition, a higher quality of supervision has been provided in order that the unit may be used for the purpose of orientation of child-welfare workers who are to be assigned to rural areas. The number of workers assigned for the orientation period is small, never more than four at any one time, and the period of time in units varies from 2 to 6 months. Six o f these units are so located that they have been made available for field-work training for students attending schools of social work. Three of the training units have no connection with a school of social work, but are used entirely as a means of increasing the com petence of local staffs through a period of intensive supervision in a somewhat protected situation as to case load and job pressures.. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Training o f Child-Welfare Workers 13 As indicated earlier, an adequate number of qualified children’s workers was not available in the States at the time the program for child-welfare services was inaugurated. Therefore it seemed impor tant to utilize all available resources for the training of personnel and at the same time to keep sight of the necessity for avoiding certain practices in the training field which were unsound both theoretically and administratively. As the formulation of all plans for child-welfare services has been based upon existing conditions in the respective States, there is some variation in the arrangements between the State agencies and the schools of social work in the six States in which the training units are used for field training. However, in no instance has Federal money been used to subsidize a school of social work. In a few instances where the supervisor paid from Federal funds has given service to students other than those to be absorbed in the State or local program, there has been a quid p ro q u o in terms of tuition or educational leave for children’s workers from funds other than Federal child-welfare funds. Two major points emerge from the experience of the past 3 years with relation to training units: 1. Local units providing services for children through the use of funds for child-welfare services that are developed as training units regard the care and treatment of children as their chief purpose, even though they also provide resources for intensive periods of training and for orientation of new workers. 2. When schools of social work and State agencies have entered into a cooperative arrangement which permits the acceptance of students for field work in a local unit, Federal funds have been used only to pay salaries of supervisors of field work who are functioning as members of the local staff and are administratively responsible to the public-welfare officials. Federal child-welfare funds have not been used to pay salaries of faculty members employed by the schools for supervision of students on field work assignments. We have now passed through the initial stages of getting programs under way. Because of educational leave and the training activities within the States which have gone on for the past 3 years, more qualified persons are now available for child-welfare services. This does not mean that there is not great need for continuing emphasis upon improving quality of personnel and for replacement of inad equately equipped workers. The question now is whether the States, as they begin to formulate new plans, should be encouraged to con tinue to operate training units which up to now have served a useful purpose in the development of child-welfare services or whether this is unwise from the standpoint of long-time planning. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 14 Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 In stitu tes. An institute is technically defined as a gathering of persons having common vocational or professional interest for the purpose of instruc tion and mutual assistance. Five States (Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New York, and Washington) included provisions for institutes in their plans for the fiscal year 1939. Seven States provided for institutes in their plans for the fiscal year 1938. SECTION II Supervision. The functions of the training supervisors in the 14 States in which training supervisors have been employed through the use of child-wel fare funds differ in accordance with needs and requirements of the particular situation within each State and with variations in person nel to be trained. An attempt has been made in each State to have this supervision meet the needs of the individual worker. The back ground of experience and training, as well as skill in performance, of the various workers differs widely. There is, however, a common feeling on the part of every worker that she needs to know more about the “ whys” and “ hows” of case work as applied to her day-by-day job. In some instances this means gaining a sounder philosophy about a specific practice the worker has carried on for a period of time. In another instance it means modifying her attitudes about human beings. This has been done in part through individual conferences of the train ing supervisor with the field representatives, at which time they may discuss case-work procedures on cases which their county workers are carrying, or they may use this period for a discussion of problems directly related to their supervisory methods. In addition, group con ferences have been arranged whereby the training supervisor, the worker, and the field representative may discuss jointly a case. Spe cial consultants are drawn into these conferences where their assistance seems desirable. The work of the training supervisors appears to be divided into direct and indirect supervision: D irect supervision is the supervi sion of that part of the work of field representatives that is concerned with content of the program for child-welfare services and instruction of county children’s workers; and in d irect supervision is the teaching of supervision through individual and group conferences, staff meetings, and so forth. Through conferences with the training supervisor, field supervisors are beginning to have a real understanding of what supervision means, which assists the worker to grow professionally and personally and to function more adequately, as opposed to the method of supervision which is one of control or checking. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Training o f Child-Welfare Workers 15 In area or district meetings the training supervisor has divided her teaching periods so that time is given to formal instruction, case dis cussion, and the discussion of current professional literature. Consid eration is given to fundamental basic case-work concepts and a sound philosophy which can be utilized. An attempt is made to keep the discussions practical, to recognize size of case loads, distances to be traveled, and particular peculiarities of the community setting. If a sound philosophy of case work can be inculcated, concepts would become transferable from one case or community to another and offer an opportunity for the development o f the worker’s philosophy rather than merely a solution of specific cases. In case discussion no cases are ever used with the group which are not being carried by one of its members. Cases presented by a train ing supervisor have been used as a means of developing a sound under standing of case work rather than as a means of coming to a decision as to the next step to be taken. T o quote from one training super visor, “ If it is possible to evaluate the reasons for the success of these meetings and to see why the group gains real help in their day-by-day job from these meetings, it may be because the emphasis is not placed on ideally what should be done, but what is the best way that this certain thing can be accomplished under existing circumstances; that is, when one knows, for instance, that she cannot visit as fre quently as the situation demands, then what can she do in terms of these limitations? Frequently this means a choice, but not a choice because the pressure is greatest but because she has thought through her entire job and decided that this rather than something else war rants a certain amount of time. As a result, more time is given to the preventive side of her job and she becomes less emotional about what she cannot do.” In addition to direct and indirect supervision, training supervisors in some of the States give induction courses to workers preceding the permanent assignment of a worker to a job. This induction or orienta tion is given to enable the worker to acquire: 1. Better knowledge of the agency set-up. 2. Understanding of the agency’s functional responsibilities, policies, and procedures. 3. Knowledge of the filing system used in the State office and the use of special forms. 4. Knowledge of the agency’s methods in regard to adoptions, foster homes, licensing, and illegitimacy. 5. Knowledge of agency’s working relationships with other public and private agencies. 6. Opportunity to read case-record folder of county to which workers are assigned. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 16 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 7. Methods of obtaining professional books available in the agency, and supplies and materials needed in the county. 8. Knowledge of case-work philosophy in regard to children’s work in the particular agency. 9. Assistance in learning how to study a case record. Supervisors have given thought also to the analysis of functions and responsibilities for each worker in the child-welfare program and their relationship to duties of other workers in the department. In those States where educational leave has been granted, the train ing supervisor has assisted in the selection of staff members to whom leave could be made available. The factors considered in this selec tion were: 1. Worker’s background of previous training and experience. 2. Worker’s interest in professional training and her ability to utilize such training upon her return to the job. 3. Worker’s potentialities for growth and development as evi denced through performance on the job. 4. The agency’s ability to place someone in the worker’s posi tion during her absence to carry on the agency’s functions. 5. The usual considerations of health, age, personality, and so forth. E xperience o f S tu d en ts on E ducational Leave. As has been stated, 35 States have granted educational leave to a total of 256 workers to attend a recognized school of social work. Directors of child welfare in the States where educational leave has been granted asked each worker to submit a frank and objective evaluation of what educational leave has meant personally and professionally to the worker. These reports were then made available to the con sultants. Ten of the recognized schools of social work were repre sented in the reports from students. So far reports have been re ceived from 85 students, representing a geographical distribution o f all States, except the extreme western ones, granting educational leave. With few exceptions these workers have returned to local jobs. The following is a brief summary of points which were generally made by all students who submitted reports. Listed in order of number o f times o f reference, the students expressed a desire for— 1. A longer period o f educational leave. 2. Better facilities for field work and more competent super visors of field work. 3. Closer integration of classroom work with field work. 4. More realism in the content of lecture material. 5. Instead of specialized courses in rural work, rural as well as urban interpretation of case-work principles in all courses offered. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Training o f Child-Welfare Workers 17 6. Less time devoted to historical material in lecture courses. 7. Opportunity for advisory services regarding selection of courses prior to student’s registration. 8. Better adaptation o f courses on community organization to situations in rural communities. 9. Smaller classes. 10. Emphasis on the importance of interpreting the program to the community. In the light of these suggestions it may be of interest to give brief quotations from a few of the reports. The positive value of educa tional leave was emphasized by all students. T o quote: Even 2 quarters’ work has given me a different attitude toward clients and toward child-welfare problems. M y awareness o f child-welfare problems has spread to the entire agency and to groups of individuals in the community. Although I know that I am inadequately trained, I have been able to meet prob lems a little more competently and have realized the need for specialized services in the State to meet needs which I am not prepared to meet. It seems to me that this would make for a gradual raising of the standards for case work throughout all agencies in the State. and again: I believe that educational leave on child-welfare-services funds has given an impetus to the evaluation o f personnel and the creation o f personnel standards, not only for child-welfare workers but in the entire organization. and two additional quotations: In counties where child-welfare workers have had educational leave the other staff members have evidenced more interest in similar training. The use o f child-welfare-services funds has been a means of obtaining a group of workers who serve as a “ spearhead” in the drive for better standards of work and personnel in the State set-up. In regard to the need for rural training, a question that is frequently discussed, the following observations may be of interest: Because individuals in the city are the same as those in a small town, village, or farm community, their needs too are similar. The greatest difference in urban and rural work is that resources and facilities in a rural community are extremely limited and community interpretation is often the worker’s greatest problem. Another comment was: I should say that rural conditions should be studied by workers who do not themselves have a rural background. For those who have grown up in rural surroundings such courses would not be absolutely necessary. If persons who have grown up in the country do not have adequate knowledge of rural conditions, they are hardly alert enough to be social workers. Two additional statements were: It is an excellent thing to have a course, or several courses, in rural social work, but why cannot every course offered contain the rural case-work angle as well as interpretation of the principles of urban case work? https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 18 We learn in urban field work to be too dependent on outside resources, which do not exist in the rural community. However, the opportunity o f learning how things should be done was invaluable. One student commented: The eagerness of the faculty members to learn first hand more about the problems and general procedures in rural counties was of most interest to me. The essentials in all social work are the same, but the circumstances and the differences in resources sometimes make the approach and emphasis of a rural social worker a bit different. In answer to the question sometimes raised as to whether students from a rural community profit by field work in an urban situation, the following quotation is given: Rural people need the stimulating effect o f urban work, and just because we are to work under limited rural conditions does not mean that we should not experience urban social work. More comments were made on the importance of field-work training than on anything else: The value and stimulus received from field work depend almost entirely on the supervisor to whom the student is assigned. Field work under good super vision is the most constructive of the experiences to which a student is exposed. and again: I received more value from field work than from any other part of my experience. I think this was because I had a supervisor who was aware o f the different problems that we meet in our local environment and the contrast of highly organized re sources in an urban community versus the paucity of resources in the rural districts. Another student states: Field-work courses are the key courses. methods learned in lecture or classroom. They afford opportunity to apply and again: There is need to emphasize the close integration of field-work supervision with academic work in order to make each an integral part o f the other. We need field-work supervisors who are able to relate the previous experience of the student to the training period and who can help the student worker relate the whole of her training experience to what she hopes to do on her return to her job. The students expressed a desire that more guidance should be given to them in the selection of courses prior to the time of registration. One student makes the following statement: I believe that students should be prepared for the inevitable deflation which seems always to follow a student’s entrance to a school. I believe that this is altogether to the good, as it produces an open mind and a zeal for learning, at least enough to begin to patch up the self-esteem. I think it is sometimes difficult in 1 quarter period to recover entirely from the deflation stage. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Training o f Child-Welfare Workers 19 In regard to the selection of persons for educational leave, students generally seem to echo the feeling of this one: Child-welfare-services funds for educational leave should be limited to those persons who have had sufficient experience to know that they are definitely inter ested in continuing in child-welfare work and have had at least 1 year’s experience in a county office. This experience is necessary in order for a student to know what things are of most value to him in a rural community. There were numbers of statements similar to the following: More realism should be put into classroom work. Much o f the historical material could be given in reading assignments. All students seemed to concur in the following: The association with students drawn from every part of the country is valuable. Class discussion of State laws and welfare programs, supplemented by students with first-hand knowledge of actual working of the programs, helps one to gain perspective. and, finally, this statement seemed to summarize the general attitude of the workers who had returned to a job: Many of the things which have meant the most to me are the most intangible, and I may not be able to express them adequately. I believe that a social-work philosophy is not acquired through any particular course. It is rather the coor dination of principles, theories, and practice into one’s own philosophy and the ability to translate the “ whys” and “ hows” o f the job into terms of greatest benefit to the client. The period of training also convinced me that the field o f social work is one in which the pattern is not yet set. There is plenty of room and opportunity for original thought and attainment. Q uestions. On the basis of the experience of the past 3 years there are a number of questions which should be raised for consideration by this com mittee. In addition, the members themselves will probably wish to raise other questions regarding some of the material included in this report. The specific questions which the Children’s Bureau would like to have discussed are as follows: 1. Is the present policy of the Bureau regarding State deter mination of the maximum amount to be paid to students for educational leave within the $110 monthly maximum set by the Bureau a sound policy? In discussing this question the provisions of part 3 of title V of the Social Security Act, which place administration of childwelfare services in the cooperating State agency and the philoso phy and experience of the Children’s Bureau regarding its role in Federal-State relationship, should be kept in mind. 2. While the policy of leaving responsibility for all administra tive details incident to perfecting satisfactory arrangements for educational leave to the State agency, the schools, and the stu https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 20 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 dents appears to be sound, the question is raised as to the experi ence o f the schools in their contacts with States and students; and as to whether there is anything the Children’s Bureau can do to further the process of developing mutually satisfactory rela tionships to the end that the students may receive the maximum benefit from their school experience. 3. As has been indicated, educational leave thus far has gen erally been granted to persons who have not had an opportunity to complete full professional training and who will return to local positions. At what point should we begin to select persons for educational leave who have had full professional training but who will contribute more to the child-welfare program if given an opportunity for a period of specialized training? 4. The policy regarding length of educational leave (namely, not to exceed 2 quarters at any one time except under special circumstances) was based upon recognized administrative prob lems within the State and knowledge of pressures which might be brought if the periods of educational leave were too long. How has this policy affected the program of the schools? 5. Should the policy of using Federal funds for educational leave be regarded as a permanent policy? 6. Training units have served a dual purpose of supplying the current needs of the child-welfare staff and of stimulating interest in training and professional standards. In addition, some of the units have been a resource of schools of social service for rural field work. With increased number of trained persons now available should training units be continued as one part of train ing for child-welfare services? 7. In those States where training units and schools of social work have established cooperative relationships, three groups of students for whom field-work assignments are planned are: (a) Workers granted educational leave by the State agency main taining the unit and who will return to the agency. (£>) Students who are potential workers in the State agency and are, therefore, interested in securing field-work experience in a rural unit serving children. (c) Other students who may be from outside the State but who have shown interest and potentialities for work in the child-welfare field. Should there be variations in the amount of participation in administrative costs of training units through the use of Federal funds for field-work training for these three groups of students? https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries ALABAMA The expenditure o f funds allocated under title V, part 3, o f the Social Security Act has for its main objective the strengthening o f services to children in areas predominantly rural. In Alabama work toward this objective has been at tempted largely through two channels, namely, the establishment o f an effective system o f State supervision, and the assignment o f well-trained social workers to county departments o f public welfare for the purpose o f giving intensive service to children in need o f such service. It is recognized in the light o f the experience o f past years in Alabama that effective State supervision continues to be an important part in the adminis tration o f services to children in the counties. Although the public-welfare program has been administered in Alabama for a period o f 3 years, the pressure o f the job resulting from the unemployment situation and other factors is still such that there must flow continually from the State staff some form o f service to the county departments which will stimulate and develop a more qualitative service for children. The use o f case consultants attached to the Bureau o f Child Welfare to supplement the services o f the field staff has been found to be effective. These consultants assist in selecting case loads to be assigned to the local children’s workers; in analyzing total case loads for the purpose o f selecting the types o f cases needing intensive and specialized service; and in studying individual county situations for the purpose o f recommending community organization in terms o f treatment facilities to meet the needs o f children. Case consultants are sent to counties only at the request o f the field representative who is entirely familiar with the situation that needs to be handled or studied in the particular county. The case consultant carries no continuing responsibility for the situation which she finds in the county. Her report is useful to the field representative and serves to portray more definitely the county’s needs. In assigning children’s case workers to county staffs, it is understood that the case worker serves under the administrative direction and supervision o f the county director o f public welfare. It is recognized, however, that the director as administrator o f the county’s entire welfare program usually works under such pressure that the supervision she gives to the children’s case worker is not ade quate on the qualitative side. The field representative, therefore, on her routine visits to the county attempts to evaluate the supervision received by the children’s case worker. Excerpts from a narrative report o f a field representative will serve to illustrate clearly the kind o f supervisory relationship which exists between the field representative, the county director o f public welfare, and the children’s worker: Approximately 15 cases have been referred to the Negro children’s worker by the county director since the field representative’s last visit. These cases represent families that have been known to the agency for some time and have been receiving some form o f assistance. Each case involves special problems that make it seem wise for these cases to receive closer supervision 21 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child~Welfare Services, 1936—38 22 than has heretofore been possible. It is anticipated that the case load o f the children’s worker will eventually reach between 45 and 50. The county director, however, feels that it is wise to build up the worker’s case load gradually that she may learn her cases as they are added to her case load. The county director and visitor having previous contact with the case have taken the children’s worker on her initial visit into each o f these homes in order that they might introduce her to the families. As the children’s worker had been in the county only 10 days at the time of the field visit, there had been little time for more than these initial visits. For many years the State Department o f Public Welfare has given boarding foster care to a limited number of children received from the 67 counties o f the State. There is a well-defined philosophy existent in Alabama to the effect that such foster care administered by the State department is to be considered supple mentary only to that administered by county departments of public welfare. On July 1, 1938, therefore, a plan was put into effect whereby funds spent for boarding foster care by county departments o f public welfare were matched on a 50-50 basis by State funds. This marked a direct step toward localization of a service to meet the needs of children. Every effort is being made to work toward an administrative plan whereby one or more children’s case workers can be attached to every county department. Federal funds are used at present to implement and stimulate such a service. Those charged with the administration o f the plan, however, are looking to the time when there will be one or more children’s case workers attached to every county staff without emphasis on the source o f funds to meet the cost o f such service. Increasingly, State and county funds are being provided to defray the cost of the entire service to children. It is true also that even those counties without special children’s workers are providing services for children in varying degrees. In many instances county directors who were formerly child-welfare workers are competent to give some service where there are no children’s workers. On April 1, 1939, special children’s workers were employed in 21 o f the State’s 67 counties. ALASKA The plan for child-welfare services in Alaska was approved October 16, 1937, but the program did not start until the arrival of the children’s worker on February 1, 1938. The initial plan provided for only one worker. In Alaska some provision for dependent children has been made since the meet ing o f the first Territorial Legislature in 1913. At present only two appropriations are made for the benefit o f dependent children; one for mother’s allowance and the other for dependent children as wards o f the boards o f children’s guardians. The mother’s allowance fund is administered by the Governor’s office, and the Territorial Department of Public Welfare has certain supervisory functions in relation to the four boards of children’s guardians (one in each judicial division o f the Territory). The members o f each board are the United States District Judge, the United States marshal, and one woman appointed by the director of the Department of Public Welfare (from 1913 to 1937, appointed by the Governor). Children are committed to the boards by the courts and when committed become wards o f the boards. The boards have authority to arrange for care in suitable homes or institutions and to pay for such care, the amount o f payment not to exceed $25 a month. The boards furnish reports on wards to the Department o f Public Welfare and vouchers for payment must be certified by the children’s worker in the Department of Public Welfare before being presented to the auditor for payment. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 23 The Bureau o f Indian Affairs o f the United States Department o f the Interior is charged with the responsibility o f caring for Indian and Eskimo children who need care, and the Territorial funds, referred to previously, are limited by statute to use for white children. The judge in each judicial division has a fund amount ing to approximately $5,000 annually for relief and special needs. Part o f this is used for the benefit o f children. There are 13 institutions for children in the Territory, none o f which is oper ated by the Territory. Most o f these institutions are sponsored and operated by church groups o f different denominations and are caring chiefly for native chil dren. No licenses are required for boarding homes or institutions. Two indus trial schools for native children are operated by the Bureau o f Indian Affairs. In an area as vast as Alaska and with a program entirely new, it is difficult to report developments after a brief 7 months. It seemed important, first, to assemble information concerning the children receiving assistance and to learn something about them and their families and build case records as a basis for future action. The information is still meager, but a start has been made. Regular reports have been requested concerning children outside o f Alaska who are cared for from Territorial funds, and reports have been requested for indi vidual children from the institutions in the Territory. Inquiries have been sent to all 13 institutions for information concerning the number o f children under care, the method of admission and release, the type o f schooling available, the institution’s budget, and so forth. Ten replies have been received. The worker has visited 6 of these institutions and has had an opportunity to discuss prob lems of child welfare with the superintendents and to make plans for some in dividual children. An effort has been made to have all juvenile cases coming to the attention of the courts reported to the children’s worker. The number o f reports received has been gratifying. An attempt has been made to encourage the “ correctional school,” where most of the children from Alaska are sent through court order, to advise the office of the Department o f Public Welfare well in advance o f the time children are to be released. It is hoped that in future it will be possible to recommend suitable placements for these children and to provide at least partial supervision. One of the most serious difficulties confronting the Department is the division of financial and supervisory responsibility between the Territorial Department o f Public Welfare and the Bureau o f Indian Affairs. From our observation of the situation it appears that plans for an adequate child-welfare program will en counter many serious obstacles unless minimum standards for child care are made to apply to all children and unless funds for care and supervision of all children are made available. In the interest of a sound program, it seems desirable that responsibility for supervision of children needing care should probably be carried by one worker for the entire community to which she is assigned. The probability of making any such arrangement seems remote at present because of the difficulties in connection with the separate budgets and separate administra tive departments. ARIZONA Until the Arizona Legislature in 1921 made an appropriation for assistance to needy widows or abandoned mothers with children, the care of dependent children was not considered a problem o f public welfare in the State but was left to the kindness o f the “ good neighbor.” The Public Welfare Law of 1933 placed child-welfare responsibilities in the Department of Public Welfare, but the arduous program of the Emergency Relief Administration prevented the development o f services to children until https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 24 the administration o f services under the Federal Social Security Act o f 1935 made them possible. In 1937 the State Department of Public Welfare was abolished and the State Department o f Social Security and Public Welfare was established, including a Division o f Child Welfare which has responsibility for all child-welfare activities. The work accomplished by the State and local services under the pro visions for child-welfare services was enough to cause a vigorous protest when a new board decided in August 1937 that the child-welfare program had to be sacrificed to the more popular appeal o f old-age assistance. After a lapse of about 9 months the child-welfare program was resumed and has been in force again since M ay 1938. The interest o f local people in the child-welfare program has been continuous. Because Arizona has had only a few social workers equipped to work with special problems of children, the Division o f Child Welfare has arranged educa tional leave for a group of promising workers who have demonstrated under standing of the need o f services for children. One o f the first responsibilities assumed by the program for child-welfare serv ices was the supervision o f children placed away from their own homes, without any child-welfare supervision, by county welfare workers carrying a heavy load o f responsibility for grants-in-aid cases. Careful study o f each situation has enabled the Division o f Child Welfare to return many o f these children to their own homes or to the homes of relatives under the supervision o f a child-welfare worker. Marked improvement has been made also in the types o f foster homes which care for those children who cannot be returned to their own families. The legal advisor o f the State Department o f Social Security and Public Welfare, after consultation with the director o f child welfare, discussed at a meeting o f the Bar Association services available from the State Division o f Child Welfare, and as a result the Association appointed a committee o f judges which has been meet ing to develop uniform procedures in court cases involving children. The work of this committee is being sent for comments and approval to the judges responsible for juvenile cases in each county, and out o f the work of this committee will come much closer cooperation with the State Division of Child Welfare. The judges are already turning more and more to child-welfare workers for assistance in making case studies of children and adoptive homes and for recommendations as to the desirability of adoptions. Many children who would formerly have been found “ delinquent” and committed to correctional schools are now being referred to the Division of Child Welfare as “ neglected” children, leaving the child-welfare worker free to make suitable plans for them. In some counties where children were held in jail pending hearing or transfer to industrial schools, the courts have been glad to have the child-welfare worker locate a good family home in which children could be detained instead o f being sent to jail. The problems o f children are many in Arizona, and among the phases o f work now receiving attention are the following: 1. The border problem. Arizona and Mexico join each other with no natural boundary between. Innumerable families, made up o f Mexicanborn parents and American-born children, are separated when alien parents are deported, leaving the children behind for such support and schooling as they may obtain, thus giving rise to many pathetic problems o f depend ency, neglect, and delinquency. 2. The rise and decline o f many centers o f copper mining, with long periods o f unemployment or underemployment, occasional spurts o f over work, poor housing, desertion, and illness, especially tuberculosis and silicosis, give rise to many child-welfare problems. Frequently an old mining center https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 25 has become a “ stranded town” with few prospects o f renewed activity in the mines. Its people live on there in hope. 3. The advertisement in the past 20 years o f Arizona’s good climate has brought in a great number o f people with tuberculosis or other illness and the resultant problems o f dependent and neglected children have given the Department much concern. 4. Arizona has made no public provision for the care o f feeble-minded children, and many neglected children of low mentality are referred to the Division of Child Welfare. The Division is gathering material to present to interested groups which for some time have been advocating legislation to provide facilities for this group o f children. Tremendous interest in crippled children, a growing interest in health and recreation, and work with school officials, juvenile courts, nurses, representatives o f religious organizations and men’s and women’s clubs have laid out a program for the Division of Child Welfare that has already taxed the small staff to its fullest extent. ARKANSAS Arkansas had no State Child Welfare Division before the organization o f childwelfare services under the Social Security Act. One person appointed by the attorney general had attempted to supervise probation services and adoptions in all of the counties of the State. There was a semipublic institution to which children were committed by judges for adoption. The State Department of Public Welfare was established in 1935, and in 1937, under the Public Welfare Act of 1937, a Child Welfare Division was created within the Department to adminis ter and supervise all child-welfare activities. There are no private child-placing agencies. Because o f the lack of social agencies in the State there were few professional workers for a child-welfare program and a considerable delay in organizing the State and local program. The personnel o f the Child Welfare Division are chosen through civil-service procedures under the Arkansas Personnel Division. The positions o f director o f the division and director o f training and consultants were open to any persons in the United States with professional qualifications; and much time was given to training workers who were residents o f the State to enable them to qualify for county child-welfare positions. The close relationship between the Public Assistance Division and the Child Welfare Division has led to an increased understanding of child-welfare problems and more attention being given to them by the field supervisors o f the Public Assistance Division. Since July 1, 1937, the Juvenile-Court Division, established under the attorney general, has been a part o f the Child Welfare Division, which has contacts with all of the counties of the State for the introduction of case-work methods both in general problems and in adoptions. A study o f children in the State Hospital for Nervous Diseases was made with placement of those capable o f adjust ment outside o f the institution. The beginnings of a foster-home program have been initiated with limited funds allocated by the State Department o f Public Welfare. A cooperative relationship with the Crippled Children’s Division and the close integration of the work o f the entire State Department o f Public Wel fare has been to the advantage o f the child-welfare program. Contacts have been established with all o f the child-caring institutions o f the State and an institute for institutional workers was held by the Child Welfare Division in connection with the State conference of social work. The conference has also held a regional meeting on child welfare in cooperation with the Child Welfare Division and allocated a half day o f the annual meeting to child welfare. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 26 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 There has been excellent cooperation on the part o f the Arkansas Children’s Home and Hospital (a semipublic institution) in giving temporary care and making special studies o f children pending permanent plans by the Division. Plans have been made for joint activity o f the Maternal and Child Health Division of the State Board of Health and the Child-Welfare Division in work with maternity homes and other aspects o f the health program. Within the Division a training unit has been set up for the preliminary develop ment o f workers, for professional training, and for the orientation, before their assignment to child-welfare units, of workers returning from schools o f social work. While operating on an emergency case-work basis, great numbers of requests for services were received. The Division is now able to meet these requests and to stimulate new interest. Public-relations work and interpretation have been a major function o f the Division, by means o f publications, speeches, news releases, exhibits, and individual contacts. Contacts with the State university and State colleges have been valuable also, and relationships with students interested in professional preparation have been established. Other activities include setting up a library service on child welfare; preparing a manual o f State child-welfare resources and a digest o f State-wide problems relating to children; and individual case service and demonstration. CALIFORNIA Laws affecting the welfare of children in California have been on the statute books for many years. Child-welfare services came in as a supplementary State service to already existent programs for the administration o f aid to needy child ren, supervision o f institutions and boarding homes for children, juvenile proba tion, and adoptions and for the first time made it possible for the State to share service costs for children with the county welfare departments through the use of Federal funds. Although California has for many years cooperated with the counties in granting certain categorical relief, including aid to needy children, the State has never shared administrative costs with the county welfare depart ments, although it has a supervisory function in relation to them. In addition to the State Department of Social Welfare another State-wide relief agency, the State Relief Administration, administers unemployment relief directly as a State function, although it maintains local county offices. Federal funds for child-welfare services became available in February 1936, and the California plan was approved the following June. Pending the establish ment o f a Division o f Child Welfare as enacted in the Welfare and Institutions Code in 1937, the Division o f Children’s Aid is responsible for child-welfare services. At the end of the fiscal year 1938 the State staff for child-welfare services consisted o f a consultant psychiatrist, two child-welfare agents, and a stenographer-secretary. Each o f the child-welfare agents is responsible in half of the State for strengthening and extending services to children. This includes interpretation of the program in counties in which the program is new, supervision of workers already placed, and interpretation and planning for the services o f the psychiatrist. The program for child-welfare services in California early included a psychiatric service. It was so organized that its educational features would take precedence over the clinical, and was dependent upon four basic principles. Inasmuch as the areas were rural and any extension or strengthening of welfare services would quite properly utilize specialties wherever indicated, it was regarded as essential: (1) That the recognition and treatment of the emotional needs o f children be regarded as an integral part o f any child-welfare plan, general or specific; ( 2) that the staffs of welfare departments be offered assistance in the perfection and https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 27 extension o f professional skills in relation to aspects o f emotional life and in the practical application of these skills to undeveloped resources and actual need; ( 3) that the clarification of therapeutic measures and local responsibility be made by the coordination o f local effort in the fields o f health, education, and welfare as applied to family life and to child welfare specifically; and (4) that diagnostic procedures as such be interpreted discreetly and their indiscriminate use be avoided. The well-being o f normal children as well as the welfare o f those with specific problems is definitely within the scope o f a mental-hygiene program. Instead o f inaugurating a clinical service o f a specialized type, consideration has been given to requests for help from professional staffs in county welfare, health, or education departments. These initial requests have been met and complied with when it seemed that the request was pertinent to child welfare or represent ative o f a general need. Consultations with individual workers, discussion groups, institutes, and addresses before professional and lay groups have been so far the general practice. In every instance the program followed has been, in part if not in whole, made applicable to the local sponsoring group. Activities of an indirect nature, such as committee memberships in which allied professional points o f view are represented, have also been regarded as justifiable because of the relationships thereby fostered. COLORADO The establishment o f the State Department of Public Welfare in 1936 with a Child Welfare Division made possible the first State-wide child-welfare program in Colorado. Previously a small Bureau o f Child Welfare in the Department of Education gave thought to the development o f parent-teacher work and made a study of crippled children. The allocation of $20,000 o f public-welfare funds for direct care o f children, the apportionment o f some o f the State welfare funds for administrative purposes, and the child-welfare-service funds have made it possible for the Child Welfare Division to develop a program of consultation and assistance to directors and staff members of county departments o f public welfare, to judges o f the juvenile court, to school officials, to organizations and individuals dealing with or interested in special problems o f children, and to State and local institutions requesting help. In four rural counties o f the State the Child Welfare Division has placed a worker, attached to the staff of the county department of public welfare, for com munity organization in child welfare and intensive case work with children. On October 1, 1938, and January 1, 1939, respectively, Weld and Mesa Counties, the first two child-welfare units established, will assume payment o f 25 percent o f the salaries of their child-welfare workers and the State welfare fund will assume 25 percent, leaving 50 percent to be paid from child-welfare-service funds. Thus child-welfare-service funds will be released for the establishment o f another childwelfare unit. One o f the child-welfare units has been designated a training unit, where, in cooperation with the Denver University School of Social Work, supervision in family and child-welfare work is given to a selected group o f workers from the various county public-welfare departments or to selected advanced students in the school o f social work. In two units, through the cooperation o f the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital, child-guidance service is made available to the children of the community. With State funds provided for direct care, two programs are being developed a program o f temporary boarding-home care, which has provided care during 212629°—40----- 3 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 28 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 periods ranging from 1 day to 12 months for 167 children during the past year and a housekeeping service, more recently initiated, in which children may be kept in their own homes during a mother’s absence by placing a housekeeper in the home and paying her from child-welfare funds. Some boarding homes for the convalescent care o f crippled children have been located and used. An active State child-welfare advisory committee has been appointed and in each childwelfare unit there is a local advisory committee. The Child Welfare Division is limited to the selection o f Colorado workers, which prevents rapid development o f the program because o f a scarcity o f wellequipped child-welfare workers. The small staff has a very large task for the reason that, outside o f Denver, very little service has previously been provided for children, and placement in already overcrowded institutions has been the accepted method of caring for children. Through the cooperation o f the PublicAssistance Division and its field supervisors, the active interest o f the advisory committee, and the cooperation o f other agencies, interpretation o f child-welfare needs is spreading. CONNECTICUT Child-welfare services in Connecticut were placed by Federal requirement under the office of Commissioner of Welfare. The Bureau of Child Welfare was given special supervision over this project as it already was rendering statutory services in rural areas. Through four district offices the Bureau investigates all cases o f neglected and uncared-for children for whom commitment petitions to county homes or the Bureau have been brought; places and supervises such committed children after finding suitable foster homes for them; and licenses independent boarding homes. During the year 1938 three child-welfare workers were assigned by the Bureau o f Child Welfare to two counties, and preliminary steps were taken by the supervisor to establish a worker in a third county. Offices were furnished by the shire town in each county. It is somewhat difficult to evaluate the relationships developed with town and county officials. County and town governments are very individual in Connecti cut, and their local prerogatives are jealously guarded by the officials. T o interpret child-welfare services to the general public as a service only, without court author ity, child-placing facilities, or funds for relief, is somewhat difficult because the results are sometimes rather intangible and because o f the seeming dependence of child-welfare services on already existing agencies and resources. However, that very dependence is a reassurance that local services are being supplemented and not supplanted. Immediate attention to referrals and the fact that something is usually done, even though what is done is not always understood, has resulted in an increasing number of referrals and a rather general testimonial that childwelfare services “ are a great help.” In Windham County, where there is a juvenile court, cases frequently come to the attention of the child-welfare-services worker before they become serious enough for actual referral to the court. The judge invariably asks that super vision be continued when petition for commitment has not resulted in commit ment. The court has stated that the program for child-welfare services is very valuable inasmuch as it provides case work over a period o f time, whereas the court does an intensive investigation, but cannot give continued supervision because o f pressure o f load. In Litchfield County child-welfare services to the local courts vary. Some of the courts have referred certain cases for investigation, have accepted the recom mendations in certain cases, and have requested the child-welfare worker’s super vision in other cases; in one court the only recognition of child-welfare services https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 29 consists o f sending a notice o f hearing, although the importance of early referral has been stressed. In Tolland County the first referrals were two cases in which the judge decided against commitment and continued the cases primarily because supervision o f these children, who would otherwise be unsupervised, would be given by child-welfare workers. Development o f a local advisory committee in Litchfield County was a slow but interesting process. The present committee consists of 31 men and women repre sentative of the various localities and members o f legislative, recreational, religious, medical, and civic groups. The prompt and cordial replies to our first letters and the expression of sincere interest and concern about such community problems as lack of recreational facilities, universally inadequate relief, health services, more adequate school facilities for certain types o f children, and better social legislation were most encouraging. The relationships which have been established with State-wide private agencies seem to be on a sound basis because of carefully worked out policies and the consistent practice of them. The State Bureau o f Mental Hygiene gives excellent cooperation in the testing and treatment of problem children. The difficulty is in convincing some local officials and parents o f the value of these services, sometimes considered “ new fangled” and impractical. Health problems are varied, and sickness is a contributing cause in many social problems in this area. It is only after physical examinations have eliminated the possibility of poor health being a causal factor in the social ills o f a family that the child-welfare workers feel justified in searching for other underlying causes o f a family disintegration. The majority of the families coming to the attention of the child-welfare workers have very definite health problems. Knowledge of State-wide resources has proved helpful in these cases, as the agencies in many of the smaller towns did not look beyond town limits for assistance. DELAWARE An effort has been made in Delaware during the past year to integrate childwelfare services with other activities o f the State Board of Charities and also with all other welfare activities in the State, both public and private. The workers in the program for child-welfare services have believed that the Federal funds made available for the work actually were for the purposes of demonstrating childwelfare services in rural areas and o f indicating that the needs of children could be met in a responsible manner only if skilled services were available and then only if the community really was concerned about its problems. State legislation in the spring o f 1937 provided funds for the direct care of dependent and neglected children by the State Board of Charities. This legisla tion was brought about with the expectation that the use of such funds would be limited to the care o f children away from their own homes. Consequently, funds for child-welfare services have been used for providing case-work services to children in their own homes when it seemed that the children in those homes were not receiving the standard of care that the State expected its children to receive. The Board has sought to find a balance between the liberty o f the individual parent or guardian to bring up his children as he sees fit and the necessity, ma terial and spiritual, that all the people, acting through an established agency, should assume some responsibility for the maintenance of certain standards for every child in Delaware. By June 30, 1938, all workers in the program for child-welfare services in Delaware were either graduates o f professional schools o f social work or had been employed with the understanding that full-time work in a graduate school would https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 30 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 be started the following October. Fortunately, Delaware is easily accessible to several schools o f social work, which enables students to do their field work in the agency. Fortunately, too, a teaching supervisor o f the Pennsylvania School o f Social Work is a staff member o f the State Board. Two other staff members also are qualified supervisors. The Board was compelled to employ nonresident workers, at least until Delaware workers could be trained, as no social workers with even a minimum amount o f training were available. Plans were made to employ seven student workers— all residents o f Delaware. One of the student workers was to be a Negro. The State Board o f Charities cooperated with the Rotary Club o f Dover and the Works Progress Administration in helping to develop recreational facilities for Negroes in that city. A Negro worker on the staff spent a great deal o f time on this project in its initial stages. The project has served a real need in Dover. Because o f the Board’s need for case-work services for individual children, how ever, this worker’s services have not been available for the past few months for this type o f social work. Protective work for children in Delaware has been carried by a private agency, the Children’s Bureau, in the past. The State Board through the program for child-welfare services has practically taken over this function in the two rural counties, thus permitting the Children’s Bureau to concentrate on other types of work. A cooperative plan with the Mothers’ Pension Commission was worked out by means o f which a fellowship at a school o f social work was made available to a worker associated with the Mothers’ Pension Commission. While in training the worker would be a staff member of the State Board o f Charities, but would carry a case load o f carefully selected Mothers’ Pension Commission cases. Such cases would be chosen because o f their need for service which could not be given by regular workers on the staff, who were carrying huge case loads. Close cooperation has been maintained with other children’s agencies in the State. Arbitrary limitations in the work to be done have been tentatively estab lished, such as relinquishing a large part o f the adoption work to one o f the private agencies. On the other hand, all cases o f neglect involving legal action probably will be handled by the State Board. A plan has been worked out with the indus trial schools whereby children of unmarried mothers committed to the schools are now assured essential social services. Something may be said regarding community participation in the program for child-welfare services. Delaware is a small State. The members o f the State Board come from all three counties. The Board has served as a case committee. Other meetings have been held with local groups. It is our growing belief that case committees cannot be superimposed, but must grow out o f the community’s concern over individual children. People may learn to be concerned about all children if they first become concerned about individual children. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA The program o f child-welfare services in the District o f Columbia is a project being carried on as a demonstration in case work, with the use o f community resources, in the prevention o f problems related to child dependency, neglect, and delinquency. This project was decided on by the Board o f Public Welfare in collab oration with an advisory committee comprising the executives o f local private and public agencies. The District o f Columbia for many years has had legal provi sion for the care o f children committed by the juvenile court to the guardianship o f the public agency, but the funds and services o f the Board may be utilized in the care o f children only after commitment. In the United States census o f 1930 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 31 the District of Columbia was shown to rank second highest among the jurisdictions in its class in the number o f dependent children cared for away from their own people. It was, therefore, because o f the need to establish protective services as part o f the public child-welfare program that this demonstration was undertaken. The project began operating at the beginning o f the calendar year 1937. The staff consists o f a director, three field workers, stenographers, and clerks, all chosen through the United States Civil Service Commission. The offices are located in two school buildings— one for white children and one for colored chil dren. This arrangement was sought as a means o f reaching as early as possible problems in child dependency, neglect, and delinquency. That it has served to facilitate this purpose is shown by the fact that more than 50 percent o f the children now brought to the attention o f the unit are referred by the principals o f the schools in the area in which the project is operating. The area selected for the demonstration comprises 8 census tracts in the north east section o f Washington. The unit has been utilized for consultation and advice as well as for referral o f cases by the principals of the 12 elementary schools and the 2 junior high schools in the project area. A close working relationship exists between the unit staff and 4 principals having the responsibility for 8 school buildings. With this group o f principals the unit operates in a sense as an integral part o f the school system in that situations o f neglect and delinquency are rou tinely referred to the unit. Besides the case-work program, the unit staff participates in community pro grams, particularly within the project area. Research is done currently when the need for it develops as part o f the project program. For instance, three studies of gangs have been made. These activities grew out o f requests from municipal playground supervisors and the police for advice and assistance in problems related to children in these groups. Case-work services were provided where indicated. A study group for parents has been organized in one o f the Negro schools at the request o f the principal. The worker who gives the service in this school, with the collaboration o f the principal and the president o f the Parent-Teacher Association, works out programs for the group. The parents bring to the meetings the problems encountered in the care o f their children, and in addition to these specific case discussions, programs for more general information are outlined and carried out with the assistance o f group leaders who are brought in by the staff member o f the demonstration unit. From the beginning o f the project intake policies and other problems o f the case-work program have been worked out with the aid of a case committee. The personnel o f this committee comprises case-work supervisors from the family and protective-service agencies and representative lay persons from the community.. This group at the beginning o f the project served to define intake, and in general throughout the progress o f the demonstration has been helpful in working out the case-work program. The unit has collaborated with the Washington Council o f Social Agencies and with neighborhood councils in research and in community planning. Early in the project a study was made o f the organized resources for recreational activities within the project area. This inquiry showed outstanding needs, especially in regard to the Negro children. The experience of the unit points to the need o f some type of community organi zation for care of the children o f employed mothers. This is a very considerable problem in the experience of the unit and is not limited to groups at the very lowest economic levels but seems to be rathej general throughout the whole community. Even in families where the joint income from the salaries o f both https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 32 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 parents provides an adquate budget, the parents are not able to provide suitable and adequate supervision for care of the children during the mother’s employment away from the home. During the meetings of the case committee the problems involved in this situation have been discussed as they grew out of some o f the case material analyzed. As would be expected, other agencies reflect the ex perience of the demonstration unit. Another problem is that of the absence of facilities for children requiring special care. Among these are two epileptics and one postencephalitic. Although these cases are few in number, they call for special types of care in which the District of Columbia is lacking. The case committee has facilitated the work of the unit in coordinating the services which different agencies might make available to meet the needs o f a given family. In general the social services to the home have been brought together through the services of the unit staff member. The committee discussion has proved to be an instrumentality for clarifying problems as well as for coor dinating services. The unit was set up by the Board of Public Welfare as a distinct unit reporting directly to the Board and to the director of public welfare. In studies o f the public services within the past year the unit was reported to have demonstrated the need for a community-wide program o f protective services to be operated by the public agency, and the provision for such service was recommended. These studies were made on the initiative o f legislative committees, and it is anticipated that the recommendations will be carried out, at least in part. Note.— In July 1939 Congress made an appropriation to the Board o f Public Welfare o f the District o f Columbia which enabled the board to supplement the public child-welfare work o f the District by allocating approximately $30,000 for a new division that will make “ protection services” available on a city-wide basis. Therefore, the project which has been conducted with funds for child-welfare services will be replaced by a demonstration in some special field o f protective and preventive services. FLORIDA Prior to the initiation o f child-welfare services, Florida had limited provisions for individual case work with children, either private or public. There was no boarding-home program, except a very scattered, disorganized type o f foster care utilized by courts and other agencies, without individual selection or supervision. The only recognized children’s agency was the State-wide private society making permanent adoptive placements. There was no general State relief, nor aid to dependent children. Facilities for family relief and service were extremely scattered and generally most inadequate, and for the most part were conducted by county commissioners. In 1936, when plans were being made for meeting the outstanding needs in the children’s field through the provision o f child-welfare services, two methods of approach were adopted: 1. Demonstrations o f case-work services for children were provided in four rural counties. 2. Training programs in two counties (training centers and educational leave) were developed to meet the need for adequate personnel for an antici pated expanding program. Two training units were established, having a twofold purpose: to train personnel and to develop permanent child-welfare centers in the two counties where the centers were established. The program for child-welfare services has functioned in these 6 counties since the fall o f 1936. In the fiscal year 1937, workers in these counties gave service to 1,801 children and spent local funds amounting to $10,137.23 for care o f children. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 33 About half o f this amount was used for boarding care. Although this sum is not in itself impressive, it represents the development o f a consciousness o f the need for this type o f service which is significant in communities where relief was provided rather generally at $2 per month for whole families. Interest in what case-work service can accomplish in children’s lives has not been confined to these 6 counties but has spread into many other communities. In all 6 counties greater community participation has been obtained and in practically all more local support has been assured. Ten workers are receiving additional training through the training program and are being absorbed in counties as they return from educational leave. During the year both counties in which training centers were located began work on definite plans looking toward the establishment o f permanent child-welfare agencies to be supported ultimately by the county. During the year some interesting results o f the influence o f child-welfare services in several counties have been noted, especially in those where the training centers, with their larger staff o f supervisors and students, were able to do more extensive case work and to affect the thinking o f a larger group. In both o f these counties the State placed a trained worker to carry the regular case load, thus giving the trainees an opportunity for more restricted case work. Reorganization o f the programs o f several agencies resulted from the centers’ activities, and reallocation o f funds with more emphasis on case-work services has followed in some instances. The experience o f workers and supervisory staff indicates that certain of Florida’s extremely rural counties do not provide satisfactory opportunities for a specialized service to children because of a complete lack o f basic facilities for family and medical care, and that these counties will not offer possibilities for development of local responsibility for a long time. In a program of expansion, it is believed that counties with some relief and medical facilities will offer sounder opportunities for good demonstrations o f case-work service to children and will present greater possibilities for influencing public interest and support o f such a program. GEORGIA Prior to 1937 only one county in the State o f Georgia offered a program o f services for children. A few juvenile courts in urban centers, a few inadequate State institutions for the delinquent and handicapped, church and private in stitutions of varying standards, and a small State Department of Public Welfare with two members giving consultant and case-work service on children’s problems completed the picture. From October 1936 to July 1, 1937, the program for child-welfare services was handicapped by changes in legislation and inadequate personnel. On July 1, 1937, simultaneously with the launching of the public-assistance program, childwelfare services were initiated and attached to the Division o f Child Welfare in the newly organized and enlarged State Department o f Public Welfare. The program for child-welfare services has enabled the State Department of Public Welfare to offer to the entire State assistance in case work for children by providing district consultants and child-welfare workers in county units. It has also been instrumental in bringing to directors o f county departments of public welfare a better understanding of individual case-work values and to public officials and influential citizens a better understanding o f the needs of children and ways of meeting them. The district consultants have carried some case work, responding to calls for assistance from county directors and judges. They have offered consultation service also in individual problems and in community organi zation. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 34 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 By February 1938, eight local child-welfare units, where the services o f a childwelfare worker with some formal training were available, had been developed. Most o f these units serve one county, although it has been possible to combine two counties in a unit in some instances. In these counties the quality o f service given the children has improved, and the cooperation o f local directors and the community’s understanding o f and interest in children’s needs have increased greatly. Child-welfare committees have been organized in a few units. During this year, the crippled children’s program was organized by the Division of Child Welfare, in close cooperation with the program for child-welfare services and functioned as a part of the Division of Child Welfare during the last quarter of the year. On July 1, 1938, the crippled children’s program became a sepa rate division under the direction of a qualified orthopedic surgeon. During this year, six students were given scholarships for further training in social work. In January 1938 a psychologist was added to the staff o f the Division of Child Welfare, thus affording the first public service o f the kind in the history o f the State. Psychological clinics were held for a week in each congressional district and children from the units were brought in for study and follow-up service. Inter pretation of causes o f behavior problems has been given to school teachers and public officials through meetings and conferences. In April 1938, through the use of funds for child-welfare services, a special consultant on child placing has been added to the State staff. A policy has since been established whereby cooperative agreements between county welfare depart ments and the State Department of Public Welfare are set up for the protection of children in foster homes. The outstanding problems at present are the grave financial situation in the State and the difficulty of obtaining qualified personnel. HAWAII The Territorial law o f 1919, as amended in 1935, included provision for county child-welfare boards which were appointed by the Governor. The basic principle underlying child-welfare work during this period was that of “ mothers’ aid,” but the law permitted foster-care payments also. In 1937 the Territorial Depart ment o f Public Welfare was established and child-welfare workers were employed under the program for child-welfare services for four of the five principal Hawaiian islands. These workers have been sifting through the child-welfare problems in their districts in an attempt to organize and develop facilities for the protection and care of dependent and neglected children and children in danger of becoming delinquent. Adjustments have been made with the juvenile courts whereby all dependent children in need of placement away from their own homes are referred immediately to the child-welfare workers. Old cases of dependent children under the care of the juvenile courts have been transferred to child-welfare workers on all the islands except Oahu, where the court had agreed to continue financial support o f their dependent children until January 1 , 1939. At that time the cases will be transferred to child-welfare workers. Many o f these children have been in insti tutions for long periods of time (10 to 12 years), and re-placement in foster homes has frequently been found to be necessary. In the past, cases o f children on one island were often handled by agencies located on another island, which resulted in neglect. Child-welfare workers have arranged for a transfer of cases so that now children in foster care on a particular island are under the supervision of workers on that islanch https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 35 Frequent conferences are held with public-assistance workers on cases o f aid to dependent children and general assistance where neglected children are involved. Some of these cases are carried by the child-welfare worker. Some case-work service to dependent children in the institutions that have been investigated and licensed by the board has been attempted. A budget for child-welfare services for the Territory was worked out with a view to centralizing the child-welfare program and placing it on a more assured basis. This was approved by the board. Workers on several o f the islands are demonstrating the need for more trained child-welfare workers and for committees that will help stimulate interest in a more adequate child-welfare program on all the islands. IDAHO Three years ago Idaho, largely rural, might well have served as the typical State for which child-welfare services were established. There was no State pro gram for children, and the State Department of Public Assistance had only three workers who had received any social-service training. An interest in child welfare prompted the State Department to allow six o f its ablest workers (including those who had received some social-service training) to serve as the nucleus for the establishment o f a child-welfare program. To achieve this aim, the State Department brought to the State a specialist in child welfare as a temporary supervisor to set up the program, train the workers, and point out the objectives to be achieved. Meanwhile one worker left the State for a period of educational leave. During a 6-month period, the supervisor and the five workers introduced the program to the people throughout the State, each of the five workers carrying a district of several counties. At the end of this 6-month period each worker was assigned to one county to carry out a concentrated case-work and communityorganization job. The salaries o f these workers were paid one-half from State funds and one-half from Federal funds for child-welfare services, and the workers carried aid-to-dependent-children cases and other public-assistance cases as well as nonrelief cases. That workers, inexperienced and limited in training, should endeavor to pioneer in a field that would have challenged experienced and trained workers can be attributed only to the fact that they had vision and recognition o f the need and enthusiasm for the task. Because o f these characteristics the workers were eager to obtain further training. Hence for them, as well as for an additional five workers (persons with exceptionally good educational background but with no professional training), it has been necessary to carry on a staff-development program mainly by granting educational leave. The child-welfare library, containing the best of the recent professional publica tions, has been used not only by the child-welfare workers but by the State Depart ment staff as well. Child-welfare conferences, usually 3 days in length, are held at quarterly intervals. Specialists in case work, community organization, juvenile delinquency, and other phases of child-welfare work are brought into the State to conduct these conferences. An awareness o f the State’s social needs, as well as an awareness o f the child-welfare program, is being developed by inviting repre sentatives o f social and civic organizations to some o f these meetings. Among the more serious problems facing the child-welfare program in Idaho is proper supervision o f a staff placed in a widely scattered area, parts of which must be reached by travel outside the State. It is believed that the problem is being solved more adequately this year by placing on the child-welfare staff two field consultants who will give closer supervision to the workers in the field. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 36 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 The lack of available resources for solving serious child-welfare problems is the cause of considerable concern in the child-welfare program. For example, the lack o f provision for foster homes has made it impossible to handle successfully many problems that otherwise might be solved. As a preliminary step in develop ing a State-wide foster-home program, the State Department has contributed from its general relief fund sufficient money to provide foster-home care for six children. B y means of this demonstration as well as by constant interpretation, it is hoped that the need for such a program will be recognized by welfare officials as well as by lay persons. It is particularly true in Idaho that the communities must ask for social programs; social programs cannot be imposed on the communities. When the demand is made by the public for foster-home service, the Department will be prepared to lead the way in obtaining and maintaining it. In a similar way resources must be built up for the treatment of mentally and physically handicapped children. In addition to recognizing the responsibility for laying the foundation o f a broad program for children, the Department feels the responsibility of developing the social-service profession within the State. Idaho is the last o f the Western States to be without a State conference of social work. A specialist in community organization, brought into the State by the Department, will act as a consultant in working out plans for the first Idaho State Conference, to be held in the spring o f 1939. ILLINOIS T o the Division of Child Welfare of the Illinois State Department o f Public Wel fare the advent of the provisions for child-welfare services under the Social Security Act has meant the realization o f a long-hoped-for expansion o f service to children throughout the State. Regular functions o f the Division include inspection and licensing of children’s institutions, agencies, and “ family homes” under the Child Welfare Act, licensing o f and investigation o f placements made from maternity hospitals, licensing of boarding homes, administration of a social-service program at the Illinois Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s School, allocation o f the State mothers’ pension fund, and the approval of importation o f dependent children from other States. Limited staff made it impossible to help institutions with their problems, to handle the increasing number o f requests for assistance on children’s cases, or to give much needed leadership to local officials and lay groups in develop ing competent, coordinated services in their own communities. With the increased personnel provided through Federal funds, the State has been able to offer con sultation service to local officials and citizens in handling cases of dependency and predelinquency, and to carry on a limited number o f demonstrations o f skilled services to children in rural areas. Although county welfare departments are provided for by law, their only func tion at present is the administration o f old-age assistance. Illinois does not yet qualify for aid to the blind nor for aid to dependent children. Relief is handled by township supervisors; State blind pensions are administered by the county boards o f supervisors; and mothers’ pensions by the county courts. Probation officers, in places having them, usually have responsibility for adult probation and mothers’ pensions, as well as for cases of juvenile dependency, neglect, and delinquency. In 18 counties introduction of consultant service has been accomplished through studies of mothers’ pensions made at the request of the county judges. In addi tion to being a definite service of immediate and practical value to local officials, these surveys have led to the heart of dependency problems in the counties and have offered opportunity for case work on a demonstration basis. It was found that mothers’ pension funds were being used to meet almost every type of depend- https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 37 ency problem, such as supporting children in orphanages or paying for their care away from their mothers. With the aid o f consultants, local officials have attempted to set up the pension administration as it was intended to be set up, and to work out plans for other dependency cases through township relief or county general funds. In addition to giving intensive case-work services in critical situations found in mothers’ pension families, consultants have also been asked by township supervisors, judges, and State’s attorneys to assist with other cases involving children. This has proved to be a more practical approach than general discussions of dependency and child care. In three of the local child-welfare units lay advisory committees are attacking community problems brought into focus by the cases handled through childwelfare services. Support o f local recreation programs o f the Works Progress Administration and the National Youth Administration, campaigns for better tavern control, assistance with the sale o f Christmas seals to provide money for tuberculin tests, surveys of school attendance, and plans for medical services are some of the projects under way at present. Supplementing the work in the demonstration units are the services o f a psy chologist who is available for psychometric testing whenever needed. More important than the diagnostic testing is the work with the rural school teachers in helping them to recognize early symptoms o f maladjustment and to become aware of the more subtle aspects of child behavior. As the psychologist’s work becomes better understood, teachers are referring not only the mentally defective children but also those with normal or superior intelligence who are not happy or are not able to adjust satisfactorily. Special assistance will be given to the cor rection of reading and other subject disabilities. A consultant on foster care is giving special assistance to small rural institu tions and agencies for children in setting up sound intake standards, social-service policies, and programs of individualization within the institution. In one com munity, as a part of the program for child-welfare services, a worker is being pro vided, on a demonstration basis, to assist the county court and a cooperating private agency in setting up a modern, coordinated program o f child care in the community. As a basis for intelligent planning, the program for child-welfare services, through the work of a research assistant, is seeking to perfect procedures o f re porting children under the care of private child-welfare agencies and to develop a similar reporting system in county courts. INDIANA The 1936 Public Welfare Act created the Children’s Division of the Indiana State Department of Public Welfare along with county departments o f public welfare, giving each county a paid staff and office with well-defined responsibilities in regard to children. The county departments o f public welfare took over the work o f the old county boards o f children’s guardians. The merit system set personnel standards and the new State staff was selected on the basis o f qualifi cation for each position. An amendment to the Welfare Act, which went into effect July 1, 1937, extended the merit plan to the county departments and pro vided for 50 percent reimbursement o f all salaries by the State. The State Department of Public Welfare, through the Children’s Division, proceeded to develop a program for supervision of the county departments and o f children’s institutions and agencies which would give help in recognizing and solving prob lems as well as give leadership in the development o f a sound child-welfare program. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 38 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 The program for child-welfare services financed by Federal funds was closely interwoven with that of the State so that it could bring refinement to the whole program. In March 1938 the State Department of Public Welfare reorganized the supervision of county departments by its field staff. Under the new plan each district representative was assigned to a district o f six counties. This repre sentative was made responsible for the development of the entire public-welfare program in each county. The Children’s Division made available to each dis trict representative consultant service to aid in the development of the county child-welfare program. This plan makes possible longer periods o f service from the child-welfare consultants in the counties to which they go. The child-welfare consultants also study and supervise children’s institutions and assist in correlat ing their programs with those o f other child-caring agencies. During the past fiscal year the child-welfare workers placed by the Children’s Division in the four demonstration counties have carried the child-welfare case load, including selection of foster homes. They also have carried broad respon sibilities for interpretation to the community and for the gradual development of a total community program for children. Children’s committees were organized in three of the four counties. Through careful case presentation and discussion of child-welfare plans and problems, these committee members and the county board members have come to share in responsibility for the child-welfare work. The director and staff members of the county department have used the childwelfare worker as a consultant in some of their case problems. In the demonstration county where services were first given, a local worker is gradually taking over some o f the child-welfare cases in preparation for the time when the special worker will be withdrawn. The social-service department at the Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s Home has made slow but sound progress during the year. The social-service program was started with three workers, one of whom was paid from Federal funds, and has grown to include four workers with one still being paid from Federal funds. The board and superintendent are urging the social workers to spend more time in helping with children’s problems in the institution. At the beginning of the program the social workers were expected to do only the intake work. The population of the institution during the year was reduced from 928 children to 790. The trained staff has cooperated in all parts of the State with the county departments of public welfare and with private agencies in making plans for children and has contributed to the whole program of the Children’s Division by raising standards o f care and by gradually bringing about a better understanding of child welfare. Child-guidance service was set up in cooperation with the maternal and childhealth program of the State Board o f Health, the State Board o f Health giving the services of the psychiatrist and the Children’s Division giving the services of the psychologist and the social worker as well as providing supervision of the program. This service has been given regularly to the demonstration counties Soldiers and Sailors’ Children’s Home. It has been used also by the consultants of the Children’s Division in other county departments and institutions. Educational leave was given to six persons who represent different positions in the State welfare program, each of whom had a definite part in the children’s program on his return to work. The services o f three special workers were used during the summer months of 1937 to concentrate on the development of case records in the county departments of public welfare. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 39 IOWA In 1923 the Iowa Children’s Commission made extensive studies and recom mendations, including recommendations for 10 interrelated laws, which reflected real appreciation of broad general legislation that would allow the development of a constructive child-welfare program and recognize the interests of both com munity and child. Two years later, in 1925, the Bureau of Child Welfare was established. However, all of the recommended 10 bills were not passed, and sufficient funds were not appropriated for the Bureau to provide skilled assistance to meet existing needs. During its first year the program for child-welfare services was under the direc tion of the Bureau of Child Welfare, but when the Board of Social Welfare was established in July 1937, the functions and activities of the Bureau of Child Welfare were transferred to the Division of Child Welfare. The passage o f a law, which became effective in July 1937, requiring State residence for staff members, tem porarily crippled the program as the original staff had been carefully selected without restriction as to residence. At the present time the program for childwelfare services is giving special attention to direct case-work service in rural areas. Direct case-work service and consultation services were provided according to the needs o f the county, efforts being concentrated in rural areas or areas o f special need. When requested, assistance was rendered in organizing childwelfare services by interpreting the program to community groups and to county public officials. Units were established where none existed previously. Psycho logical services were made available to schools, communities, judges, and social agencies, both public and private, dealing with children. Special studies were conducted by the unit o f psychological services in three school systems, representing the town, rural, and consolidated schools o f the State. Scholarships for educational leave were granted in an effort to establish and maintain adequate staff. Coopera tion with existing social agencies was established and maintained and working rela tionships with other State departments and programs were established. The long-time process o f raising social standards within the State was begun, and the need o f a training center for students and staff was recognized but has not been made possible yet because o f the lack o f continuity and stability in this and other programs within the State. Some o f the accomplishments and developments in districts and demonstration units in the past year are: 1. Increased community awareness o f children’s problems where little had existed previously. 2. Greater acceptance o f responsibility for plans made for individual chil dren by county boards o f supervisors. 3. Decreased numbers of children, in demonstration counties, unjustifiably committed to State institutions. 4. Greater recognition by courts o f the value o f adequate and authentic investigation o f children’s cases preceding hearing. 5. Analysis and study o f rural school children whose mental retardation and behavior problems were difficult to diagnose and treat. 6. Aid given to rural school teachers in the handling o f subnormal children. 7. Development o f a foster boarding-home program as a tool in the treat ment o f children’s cases. 8. Improved handling of children’s cases by the use of local and State resources. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 40 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 In order to meet the persistent demand for direct case-work service, the size o f the districts has been reduced from 20 counties to districts o f from 2 to 5 counties, and the number o f single demonstration units has been increased. The services o f a State child-welfare consultant have been provided for all other counties. KANSAS The first legal provision for a State-wide service program for children in Kansas came with the establishment of the Child Welfare Division in the State Board of Social Welfare in 1937. Previously the Kansas State Orphans’ Home and the cor rectional schools for boys and girls under the Board o f Administration comprised all o f the State facilities, although county care o f children on an individual basis was sometimes possible. Social services for children have been limited; foster placement from the Kansas State Orphans’ Home has been the responsibility o f one person; parole from the Boys’ and Girls* Industrial School was under the same officers who serve the penal institution; and full-time probation officers in the juvenile courts have been limited mostly to the three largest cities. Private agencies for children have been few. The largest city has developed a children’s agency. For years a private child-placing agency, whose work was intended to be State-wide, has been forced to limit its services to fit its small budget and staff. Probate-court reports reveal a large number o f adoptions annually, few o f which were given service by any o f the child-caring agencies. The Social Welfare Act of Kansas provides for an integration o f all welfare services in the county social-welfare board composed of three county commis sioners in each county who have control over county personnel (with the approval of the State Board) and with the right to provide care for children locally. It also created in the State Board a division to work with private agencies and institutions and boarding homes in the State for the improvement of standards of care. During the first 2 years of administering child-welfare services great emphasis was placed upon a training program for all workers in the county social-welfare boards by the provision of teacher-consultants who held regular meetings with groups of county workers and commissioners and case discussions with individual workers, using current case loads as a basis of child-welfare discussion. Two demonstration units were centers of intensive supervision for selected county workers given leave of absence by their county boards for a few months* special training to prepare them to assist in interpreting case work with special problems in their county departments. Upon this basis of training the program for child-welfare services has been reorganized to spread intensive work with children into a larger number of counties and to provide consultation service to county workers in other rural counties. Because o f a lack o f workers with specialized child-welfare background, funds for child-welfare services were provided to allow selected workers to take educa tional leave for professional training as a background for the development and administration of county programs of child-welfare services. The county childwelfare workers are administratively a part of the staff of their county socialwelfare boards, but are supervised in case-work and child-welfare activities by the State Child Welfare Division. Policies and procedures of the Child Welfare Division are worked out carefully with other divisions of the State Board of Social Welfare to avoid administrative difficulties and duplication o f services. The child-welfare consultants, working closely with the field supervisors of the public-assistance division in their districts, confine themselves to special services for children, including advice to county workers or actual case-work service on behavior problems of children in their own https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 41 homes, the placement and supervision o f children needing care away from their own homes, consultation in community organization for child welfare, inter pretation o f the needs of children and ways o f meeting them. Several cooperative projects have been entered upon with other agencies, public and private. Among these are the mental-hygiene diagnostic and treat ment facilities for children from nearby counties in eastern Kansas developed by Osawatomie State Hospital; the speech clinics made possible through the speech department of Wichita College; the psychological services offered to limited areas by three State colleges; the division o f responsibility with the State-wide children’s agency to avoid duplication of service; and a plan, worked out with the State division responsible for work with children’s agencies and institutions, providing for the Child Welfare Division to assume responsibility for visiting boarding homes in rural counties covered by its services. KENTUCKY Since 1895 the State’s interest in child welfare in Kentucky has been expressed in the form of subsidies to two private institutions— the Kentucky Children’s Home Society and the Kentucky Home Society for Colored Children. From time to time legislation was passed in behalf of child welfare, but no money was appropriated. In 1928 the Kentucky Children’s Bureau was created and was given general powers relating to child welfare, mothers’ aid, and the organization of county child-welfare bureaus, but only two counties developed a mother’s aid program. The 1936 Reorganization Act provided for a Division of Child Welfare in the newly created State Department o f Welfare and gave to it general powers to supervise child-caring institutions and to provide for the dependent and neglected children of the State. The Division was organized in March 1937, and certain objectives were immedi ately set up. Chief among them were the development o f better local organiza tions for the handling of children’s problems, assistance to the subsidized institu tions in their social-service programs, and the development o f case-work and consultant service in local areas. Four case workers and a supervisor paid from Federal funds were assigned to the Kentucky Children’s Home Society. More than 60 percent of the budget of this institution was financed by State funds. By June 30, 1938, the over crowded condition in the institution had been greatly reduced. Twenty children had been placed in boarding homes, others had been placed in free homes, and some had been returned to relatives. Psychometric tests led to the return o f other children of subnormal mentality to the counties from which they had been originally committed, proper supervision having been arranged. Plans for the State to take over and operate this institution were made. A reorganization of the Kentucky Home Society for Colored Children seemed to be indicated, but conditions were found to be such that in October 1937 the State subsidy was withdrawn, and a section for colored children was created in the Division of Child Welfare o f the State Department o f Welfare. The children were moved from the receiving home and were placed in boarding homes under a trained supervisor. Ninety-six children were cared for in this way by the end o f June 1938. In April a special consultant from the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department o f Labor was loaned to the Division and a study o f resources for the care of colored children in the State was undertaken. In connection with this study a conference o f representative Negro citizens was held in Louis ville on May 30. Local public child-welfare services have been carried on in four demonstration districts in each of which a child-welfare supervisor has been located. Three https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 42 Child-Weltare Services, 1936—38 field consultants have been available for case-work services and communityorganization work, and have offered consultation services to public officials in several areas. By the end o f the fiscal year 1938, 10 counties were participating financially in services to children and 7 counties were cooperating with the State in a mothers’ aid program. Two institutes were held during the fiscal year. The Division o f Child Welfare has found the need o f interpretation o f a service program to local officials and citizens to be one of its greatest problems. Another problem has been the lack o f sufficient funds for relief and assistance. Kentucky does not have as yet an aid-to-dependent-children program under the Social Security Act. In many cases service is useless without accompanying relief. A third problem has been the need for better child-welfare legislation, especially in relation to the removal of children from bad home conditions and in adoption procedures. All these problems have been intensified by the difficulty of obtaining trained personnel. LOUISIANA Prior to the establishment in 1936 of the Louisiana State Department o f Public Welfare, including a Bureau o f Child Welfare, the only State public services to children were those provided by the very small staff o f the Board o f Charities and Correction which gave advice to children’s institutions and approval o f adoptions. Because of the lack of an adequate number o f workers prepared for childwelfare work, much o f the effort of the Bureau o f Child Welfare has been directed to a training program in which selected workers from the parishes have been given educational leave to get professional training in child-welfare work in the Tulane University School of Social Work, which included a period o f careful supervision in a child-welfare unit o f a rural parish. When these workers had completed a year’s preparation, they were placed in child-welfare units attached to parish depart ments of public welfare, and another selected group o f workers were given edu cational leave. Several students on educational leave from other southern States also have been given the privilege o f supervised field work in the parish child-welfare units. Considerable expansion of parish services to children has been made possible by the allocation of State welfare funds to pay half the salary and all of the travel expenses of the parish child-welfare workers. For services to children in parishes in which there is no child-welfare worker on the local staff and to give technical supervision to the local child-welfare work ers, the Bureau of Child Welfare has developed a staff of State child-welfare consultants. In 1938 the Louisiana Legislature, by transferring the duties of the State Board of Charities and Corrections to the State Department of Public Welfare and by passing a new adoption law provided a comprehensive program for State-wide activities for the protection and care of children. These activities included services to agencies, institutions, and individuals caring for children or placing them in foster care, and provision for social studies and supervision o f all adoptions, with reports to the courts responsible for granting adoptions. The development of child-welfare services since 1936 provided the nucleus of a staff with back ground and experience in child welfare for the greatly enlarged program. A State advisory committee, consisting of two judges, two lawyers, and two social workers, cooperating with social agencies and lay groups, has been appointed to work with the director o f the Bureau o f Child Welfare to help develop standards for the expanding program for children and to help interpret the program to the public. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 43 MAINE An interesting feature - about the development o f child-welfare services in Maine is the way in which the service has touched child-welfare work all over the State. One might say that the development in many o f the local areas in the first 2 years has been general rather than concentrated. When the program for child-welfare services was initiated, the first job seemed to be to influence public officials in local towns to see that there were other ways of caring for neglected and delinquent children than to commit them to the Bureau of Social Welfare and to impress on these same people the extent to which the local community is responsible for meeting children’s needs in their own homes. By and large, local officials are beginning to accept the new responsibility that has been placed upon them since child-welfare services became operative. The five district supervisors, half o f whose salaries are paid from Federal funds for child-welfare services, have contributed their share to the revival of local interest and local responsibility. This has been accomplished by direct contact with officials and lay groups in their respective districts and by the quality of staff education and supervision which they are able to give workers on the staff o f the Bureau of Social Welfare. The Bureau of Social Welfare has a staff of 46 case workers. Thirty-two of them have joined the staff since child-welfare services first started. With one or two exceptions all o f these workers have in-service training in child-welfare services to their credit, followed, after the training period is over, by the super vision of district supervisors who have been trained to use modern methods of care for children. The workers on the staff o f the Bureau cover every town in the State in the course of their work. They may be regarded as the vanguard of child-welfare services, preparing the way in certain communities for the future establishment of local programs for child-welfare services. The workers from the Bureau of Social Welfare, most o f them possessing the point o f view that most children can be served best in their own homes, are the ones who are giving local officials their first taste o f what a social worker can do to help them with their local problems. The workers are taking on more and more service cases referred to them by local officials. The work has reached a point where it is not a question of persuading officials to cooperate with social workers but of the workers on the staff of the Bureau having the time to take on extra service cases. The ground work being laid by the staff o f the Bureau is o f inestimable help in the promotion of local programs for child-welfare services. A worker is in a position to explain child-welfare services to officials in her territory and at the same time to notify the supervisor of child-welfare services when a town or group of towns is ready to start a local program. The actual establishment of local areas for child-welfare services has been slow, but the progress made has been steady and sound. The Bridgton area has grown in 2 years from one town participating financially to three towns. The social worker in this area has integrated child-welfare services with all the different welfare activities carried on by the towns. This includes the study o f appli cations for general town assistance and the recommendation o f the kind and amount of assistance to be granted; service to nonrelief as well as relief families; and coordination of the various social-security programs and other Federal pro grams with local public and private undertakings so that the communities may have a better coordinated and integrated welfare program. The work being carried on in Bridgton has spread to other towns in that section. Norway, a neighboring town, is now starting a child-welfare program of its own. 212629°—40---- 4 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 44 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 The officials in Norway hope that other small towns around Norway will become interested in what the social worker is doing in this community and will ask for her services. MARYLAND When child-welfare services were initiated in Maryland, there was little State or local public provision for service to children. One State-aided child-placing agency gave some service to some rural areas. This service was limited, however, as to both type and amount. The public-assistance programs administered through the local county welfare boards brought attention to the many unmet needs of children in those parts o f the State predominantly rural; the local com munities were turning more and more to the public assistance agency in the area for service in meeting a variety of problems centering around the child and his family— problems which could not be met by public-assistance alone. Therefore the emphasis of the State in making use of Federal funds for childwelfare services was placed primarily on helping local units provide service to children by assigning qualified child-welfare workers to more local units and making available more adequate case supervision than could otherwise be provided. Several of the more significant features of the program have been the direct outgrowth of the demands made upon the local county welfare board for assist ance in providing for the needs o f children. Some o f these features are briefly outlined here. The juvenile courts, where such courts were established, or the magistrates handling juvenile cases wanted help in determining more careful treatment for children coming to their attention. They began to ask for certain background information about the child and his family and also for help in planning for him. This has been a major developmental service to the court, initiated partly by the court and partly by the child-welfare workers in the local welfare units. Another development made possible through the program for child-welfare services was foster-home work. This work has grown out o f the increased service to families coming to the attention o f the welfare boards through the courts, through local community interest, and through application for aid to dependent children. The provision for foster-home care has meant the development o f a new service to the community, in several instances where none previously existed. Another service was a training course for workers on the Eastern Shore. As better supervision was provided for workers on the county welfare boards, the demand for more adequate training was made by the workers who were unable to go away for an extended period o f professional training. The Pennsylvania School of Social Work conducted a course, “ Attitudes and Behavior,” for 15 weeks on the Eastern Shore. Because much o f the teaching centered around the child and was basic to all child-care service, a small portion of the funds for child-welfare service was used to help defray the expenses o f the teacher. Workers paid their own tuition and travel expenses. Regular credit was given for satisfactory comple tion of the course. This use o f funds for child-welfare services made a real con tribution to all workers. Another significant child-welfare project was a special study of 39 boys from Prince Georges County who were in a large correctional institution in Baltimore. This entailed visits to the homes o f these boys, to their relatives, and to the agencies which had known their families. Although the complete results o f the study are not yet available, there is no question that it has meant an increased interest on the part of the institution in making a more adequate study o f a child before he is committed. It is hoped that case-work service to children while in the institution and after discharge will be increased as a result of this study, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 45 Some o f the outstanding needs are the further development o f service to the child in his own home, continued service to the court, and development o f foster home facilities. MASSACHUSETTS The demonstration in supplying child-welfare services to rural areas in Massa chusetts was begun with the aid of Federal funds in April 1936. Since that time 18 towns in the southern half of Worcester County have received assistance from one or two workers with headquarters in that district. Beginning in February 1937,15 towns in the Cape Cod area have been given service. The experiment in preventive services that has been conducted through the program for child-welfare services has shown that a large area needing childwelfare work has been neglected and that the problem is to prevent neglect, dependency, and delinquency by constructive work at an early stage. The cooper ation of local officials and citizens and the real interest shown in the work that- has been done for their communities has been most encouraging. When the program for child-welfare services was initiated in the two areas it was the intention to continue the demonstration for a limited period until the existence of the need for local preventive work had been shown, and a way could be dis covered to localize the work as the responsibility o f town public-welfare officials. In accordance with the requirements of the Federal Social Security Act it was planned to use the major part of the Federal funds for child-welfare services for assistance to local communities in providing child-welfare services, with such supervision and consultation by workers on the staff of the State Department of Public Welfare as was needed to promote local activity. Various conditions have delayed the contemplated transition from demonstration to a program of coopera tion with local communities. It is expected that the effort to localize child-welfare services in small groups of towns will be successful when it becomes possible to plan the State program in relation to the reorganization now under way in the public-assistance administra tion of the State Department of Public Welfare, which involves setting up a num ber o f regional offices for State supervisory work. Note.— Since this was written, three towns in Worcester County which were in cluded in the demonstration concluded arrangements to employ a child-welfare worker, the towns sharing the salary. Therefore, the first period of demonstration has been completed, and plan? are being made for the development of a new pro gram o f State-wide rural child-welfare services. MICHIGAN At the time the program for child-welfare services was begun in Michigan, the State was confronted with serious lacks in the coordination of public-welfare activities, including State planning for children. One favorable factor was that the State had long before acknowledged its responsibility for the care o f depend ent and neglected children in the establishment of the State Public School in 1871. Following that significant step, there was a period during which the changing concepts o f adequate substitute parental care for children were not reflected noticeably in the State program. The program remained largely insti tutional until 1935, when the State Public School was abolished and the Michigan Children’s Institute was established with a foster-home program for dependent and neglected children. Locally the planning for dependent, neglected, and delinquent children has remained the legal responsibility of the probate courts and the county welfare agents of the State Welfare Department. The most noticeable problem in child care in Michigan has been the lack of family case https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 46 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 work. Family ties have been easily severed in many cases, and the application o f case-work skills in the newer trend toward preserving the child’s own home was not recognized. Because there was no children’s division in the State Welfare Department, child-welfare services were established in Michigan under the administration of the Michigan Children’s Institute. In line with the State’s development of foster-home care for dependent children on the basis o f individual needs, an educational approach was attempted through child-welfare services. This was planned to reach judges of probate courts, county-welfare agents, and other local county officials in the rural areas to point out the individual problems o f children and methods of meeting them. Accordingly, the mobile unit was organized as an activity of the child-welfare program, and through that medium children’s situations were studied. Their problems were discussed with local people and an effort was made to plan for the children with the local workers. In counties where children were on the waiting list for acceptance by the Michigan Chil dren’s Institute, the situations o f these children were studied. As a result, plans were made for the care of 167 children by the Michigan Children’s Insti tute. The study of these children also became the basis for the formulation of intake policies by the Michigan Children’s Institute. Emphasis was placed upon the importance o f family ties and the importance o f considering emotional needs of children in planning for them. Subsequently several judges o f the probate court requested certain background material about certain children in order to plan treatment for them carefully. During the fiscal year 1937—38, full-time qualified child-welfare workers were placed in six rural counties in the probate courts, under the supervision o f the State Welfare Department. They assumed responsibilities formerly carried by the county welfare agents who worked on a per diem basis. As a result, full utilization o f local resources for the care of children has been stimulated in these areas, and local participation in planning for children in the various communities has been increased. In February 1937 a preventive program was established in Hillsdale County to emphasize the possibilities of fully utilizing case-work serv ices to meet problems at an early stage and thus to obviate the necessity for court action later. During the last fiscal year, as a result of the child-welfare workers’ accomplishments with case situations, the communities in this county have become more aware of effective methods of caring for dependent and neg lected children and of planning for care of children in their own homes. In June 1937 the Bureau of Child Welfare was set up in the State Welfare Department, thus establishing the basis for a new administrative relationship between the program for child-welfare services and the Michigan State Welfare Department. Further emphasis on improving the standards of child-welfare work in rural counties by strengthened supervision through an in-service train ing program for all child-welfare workers and county welfare agents o f the State Welfare Department is thus made possible. The new Bureau increases the coordination o f children’s services and is a step in advance of the general reor ganization of public-welfare administration in Michigan, which is anticipated in the near future. MINNESOTA Child-welfare services in Minnesota had their beginning 20 years ago in Minne sota’s children’s code. Under the leadership o f the State Children’s Bureau ftnri through volunteer child-welfare boards in such counties as chose to organize them, interest in and understanding of child welfare were built up through the years. No significant change altered this basic organization until recently. Within the past year or two, newly organized county welfare boards have taken https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Siate Summaries 47 over child-welfare responsibilities in the counties; the State has received Fed eral funds for child-welfare services; and an integration o f public-welfare services has taken place on both county and State levels. This has resulted in an expansion of services. Integration has created a joint field staff which serves practically all phases of welfare work in State-county supervisory relationships. Through the use of Federal funds for child-welfare services, the number o f counties having paid competent child-welfare workers has increased from 20 in March 1936 to 84 (all but 3 counties in the State) in June 1938. A part o f this great increase in trained personnel can be attributed to the new aid-to-dependent-children program, which is integrated with childwelfare services, and to the setting up of county welfare boards and the coor dination resulting therefrom. The development o f trained staff and the integration of their work in the counties have led to a gradual shifting o f case work from the State to the county level. Basic laws are not changed and correspondence continues to come to the State agency, but few cases are taken over by the State agency. More and more, children’s cases are regarded as the county’s problem. The State agency assists the county in such a way that all available facilities may be used and supervision maintained to assure proper handling of cases. Child-welfare work done by the counties is supervised by the field staff of 18 supervisors, who supervise all of the services for which the State Welfare Depart ment is responsible, and, with the aid of Federal funds for child-welfare services, by child-welfare consultants. Both supervisors and child-welfare consultants find a growing awareness of the importance o f children’s problems, not only among county welfare boards and personnel but also among county officials and the general public. These people are becoming interested in preventive work. In several parts of the State juvenile-court judges invite child-welfare workers to meet with them for a discussion of juvenile-court problems, o f prevention of delinquency, and of the development of community resources. Long-standing cases of neglect and long-standing conditions leading to dependency, delinquency, and general handicaps are finally being attacked on the local level. Selection and licensing o f boarding homes has been very much improved during the past several years, with the result that a number o f children capable of ad justment outside of an institution have been placed in foster homes. Marked progress is shown in providing the type of foster-home care best suited to the needs of the individual child, in safeguarding placement, and in using private foster-home care instead of long-time institutional care. All except 7 o f the 84 counties have proper boarding-home resources. The counties are making increased use of mental tests prior to commitment o f feeble-minded persons. The large increase in trained county personnel has permitted more comprehensive planning for feeble-minded children who must be cared for and supervised in their own communities. Perhaps the most important development during the past several years has been a renewed emphasis on the family as the basis of work with children. The increase in competency of county personnel— made possible by Federal funds for child-welfare services— has enabled the State agency to formulate policies and procedures which do not isolate the child and his problems, but consider them as a part of the whole family situation and attack them as a unit. The environ ment is thus recognized as the main source o f causative factors, and attention is focused on the real home as against the adoptive home. MISSISSIPPI Although the first extraordinary session o f the Mississippi Legislature passed an enabling act on September 19, 1936, providing for the cooperation by the https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 48 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 State with the United States Children’s Bureau in furthering child-welfare serv ices, no plan for such services was submitted until February 1938. During the intervening year the State Department of Public Welfare had been established. In April 1938 the regular session of the legislature passed an act authorizing the State Department of Public Welfare and the county boards of public welfare to administer and supervise all child-welfare services concerning dependent or neg lected children. Thus legal authority to enter all phases o f child-welfare work in the State was acquired. As no such provision had existed previously and no budgetary allotment of State funds for providing services for children had been made, the pioneering work in this field was undertaken with the aid of Federal funds for child-welfare services, allocated to the State by the United States Children’s Bureau. During the latter part o f April, a supervisor of child-welfare services was appointed. Her arrival coincided with the first State-wide conference of the county workers of the State Department of Public Welfare. As a result, she had an unusual opportunity to explain the philosophy and mechanics of child-welfare services to the entire staff of the State Department of Public Welfare. She was met with understanding and a spirit of cooperation. For the next 6 weeks her time was spent chiefly in interviewing prospective personnel. By the first of June two Mississippians had been selected to serve as field consultants on the State staff. One was a graduate of Tulane University School o f Social Work and the other of the New York School of Social Work. Four potential children’s workers already employed by the State Department of Public Welfare were granted educational leave in June. One was accepted as a special student at William and Mary, one as a regular student at the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, and two as regular students at Tulane University School o f Social Work. Because of the interest of some of the county agents of the State Department of Public Welfare and their field supervisors, requests began to come into the State office concerning the possibility of placing a children’s worker in these counties. Therefore, the supervisor visited several of these counties, meeting with interested groups of officials and citizens and explaining to them the Mississippi plan for the development of child-welfare services. The supervisor and one of the field con sultants visited the Bureau of Child Welfare of the State Department of Public Welfare in Alabama. They studied the entire organization and noted especially the ways in which such an organization had been developed. As the idea of child-welfare services on a State-wide scale is new in Mississippi, it was thought that the program would benefit by sending one of the field consultants and the assistant to the commissioner of the State Department of Public Welfare to the National Conference of Social Work at Seattle, Wash. The field consultant had the privilege of visiting the child-welfare divisions in Oregon and in Washington. In these States she observed the ways in which the public-welfare program had begun and its developing process. From these two States as from Alabama, copies of manuals, forms, and research studies which had proved to be valuable in those States were obtained. From these sources and from the meetings of the National Conference of Social Work some degree of orientation concerning the versatility and flexibility of the program for child-welfare services and the ways in which it can be adapted to fit local needs was obtained. At the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1938, the program for child-welfare serv ices was an accepted part of the State Department of Public Welfare. Plans were being made for essential contacts with the State institutions, for studies in certain counties, and for collecting some of the social data concerning children, that was scattered in the records of the various county and State agencies and institutions which came into contact with children. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 49 MISSOURI Before the beginning of the program for child-welfare services in Missouri, the State Children’s Bureau licensed and supervised private child-caring agencies, boarding homes, and maternity homes, conducted a State home for dependent and neglected children, and placed children in free foster homes. In most counties no local case-work service was available for special care o f children in their own homes and communities. Some counties had part-time probation officers or county welfare officers, largely without training in case work. One of the greatest needs seen at the beginning of the program for child-welfare services was study o f the possibility of making local plans for children instead of immediately committing them to the State children’s home. The State plan for child-welfare services at first divided the rural areas into large districts with one worker in each district. This worker visited all o f the counties, giving some case-work service on a demon stration basis and interpreting to county officials and local citizens the need for child-welfare services. Counties were encouraged to unite in forming local units, each appropriating some funds toward the salary and travel expenses of a trained worker. At the present time 8 local units, ranging in size from 1 county to 4 counties, have been developed, making a total of 19 counties. As the number of local units increased, the number o f district consultants was decreased from 8 to 4. In July 1937 the legislature created a State Social Security Commission to ad minister the State programs of public assistance and child welfare, transferring all child-welfare activities to the Division o f Child Welfare. Since the program for child-welfare services began, county judges accustomed to committing dependent children to the State children’s home without prelimi nary investigation, and to sending young children to correctional institutions or to urban private institutions for free care, became interested in the child-welfare services made available under the program. In many instances these judges have shown that they prefer that alternate plans be developed locally, if possible, before removing a child from his own community. In several counties at the present time, communities are definitely interested in developing local boarding-home programs for local children and throughout the State many counties have become interested in particular cases and have accepted responsibility for boarding care. Advisory committees in the counties in which local units are located have been helpful in interpreting the needs for service to the community and in developing the program. They have assisted in developing local foster-care facilities and local financing as a definite project in several counties. Several counties have become interested in recreational programs in cooperation with local churches, the Works Progress Administration, and civic clubs. Provision of special necessities such as medical care for children, transportation to child-guidance centers, clothing, and volunteer service has been made by groups, clubs, and churches. The committees have aided greatly in maintaining the service in counties where there has been financial pressure for other needs. Some of the committees have served in a coordinating capacity to bring together agencies, groups, and individuals who have been working without close cooperation. Since the establishment of the State Social Security Commission there has been close cooperation between the Division o f Child Welfare and the Public Assistance Division on State and local levels. Child-welfare advisory committees have had joint meetings with county social-security commissions and in some instances have united with them to interpret a unified county welfare program. A State advisory committee has been developed which serves the entire Division of Child Welfare. Child-welfare workers in many counties have worked closely with school officials, public-health nurses, county health officers, and workers responsible for https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 50 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 crippled children’s services in many special projects, including participation in clinics and providing case-work service on health and other problems. As a foundation for a permanent State program of service to juvenile courts, the child-welfare program has made possible a study of juvenile-court probation, including consultation services on juvenile-court standards and methods to en quiring juvenile-court judges and county probation officers. Through this special project a uniform system o f reporting juvenile-court statistics has been developed, resulting for the first time in an accounting of all cases appearing before every juvenile court in Missouri. MONTANA The history of Montana reveals that the need for child protection has had legal recognition almost since the State was admitted to the Union in 1889. The earliest program was administered by the Montana State Humane Society, which led to the establishment of the Bureau o f Child and Animal Protection by legislative act in 1903. A board, of which the Governor, the superintendent of public instruction, and the attorney general became ex officio members, was authorized to appoint a secretary at a salary of $1,200 annually. Office space was provided in the capitol. The responsibilities of the Bureau were “ to secure enforcement of laws for prevention of wrongs to children and dumb animals” and “ to promote the growth of education and sentiment favorable to the pro tection of children and dumb animals.” 1 When funds were made available for child-welfare services under the Federal Social Security Act of 1935, the State program was extended and redirected. In April 1936, the Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Labor approved the plan submitted by the State Department of Public Welfare, using the Bureau of Child and Animal Protection as the unit for the administration of childwelfare services. On June 30, 1937, the end o f the fiscal year? the Bureau of Child and Animal Protection was abolished and child-welfare services became a function of the State Department of Public Welfare. A Division of Child-Welfare Services within the State Department was created to administer these functions. The State Division of Child-Welfare Services consists of a director, who is the administrative head of the Division, under the direction of the administrator of the State Department of Public Welfare; an assistant director, who assists with the administration of the division and is the case-work supervisor; and a staff assistant, who is responsible for services rendered to the six children’s institutions in Helena with the ultimate objective of establishing minimum standards for in stitutions. Both the assistant and staff assistant were added during the past year in order to coordinate the activities of the district workers. Previously children were placed in the various institutions with no provision for continuous supervision or preparation for their return to the community. Plans have been made to add another staff assistant on July 1, 1938, whose primary responsibili ties will be to find and approve all types of foster homes. Previously this function was performed by the district workers, but in order to promote uniformity and higher standards it was considered advisable to make this a function of a special worker as a demonstrati. n project for a time. As the Bureau had established a precedent o f providing service for the entire State, this plan was retained but the districts were reduced in size and increased to 13 in number. Workers employed met the minimum qualifications approved by the United States Children’s Bureau. The educational requirements o f a certificate from an undergraduate course in social work or, in preference, 2 quarters graduate study in a professional school must have been completed. i Laws, Resolutions and Memorials, Eighth Regular Session o f the Legislative Assembly o f 1903, p. 216. State Publishing Co., 1903. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 51 In March 1938 a merit system was adopted by the State Department of Public Welfare providing examinations for all positions, with a limited number of ex ceptions. An unassembled examination was given for child-welfare workers and the applicants were graded as follows: 50 percent for education, 45 percent for experience in social work or allied fields, and 5 percent for a required 2,000-word written discussion of employment, training, and use of resources relating to the fields of child welfare. Of the 56 who took the examination, 30 were placed on the eligible list. These were evenly divided as to sex and resided in different sections of the country. The 13 district child-welfare workers are administratively responsible to the county supervisors of the local department o f public welfare and receive technical supervision from the State staff. Each local worker attempts to supervise children in from 1 to 6 counties, but the case load is concentrated in the place in which the worker resides. The outlying territory is visited once a month by the worker to assist with emergency situations only. Although the size of the districts has been reduced, the area served by one worker is still too large for effective work. Case work is further handicapped by the lack of such resources as psychiatric service, adequate psychological and medical facilities, and individualized guidance and training in the schools and private social agencies. NEBRASKA Although Nebraska has had a State Child Welfare Department since 1919, the Department consisted only o f a director, two field workers, and a stenographer when the first grant for child-welfare services was made to the State. Objectives for the Department had not been defined. There were no county public social services. Nebraska’s first step was to evaluate its child-welfare needs and plan a program with long-view objectives for public child-welfare services, State and county. The improvement of these services during the past years was stimulated by the provisions for child-welfare services in the Federal Social Security Act and the subsequent passage o f the Nebraska Assistance Act, includ ing an additional appropriation for child welfare. The outstanding development in the past year in Nebraska was the creation of a Child Welfare Division by the State Board o f Control. This Division makes it possible to integrate into one department all of the State’s child-welfare activities except aid to dependent children, the administration of which is supervised by the Public Assistance Division under the same Board. The correlation of county social services including child welfare, institutional programs, and the Statedepartment functions has made possible an opportunity to pioneer in the develop ment of a well-rounded State-county program for child welfare. Federal funds for child-welfare services have been used for an extension of child-welfare services on a demonstration basis in those areas of need where State funds would not reach or could not be used because o f legal limitations or public opinion. The program for child-welfare services has functioned in a more in direct way by stimulating generally the development of child-welfare services. It has helped to maintain standards for personnel and has shown the need for developing resources for State and county to meet problems of child welfare. The emphasis this past year has been on the development of county child-wel fare programs. Child-welfare workers have been placed in four demonstration county areas. Many requests were received from other counties for workers, which could not be granted because of limitation of funds. Two of the counties are meeting one-half of the salary and travel expenses of this service. One of the other two counties has indicated that it will assume part of this expense when https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 52 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 county funds are available. This demonstration has been so outstanding that the official agency is asking the legislature for provisions and funds for a grantsin-aid program for the counties to enable more of them to develop child-welfare work through the employment of qualified personnel. With the aid of Federal funds for child-welfare services the State Board has employed a full-time child psychiatrist with child-guidance training. The psychiatrist has weekly conferences with the supervisors in the Child Welfare Division on children’s cases and serves as a consultant to the staff. He analyzes case records for specific and general recommendations. In addition to these consultation services, the psychiatrist is treating a number of children who have been referred by the county officials. Children who are receiving treatment are in some instances being boarded by the county, in Lincoln. With the aid of Federal funds for child-welfare services, consultation services are being provided to the counties through district child-welfare consultants. Because of the aid of this fund, these workers are able to give time to demonstra tion case work in the rural areas. Considerable progress has been made in devel oping county services for probation and boarding-home care through the efforts of these workers. Community resources for child welfare have been developed, including recreational programs, child-welfare councils, medical services, and other constructive and preventive community work. The staff-development work done by the district workers in the counties has been o f considerable value. NEVADA The program for child-welfare services was the first program to be inaugurated in the State of Nevada under the Federal Social Security Act. At the time o f its inception in June 1936 Nevada was almost a virgin field as far as social work was concerned. In particular there was a widespread lack o f information as to the meaning of child welfare. T o understand this, it is necessary to picture the State with its area of 110,000 square miles, only 540 of which are under cultivation, and a total State population of only 100,000. In the absence of a State welfare agency, the program for child welfare was attached to the State Board of Relief, Work Planning, and Pension Control, a board appointed in 1935 by the Governor to receive Federal grants-in-aid. The only active function of the Board was the administration o f W. P. A. projects, so childwelfare services began its life under the wing of that agency. In March 1937 a constitutional amendment was approved by the people, mak ing it possible for the first time for the State to participate in relief programs. A law was passed creating a State Welfare Department with two major functions, the administration of child-welfare services and of old-age assistance. The law provided also for an administrative appropriation, part of which was set aside for child-welfare services. By the time Nevada had created a State Welfare Department, the program for child-welfare services had already been under way for 9 months. The staff had grown from three trained workers to six trained workers, had made evident the need for social work, and had demonstrated that trained personnel could success fully meet the need. High personnel standards were emphasized in the new Department. General relief and aid to mothers is still being handled by each of the 17 counties in the State, only 3 o f which employ a person to handle the relief problems. However, the ground work is gradually being laid for county welfare units in each county to handle all the types of welfare problems in that area. To this end, some of the child-welfare workers have been loaned on a part-time basis to the old-age-assistance program, and eventually the staff will carry an integrated program, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 53 A preliminary survey revealed the inadequate resources o f the State. The only child-caring agency was the Nevada State Orphans’ Home. Within the State there were no public clinics and no provisions for care of tuberculous patients, mentally defective children, or orthopedic cases. Court procedure in juvenile cases follows the same pattern as criminal proceed ings, with practically all cases being handled in a formal court manner. Further, the adoption laws consist of only a few inadequate provisions, and there is no licensing or regulation o f boarding homes. One o f the most important contribu tions of the child-welfare program is bringing these conditions to public attention, through individual cases, so that something may be done about them. Wide spread interest and activity in remedying these situations is evident now, and needed legislation will probably be introduced at the next session of the legisla ture. At the same time it is hoped to introduce an aid-to-dependent-children bill that will make possible Federal participation and uniform high standards of care for dependent children throughout the State. A State-wide relief program has been slow in development. Until the amend ment of March 1937, which made State participation in relief costs constitutional, it had been held that relief programs were the responsibility o f the counties. Local private agencies and individuals are still willing to help with many cases involving children in need o f special care, and o f a total o f $13,245 contributed by them during the past year, $3,410 was contributed for assistance. The closest cooperation has been established with the Nevada State Orphans’ Home, where, for the past year, a child-welfare worker has been placed to compile records and case histories o f the children and to give services in connection with admission and aftercare. Just before this time a legislative investigation had revealed the deplorable conditions existing in the Orphans’ Home. Aid was given in initiating drastic reform in the management and today the Orphans’ Home is an institution in which the whole State takes pride. The splendid co operation of the superintendent and board of directors has made it possible to demonstrate what can be accomplished by putting adoptions and placements on a good social-work basis. Similarly social services have been introduced at the State Industrial School. Plans for the release o f boys are made in consultation with the child-welfare worker in the area in which the school is located, and the worker into whose district the boy is returning is asked to continue supervision of the case. NEW HAMPSHIRE The Division o f Welfare of the Department of Welfare and Relief o f New Hampshire had three full-time workers and a part-time supervisor employed in administering child-welfare services on July 1, 1937. The Division o f Welfare was responsible for the administration o f mothers’ aid, supervision o f county administration o f aid to the needy blind, and had a general supervisory and ad ministrative responsibility for all child-welfare activities. Connected with the Department were related services such as home teaching and work with the blind, education of the deaf, and the program for sight conservation. The workers under the provisions for child-welfare services were assigned to three local offices, one of which was temporary, pending public-welfare legislation that would affect the reorganization of the department. The three local units were made possible through Federal funds for child-welfare services and were the Department’s first experience in decentralizing its work. When legislation was passed creating a State Department of Public Welfare it extended the current law until July 1, 1938. In September 1937, the child-welfare worker who had been assigned temporarily was transferred to the northernmost county in the State. This is the most isolated https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 54 Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 area o f the State and one which has never had an effective child-welfare program, except insofar as the one small urban center and its environs is covered by a branch office of the New Hampshire Children’s Aid Society. It is believed that the workers in the units administering child-welfare services made real progress during the past year. Although the department shares with town and county officials the responsibility for locating suitable foster homes for children, it has no appropriation to use for the payment of board and care. This financial support must be obtained from local public officials. Hence the child-welfare worker, of necessity, must work closely with local officials, inter preting her plans and getting approval before placements can be made. When the worker has won the confidence of the local official she has been able to get the necessary financial support, and the officials have come to refer more and more of their child-welfare and family problems to the child-welfare workers for planning. The child-welfare workers have worked with many families who receive direct relief and with public officials in an effort to increase the amount o f relief in instances where the grant given is below a subsistence level. In some instances the amount o f relief has been increased, and it is hoped that through these con ferences the relief officials will have more understanding o f the needs of children. Child-welfare workers in predominantly rural areas o f the State have met a limitation which is found in many rural sections o f the United States; that is, a lack of recreational facilities. There is little community organization, and the children whose recreational needs cannot be met in the home, the school, and the church are forced to fall back on commercial recreation. The National Youth Administration has been helpful in making it possible for more children to continue school, but a great deal needs to be done in the way of community organization and group work. As of July 1, 1938, New Hampshire’s newly organized State Department of Public Welfare began operation as provided in chapter 202 of the laws o f 1937. Under this statute the Department is charged with the administration of old-age assistance, aid to the needy blind, and aid to dependent children, together with the placement and supervision o f dependent, neglected, and delinquent children; the licensing and supervision of public and private institutions and homes pro viding assistance, care, or other direct services to children who are neglected, delinquent, defective, or dependent as well as to the aged, blind, feeble-minded, and other dependent persons; services to the blind; and child-welfare services. The Department’s plan is to administer these assistance and service programs through seven district offices and four branch offices. The public-assistance and child-welfare programs will be administered by junior and senior visitors under the supervision of a district office supervisor. The district office supervisor will be responsible to a field supervisor, who in turn will be responsible to a field service director. The field service director will be responsible to the commissioner of public welfare with final responsibility lodged in the State Department of Public Welfare. Services to the blind and similar consultant activities will be under the immediate supervision of the Department’s administrative assistant, who will be responsible to the commissioner. The field-service director will act as a special consultant to the child-welfare workers on problems relating to child welfare. Under the new plan, four child-welfare workers are to be placed in three of the seven district offices o f the State in areas corresponding to those in which these programs for child-welfare services have been in operation since their incep tion. It is believed advisable to hold the gains made in the past and to continue with changed emphasis under the new administration. The child-welfare workers will develop such specialized child-welfare services in each of the areas covered as the special problems and community interests indicate. It is hoped that https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 55 through their leadership in demonstrating good case-work service to children that they will contribute to a broader child-welfare program for the State as a whole. It is the Department’s further hope that in these demonstration areas members of the community will accept a portion of the responsibility for further ing better opportunities for children. NEW JERSEY During the second year o f promoting child-welfare services in New Jersey there has been a growing interest and sincere appreciation o f the services offered by child-welfare workers. This was demonstrated by the steadily increasing case loads in the six counties which have children’s workers, by numerous requests for consultation service on cases that could not be taken over for intensive case work, and by requests for advice to clients and assistance in working out procedures from those who wish direction in their work. It is believed that the foundation definitely has been laid and that the rural communities are gradually becoming aware o f the value o f a child-welfare worker in the community. In some counties it is believed that the most effective work has been accom plished through the court and the rural schools by demonstrating the value of social investigations and case work with children. Through constant cultivation o f contacts, new resources are being developed and personnel encouraged to take an active part in the community program. One means o f accomplishing this has been to bring more vividly before the public the work o f the Child Welfare Division by talks before parent-teacher and other groups in the communities. The need for child-welfare services has been stressed in communities having no such resources. In counties where agencies already exist the effectiveness of services to the community is being increased through the cooperation o f the Child Welfare Division with these agencies. In two counties, through the cooperation o f State mental-hygiene clinics and local resources, it has been possible to demonstrate the need for study homes where a child showing unusual behavior patterns may receive intensive treatment and study. Such a service would help the supervisors in planning better placement in the community. In working with the families o f the children who come under the supervision o f the Child Welfare Division careful interpretation of the child’s needs and a better opportunity for him to express his own personality under intelligent guid ance have been stressed. In many cases classes for adult education, library facilities, home-economics courses, and parent-teacher classes have been sug gested to help instruct the parents in promoting a more wholesome family life. During the fiscal year 558 cases involving 1,240 children exclusive o f institu tional referrals were received in the 6 counties. On June 30, 1938, 483 children were under actual supervision o f the Child Welfare Division. As a system o f recording the minor service cases and consultation services rendered had not yet been put into effect, such statistics are not available. Special project at the State schools for boys and for ¿iris.— It is very difficult to measure progress by the number o f children referred by the institu tions to the Child Welfare Division for case-work treatment, because of the inten sive case work and careful planning involved in returning a child to the com munity. It has been necessary in several cases to commit children to the State Board of Children’s Guardians, when the investigation revealed the fact that no amount of case-work service could rehabilitate the home. There are other cases where it is necessary to place children in free homes or to obtain the help o f interested https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 56 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 persons when the child is not eligible for commitment to the State Board o f Children’s Guardians because o f limitations in the existing laws. One o f the handicaps has been the difficulty in finding foster homes o f the type that can be used for placing boys and girls who cannot be returned to their own homes and who need intelligent, sympathetic, and understanding supervision and the feeling o f security that being accepted as a member o f the family in which they are placed can give them. The figures below present in tabulated form the work done at the State Home for Boys and the State Home for Girls during the fiscal year. State Home for Boys State Home for Girls Total Colored White Total Colored White Total Cases referred to Child-Welfare Division_ Children placed in community___________ Children committed to State Board of Children’s Guardians__________________ 138 72 73 26 44 16 29 10 65 46 33 29 32 17 18 9 3 6 9 6 3 In line with organization policy, workers are being encouraged to take advan tage o f special courses and opportunities for further study. Two o f the workers have registered for fall classes and three others have signified their intention of registering for winter classes. It has been arranged for these workers to have time off from their regular duties when they attend late afternoon classes. NEW MEXICO In the State of New Mexico child-welfare work began in 1919 with the organi zation of the State Bureau o f Child Welfare. The work was State administered, under the supervision o f a State director with headquarters at the capital. In 1933, the Bureau of Child Welfare was made responsible for the administration of emergency relief. Special services to children were practically eliminated in the pressing need of the relief program. After passing through several stages result ing from the public-welfare legislation in effect after the emergency-relief adminis tration, the Bureau o f Child Welfare finally has become a part of the Child Welfare Division in the State Department of Public Welfare. Here the work of the Division is integrated with that of the other divisions of the State Department o f Public Welfare, and although the entire program is State administered, local branches of the Department have been established through county or district units, with a trend toward close cooperation with county staffs. During the first year of the program for child-welfare services, the supervision of case work was general and little time was spent in building up standards or child-welfare technique because of the pressure o f work and the confusion result ing from interrupted services. Attention was given to the reestablishment of local interest and participation which had been lost during the emergency-relief pro gram. An important feature of the program during this period was building up the confidence of public officials in the ability of child-welfare workers to give service to children. The desire for more intensive services by one juvenile-court judge, whose interest had been aroused, led to a cooperative plan for his judicial district in which part of the salary and travel expenses o f one child-welfare worker was paid from court funds. This cooperative plan in one judicial district has stim ulated the interest of other juvenile-court judges. Two more such cooperative arrangements are pending at the present time. In the beginning much o f the child-welfare workers’ time was devoted to crippled children’s services, making social investigations of all cases referred https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 57 and following up all cases accepted. These workers were responsible for the transportation of crippled children, but gradually this part o f the service has been absorbed by other facilities developed by the State Department of Public Welfare. In the beginning, too, much time, was devoted to county advisory committees for crippled children. These committees have been led gradually to take an interest in and responsibility for other problems in child welfare and in general public welfare. In October 1937 a supervisor of child-welfare services was added to the staff, with supervisory responsibility for consultation and technical development of child care and foster-home finding and supervision. Since that time more emphasis has been given to the problems of children other than crippled children. Case loads have been reduced to a workable basis and intensive case supervision has been given. Special services have been given to families receiving grants for aid to dependent children where child-welfare problems have been present. Case records are being improved and statistics are becoming more reliable and compre hensive. The confidence of the public has been shown by the many referrals constantly being received. These referrals include cases of child labor and exploitation, cruelty, abandonment, and neglect; children who are physically handicapped, mentally defective, delinquent, or in danger of becoming delinquent; and problems of illegitimacy, custody, nonattendance and conduct at school. An effort has been made to prepare local workers for more efficient service to children. A child-welfare library has been acquired and has been widely used by child-welfare workers and other staff members as well. Through the educationalleave program, five workers have been sent to professional schools of social work. NEW YORK The program for child-welfare services in New York State rests upon a founda tion of State-wide acceptance of public responsibility for the protection and care o f homeless, dependent, neglected, and delinquent children and more than 30 years of effort to establish services for children on a county basis. Generally speaking, the county is the unit of administration for direct care and service to dependent and neglected children, and the State, through the State Department of Social Welfare, is responsible for supervision o f all child-caring agencies and institutions, the licensing of foster boarding homes for children, and the administration of three training schools for delinquent children and a State school for Indian chil dren. The administration o f child-welfare services was placed in the State Bureau of Child Welfare which also administers the other State services for children men tioned above, thus integrating the new program with the well-established childwelfare activities of the State. Supplementing this specialized work for children is the aid-to-dependent-children program administered locally with State super vision from the Bureau of Public Assistance of the State Department of Social Welfare. Underneath all is a broad basis of home relief. When the program for child-welfare services was launched in New York State in May 1937, all except 4 o f the 57 counties outside of New York City had at least 1 children’s worker. These workers differed widely in their equipment for the job and the size of their case loads. The main objectives of the new program were clearly to strengthen the work in the 53 counties in which services for children had already been developed and to establish and develop these services in the 4 remaining counties. County studies.— A study o f the organization for child care in the 57 counties outside of New York City was undertaken. These studies which were almost completed during the year provide information regarding local child-welfare https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 58 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 activities and needs which serve as a basis for planning the child-welfare program so that the type of assistance best suited to each county’s need may be provided. Training-consultation program.— In order to assist county children’s workers to improve the quality of their work, a training unit has been set up in which there are two child-welfare consultants with long experience in student training in connection with schools o f social work. The plan provides for addi tional consultants who will be employed as soon as civil-service registers are available. Training on the job by the consultants has been offered to counties in which the commissioners and the children’s workers request the service and where the workers give promise of benefiting from such training. This service has been adapted to the individual needs and capacities of the children’s workers and closely related to their local problems. Twenty-five workers in twelve areas have been included in the training program this year. The consultants have also led several institutes on child welfare. A collection of books on child welfare has been added to the Department’s library to be lent to county children’s workers, and a reading list for their use has been prepared. “ A Guide to Thinking on an Intake Study in Child Welfare” has been written as the first of a series of publications to be prepared for the use of county children’s workers. Educational leave and substitute service.— An amendment to the publicwelfare law passed this year authorizes the board o f supervisors of a county and the appropriating body o f a city or town to include in its appropriations moneys for the continuation of the salaries of their local welfare employees who are on leave receiving additional training for the better performance of their duties, subject to the approval o f the State Department o f Social Welfare. In order to encourage county commissioners to grant educational leave to promising children’s workers, the Department by means o f Federal funds for child-welfare services has offered to provide experienced workers to act as substitutes during the absence o f the workers on leave. Two commissioners have taken advantage o f this oppor tunity this year and several applications have been received for substitute service next year. Demonstrating child-welfare services.— Demonstrations o f child-welfare services have been made in three counties and in one city which was an “ area of special need.” These demonstrations, made at the request of the local officials, had a definite time limit varying from 3 months to 1 year. In all of the areas the cost of transportation of the child-welfare workers, clerical assistance as needed, and office space and equipment were provided locally. In one county two addi tional child-welfare workers, employed by the county commissioner and paid from local funds, worked closely with the child-welfare staff and remained in the county when the demonstration was over. The demonstration in each case succeeded in stimulating local officials and other citizens to a better understanding of their responsibility for child welfare and setting up procedures and practices for an adequate program for child care which was then carried on by the community. NORTH CAROLINA In April 1936 when the North Carolina State plan for child-welfare services was approved and the program began, the Division of Child Welfare of the State Board of Charities and Public Welfare had been in existence since 1920 and was responsible for the administration o f the small mothers’ aid fund, the State boarding-home fund, inspection and supervision of private child-caring agencies, registration of adoptions, and interstate transfer o f children. The program for child-welfare services helped to expand these functions and continued to stimulate local efforts to provide more adequately for children’s needs. With the cooperation of local boards and departments of public welfare, county https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 59 commissioners, and juvenile-court judges, qualified child-welfare workers were assigned to 17 counties during the last fiscal year. They served as staff members of county departments of public welfare. Specialized supervision of the county child-welfare assistants by case consultants was interwoven and integrated with general county supervision from the field representatives of the Division of Public Assistance. Each of three case consultants was assigned a section of the State. Monthly supervisory visits of 1 day or more to each county child-welfare assistant afforded opportunities for case discussions and for social planning. Superintendents of public welfare joined these discus sions when convenient. Consultant service on children’s problems was given to a limited extent in counties without child-welfare assistants, which requested and could utilize this service. One of the three case consultants was a psychiatric social worker who gave specialized consultant service, on request, outside her district, especially to State staff members. Provision was made for educational leave for child-welfare workers. During the year four county child-welfare assistants attended schools of social work, three for 2 quarters and one for 1 semester— and all returned to work in North Carolina counties. Their additional training has definitely benefited the service. Workers accepting educational leave pledged themselves to return to childwelfare work in the State for at least 1 year. Through funds provided for child-welfare services the services of a psychologist were made available to children in counties served by child-welfare assistants and some service was given also to children in the State training schools. Other activities of the psychologist included a survey of the intelligence quotients of school children in Piedmont County and special mental-testing projects in a few other schools. This provision of full-time psychological services is a step toward the development of a larger mental-hygiene program, including psychiatric service to children. An exploratory study of intake and discharge practices in State training schools for delinquent children led to the temporary placement o f case workers in three of the schools. The aim of this project was the correlation of case-work service in the counties and in the training schools. This project and the supervisory services of case consultants have been used to interpret to county workers the proper use of State training schools in dealing with delinquent children. Institutes, study groups, and suggested reading have been used for this purpose also. With the dual objective of increasing facilities for giving training in the childwelfare field and of proving the value of skilled service for children, a training and demonstration area was set up in cooperation with the School o f Social Work and Public Administration o f the University of North Carolina. Three counties easily accessible to the university were used. A child-welfare assistant was assigned to each county, a Negro worker was made available to the three counties, and a supervisor was placed in charge of the entire area. A limited number of students from the school of social work have been assigned to the workers in this area for field work. Assistance was given to private child-caring institutions in analyzing their populations and waiting lists in order to discover whether the children under care and awaiting admission might be affected by grants for aid to dependent children. This service was given in any institution only by invitation o f the institution. It resulted in a few transfers of children from institutions to their own or relatives’ homes and was particularly helpful in dealing with waiting lists. A State advisory committee for child-welfare services representing agencies and organizations interested in child welfare has held quarterly meetings throughout the year. 212628°—40-----6 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 60 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 NORTH DAKOTA In North Dakota, the provisions for child-welfare services have given an im petus to the integration o f the public-assistance and child-welfare programs, thereby laying the structure for a unified State welfare program. Organizing child-welfare services resulted in the consolidation of the State Children’s Bureau then under the Board o f Administration, the State agency that had administered child-welfare laws since 1923, and the Public Welfare Board, which had been estab lished in 1935 to administer the public-assistance program, services for crippled children, and child-welfare services initiated under the Social Security Act. The first plan for child-welfare services, approved in October 1936, provided for the employment of six child-welfare field workers, one in each judicial district to coordinate the child-welfare work of the juvenile commissioner and the county welfare offices and to give consultant services to schools, parents, private agencies, and State institutions. The child-welfare field workers made communities aware o f the lack o f facilities for the protection of neglected, delinquent, and dependent children, demonstrated the need for State supervision of case-work techniques, and developed a place in county welfare offices for local child-welfare workers. In August 1937 the Public Welfare Board of North Dakota inaugurated a coordi nated field staff of 10 district supervisors under the direction of a State director o f case work to supervise all county welfare activities and public-assistance pro grams. Inasmuch as a sound State child-welfare program is based on adequate local public-welfare services, it seemed feasible that the supervision of local childwelfare services should be integrated with the State supervision o f the publicassistance and general welfare programs. Five of the six original child-welfare field workers became district supervisors on the coordinated field staff. Since there has been State field supervision, considerable improvement has been made in both the child-welfare and family-welfare fields. The district supervisors offer consultant child-welfare services to county welfare offices, juvenile courts, schools, private agencies, and State institutions. With the organization of a coordinated field staff, the plan for child-welfare services was changed. Instead o f district workers, county child-welfare units were developed by the employment of qualified child-welfare workers on the staffs o f county welfare offices to do intensive case-work service in rehabilitating broken homes, in assisting problem children in making satisfactory adjustments, in making boarding-home placements, in supervising children paroled from the State Training School, in assisting schools in coping with truancy and conduct problems, in locating and assisting physically and mentally handicapped children, and in organizing community activities for the prevention o f juvenile delinquency. Funds for child-welfare services are used to assist counties in paying part o f the salaries and traveling expenses of child-welfare workers for a specified length o f time to demonstrate preventive aspects of child-welfare work. As of June 30, 1938, 17 counties and the Fort Totten Indian Agency had on their staffs qualified child-welfare workers. As the State Public Welfare Board is responsible for the administration of the services for crippled children and o f aid to dependent chil dren, child-welfare services are integrated very closely with these programs. Funds for child-welfare services are used to provide for the employment o f two child-welfare consultants and a child psychologist on the staff o f the Division o f Child Welfare. The child-welfare consultants review and analyze periodically the cases carried by the child-welfare workers and give technical guidance to county welfare offices, field supervisors, juvenile commissioners, and staffs o f State institutions for care o f children. The consultants are available also for consultation with the staffs o f private child-caring and child-placing agencies. There is a. definite need in the State for the services of a psychiatrist, especially https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 61 equipped for service in the children’s field. The psychologist on the staff o f the Division o f Child Welfare is offering consultant services to child-welfare workers, schools, juvenile courts, and parents, relating especially to the needs o f mentally retarded and mentally superior children who present problems. Educational leave has been granted to 15 social workers in the State for 6 months’ training in child-welfare work at recognized schools o f social service. As public-welfare services are comparatively new in North Dakota, there seemed to be no better plan for strengthening services for children than by providing educational opportunities for workers to obtain training which will equip them with certain knowledge and skills in the field o f child welfare. In these formative years North Dakota has been building its welfare program slowly on a sound administrative structure. The Public Welfare Board is attempting to maintain high personnel standards and is focusing attention on such ultimate goals as establishing a child-guidance clinic and placing a welltrained child-welfare worker on the staff o f every county welfare office. OHIO When the program for child-welfare services was established in Ohio in M ay 1936, it was made a part o f the Bureau o f Charities whose function was to stand ardize institutional and foster-home care o f children as well as to accept the guard ianship o f certain dependent, neglected, or crippled children. Ohio has no county public-welfare units. Eighteen counties have no public child-care units. The aim o f the program for child-welfare services has been to assist those counties where no public children’s services exist or where such services need integration or supplementation. There are now 10 child-welfare units— 4 having been established during the fiscal year 1938. They are progressing with varying degrees o f success, depending upon the quality o f local personnel and the acceptance o f the program by officials, lay groups, and individuals as well as upon the stimulation and assistance given by the State staff. The State supervisory staff has been increased from two supervisors to three. Effort has been made to strengthen their service to the counties by more frequent visits and by concentrated discussion o f case-work procedures, community relationships, and o f what constitutes an adequate county program for children. An exchange o f ideas among staff members has been possible through monthly staff meetings in the State office. County workers welcome this opportunity to learn what others are doing, and it has proved a stimulation to many. One local unit has largely concentrated its attention on a population study in the county children’s home. Visits to the homes o f the children have been made, and in some instances placement o f children either in their own homes or in foster homes has resulted. This study has included also the development o f case records and a filing system. Thus it is hoped that the benefits o f social service in an institution will be demonstrated. A member o f the State staff serves as special consultant to counties where specific problems involving delinquency occur. He advises with courts and lay groups concerning preventive programs, and serves in a general educational capacity in this field. He has been working also with rural courts in connection with a new plan being developed jointly by the State and the United States Children’s Bureau for State-wide juvenile-court reporting o f statistics relating to delinquency, dependency, neglect, and crippling conditions. This project is being used as a means o f establishing case records which are lacking. A mental-hygiene unit, consisting o f a psychiatric social worker and a psychol ogist, with provision for obtaining psychiatric service on a fee basis, has been established. This unit assists the State and county consultants in studying and https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 62 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 planning for children who present serious maladjustments. Under direction o f the consultants follow-up work is done by the county children’s workers. Con sultation service also has been given by these unit workers to members o f the State staff in divisions other than child welfare. Fundamental requirements in the program for child-welfare services are selection o f well-qualified personnel, complete understanding o f the program by lay and official groups in the counties, staff development through supervision, training programs, and suggested professional reading, and the discovery and use o f existing resources, or the development o f resources to meet the needs. OKLAHOMA Previous to the enactment in July 1936 o f the Oklahoma Social Security Act which created the State Department o f Public Welfare with a Child Welfare Divi sion, certain responsibilities for child care were delegated by constitution and statute to several boards or commissions. Of these, the only agency offering State-wide services was the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections whose func tions were largely investigatory and advisory with the authority to appear as “ next friend” for all minor orphans, defectives, dependents, and delinquents in guardianship cases. The limited staff and heavy duties have o f necessity confined the services o f this office, for the most part, to emergency services on acute problems. A pattern o f institutional care was established early in the State as a solution o f child-welfare problems, with commitments by county courts sitting in juvenile session. The State maintains three institutions for dependent children, four for delinquent children, and four for the physically handicapped, with control in the Board of Public Affairs (except the schools for the blind and deaf and the crippled children’s hospital). Generally, there has been no provision for pre-admission studies o f children placed in institutions nor for the supervision of adoption cases. The program for child-welfare services began with the development o f local child-welfare workers and State consultation service to local workers in counties not specifically organized for child welfare. The Oklahoma Social Security Act provides a fund o f one-half of 1 percent o f the public-welfare revenues for the use o f the Child Welfare Division and a similar amount for crippled children’s assist ance in the Child Welfare Division. The availability o f State funds for foster care and medical care has been o f invaluable benefit to the program, as many children needing these services were residents o f counties too heavily obligated financially to provide them. In addition to State and Federal funds for childwelfare services, local financial assistance has been obtained from the counties having demonstration units so that the Child Welfare Division, although not able to provide intensive case-work services throughout the State, has been able to respond to many requests for child-welfare services from each county in the State. In the foothills o f the Ozarks, five Oklahoma counties were selected as one district to be used as a demonstration unit by the State Health Department, the United States Public Health Service, the United States Bureau o f Indian Affairs, the United States Children’s Bureau, and the Child Welfare Division o f the State Department of Public Welfare. The selection o f this district was influenced by the large Indian population (approximately 25 percent); the many families dependent on some form o f public assistance (approximately 75 percent); the lack o f adequate medical facilities for treatment o f the sick; and the great need for case-work services for children in their own homes as well as for those needing placement elsewhere. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 63 During the past year, real progress has been made in understanding the situa tion and in developing resources to meet the needs through the cooperative efforts in this district. The child-welfare workers have cooperated in the clinics held frequently in this district in order to provide needed case-work service for children referred for hospitalization, follow-up care, or other special needs, as well as to obtain medical services and immunization for children under care. Sometimes the Child Welfare Division has helped to obtain funds for special diets or medical care and to inter pret the services and recommendations o f the doctors to families in isolated areas. Although the Bureau o f Indian Affairs has a well-organized program of boardingschool care, child-welfare workers have been able to assist the Bureau in arranging placement in foster homes for preschool children as well as for children presenting special problems. Several homes in southeastern Oklahoma, located on the new Indian resettlement project, have been utilized as boarding homes for Indian children where the schools and club-work facilities have offered special advantages for the children. Many Indian children in need o f orthopedic surgery have been hospitalized through the crippled children’s funds of the Child Welfare Division. The Child Welfare Division is giving social-service assistance to the Commission for Crippled Children in its plan for aftercare of children under treatment and is cooperating in a plan to provide boarding homes for convalescent care o f children from rural areas brought to Oklahoma City, which is a center for many o f the clinics and hospital facilities o f the State. As the Child Welfare Division lacked personnel equipped for intensive case work with children, it has had a director o f training during the past year as a member o f its staff, who is responsible for an in-service training program, including a train ing unit for intensive supervision o f child-welfare workers in training and for orienta tion o f new workers. As a result o f the demonstration o f the value o f this service, the school o f social work o f the University o f Oklahoma has employed the director o f training as an instructor in child welfare and a director o f field work, thereby fulfilling a requirement necessary for its admission to membership in the American Association o f Schools o f Social Work. During the coming year an expansion o f the child-welfare program in addition to its established services will give some case-work service in every rural county o f the State, with special reference to families receiving aid to dependent children. OREGON Child-welfare services in Oregon are administered by the State Relief Com mittee, a State-wide organization responsible for general assistance and welfare and responsible for allocating the costs of administration and relief between the State and the county units. By employing local workers with good professional background and limiting case loads to enable these workers to make a real demonstration o f the case-work process, the program for child-welfare services has attempted to instill into the county programs a better interpretation of children’s needs and a better use of resources to meet these needs. Special emphasis has been placed upon professional development. All workers have had at least 1 year of professional preparation; the majority have had more than 1 year; and all, except supervised workers in the field unit, have had previ ously a substantial experience in social work. Child-welfare services have stimulated the offering o f accredited university courses in child welfare, designed particularly for personnel now in the field of public administration, particularly in rural areas; and for public-health nurses, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 64 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 welfare workers, teachers, and probation officers. These courses have met university academic requirements in every respect but at the same time have been interpreted as not being a substitute for professional training. In addition to having considerable civic value, the courses have served to facilitate com munity education, particularly as to the new children’s programs provided for under the Social Security Act. A supervised field unit has been established in a rural county, designed to provide a supplementary controlled field experience in dealing with situations involving children’s problems. A full-time supervisor is in charge. The present unit consists of five workers, all of whom have had professional training in social work for at least 3 quarters. Case loads are limited but provide a variety of experience. The period spent in the field unit is from 4 to 6 months. Some of the gains o f this program, in addition to giving specific training in meeting more effectively problems o f child dependency and obtaining, perhaps, upon the part of the workers a closer identification with the whole children’s program are: (1) better understanding o f workers and their fitness for specialized tasks; (2) more discriminating planning as to the placement o f workers, especially in the placement of children’s workers; (3) fuller knowledge of the problems in volved in the administration o f any in-service training program. The program for child-welfare services has been instrumental in refining the use of existing community resources, including not only such resources as aid to dependent children but also the resources offered by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration. For example, in working with the Civilian Conservation Corps, a more detailed consideration of the meaning o f this experience in the development o f the youth rather than as a relief measure only has been attempted. One of the child-welfare consultants has prepared a detailed memorandum, outlining a case-work approach to the enrollment policies of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which is now available for State-wide dis tribution. The program for child-welfare services has assisted in making a sound research approach to the nature and magnitude of child dependency. A study of all forms of public assistance rendered to children directly or indirectly has been made. Among other things, the findings have been most valuable in substantiat ing the basis upon which the administration of child-welfare services has been predicated; that is, a need for the general improvement of case-work standards for all dependency situations involving children rather than the development of a single or specific program, such as foster-home care. The study will be o f real value in the initial approach to counties without services for dependent children. The program for child-welfare services has brought about a clearer conception o f certain general administrative problems. One o f these is the process of intro ducing new workers into the program (apart from those introduced through the supervised field unit). The installation o f many new workers in a relatively short period of time made necessary careful consideration o f this subject. A plan which seems to possess merit has been the selection o f cases by present staff members, the evaluation of the situations involved at a case conference composed o f the administrator, the field representative, the State director of child-welfare services, and then the final formulation o f an initial load to be assigned to the new case worker over a reasonable period o f time. This method has served a double purpose— that of providing control and protection for the beginning workers, so that they may not be overwhelmed by indiscriminate referrals and “ hopeless situations,” and that of providing at the same time a most valuable opportunity for staff education. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 65 PENNSYLVANIA March 31, 1936, marked a new era in child welfare in Pennsylvania. On «-hi« date the Governor created by executive order the Rural Extension Unit within the Bureau of Community Work o f the Department o f Welfare, through which the child-welfare services provided for by the Social Security Act might be ad ministered. It took more than a year of study and experimentation to develop the pattern on which the Unit is working at present. At present there are three main points o f emphasis in the child-welfare pro gram— a direct service to homeless, neglected, and dependent children in rural counties and areas of special need, under the county commissioners (as primarily a county responsibility); an indirect service from the State office, which includes the strengthening of the supervisory services of the Bureau of Community Work over public and private care of children away from their own homes; and an ex periment in more intensive service to a smaller group of children through the TriCounty Child-Guidance Center located in Harrisburg. Direct service within the counties.— In 1937 the Pennsylvania Legislative Assembly abolished the county and township poor boards and placed their former responsibilities for the care o f dependent children upon the county commissioners. Because this act opened up an opportunity, never offered before, for developing constructive services to children, the Rural Extension Unit has placed particular emphasis on providing social workers qualified by education, experience, and personality to act under the county commissioners as county child-welfare secre taries in the development of such services. Expenses incident to the service are shared by the unit and the counties. Under this cooperative plan nine counties now have county child-welfare secretaries. Three of these counties have added a second worker to carry the increasing case load. The placement of a worker in a county which is 100 percent rural to work primarily with children in their own homes in close cooperation with the county board of assistance in its aid-todependent-children program is now being contemplated. Indirect service.— The Bureau of Community Work in the Department of Welfare has responsibility for the supervision o f all agencies and institutions which provide care for children away from their own homes and for a program of educa tion and development of standards with these organizations. The Rural Extension Unit has recently helped to strengthen the Bureau by adding to its staff a consultant on standards, who will work on these problems, with special reference to rural counties, with the Bureau of Community Work and the county commissioners. With the purpose o f raising standards o f service to dependent and neglected children and children in danger of becoming delinquent throughout Pennsylvania, the Unit has also made studies relating to commitments o f juvenile delinquents to correctional institutions and to particular problems o f child welfare in selected counties. Tri-County Child-Guidance Center.— As part of the program of the Rural Extension Unit it appeared to be desirable to see what could be done in a limited area with a more concentrated, sustained approach to the difficulties of child hood, particularly in rural areas. The Tri-County Child-Guidance Center was organized with the cooperation o f the State Bureau o f Mental Health, the Rural Extension Un’ t, and a committee of citizens representing the three counties. Originally it was planned to serve three neighboring counties only, but appeals from other counties have come to the Center, and it is now receiving children from a wider area. The staff of the Center consists o f a part-time director, who is a psychiatrist with experience in a child-guidance clinic, a psychologist, and two psychiatric social workers. In March interviews at the center totaled 22; in September, 150. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 66 This increase indicates the need felt by the community for the service given by the Center, and for this reason it is planned to increase the director’s time to 4 days a week. RHODE ISLAND The program for child-welfare services in Rhode Island has its place in the general plan for the decentralization o f public-assistance services in Rhode Island. Specifically the program for child-welfare services is set up to act as a coordinating unit between the State Children’s Bureau and the various State and local services operating throughout the State. A local area office set up on an experimental basis is responsible for the ad ministration of all public-relief services in an area covering two counties in the southern part of the State. A supervisor in the Division o f Social Security ad ministers old-age assistance, aid to dependent children, and a special out-door relief fund known as aid to destitute. In this office a worker under the provisions for child-welfare services is giving case-work service for the supervision and care of dependent and neglected children and also to children who are in danger of becoming delinquent. In addition, this worker carries a group of families to whom an aid-to-dependent-children allowance has been given on a trial basis in an effort to work out difficult family situations which present problems relating to the children in the home. This worker also gives follow-up service to a group of children who have been released either to relatives or parents following com mitment to the State Children’s Bureau. She attends case conferences with the supervisor and also some court hearings involving commitment and adoption. As the Rhode Island law does not allow the State Children’s Bureau to function until after commitment has taken place, it is hoped that the child-welfare worker will gradually assume responsibility for case-work service and recommendations for families that eventually get into court and reach the State Children’s Bureau. During the short time that this plan has been in operation in this experimental office, the local public-welfare officials have shown a marked interest in this approach to their problems and already are beginning to confer with the office and request an opportunity to talk over the problems presented to them. In the same building the State unemployment relief supervisor assumes full responsibility for relief to all employables and supplementary relief to families on projects of the Work Projects Administration. Because o f legal technicalities, there must be separate administration for the Division of Social Security and the State unemployment relief. Already there is joint planning as far as public as sistance is concerned. This comprehensive planning in terms of the administra tion of relief has made for a more flexible interpretation of policy and a willingness to assume full responsibility for the problem presented. A child-welfare-service unit consisting of a supervisor, a full-time worker, and two volunteers is operating at the State Home and School. This unit has three major objectives: 1. To make a population study o f children now in the institution. 2. To work jointly with aid-to-dependent-children and other family agen cies and the State Children’s Bureau to find ways and means of returning children to parents and relatives. 3. To work with the director o f the State Home and School to study problem children in the institution and to point the way toward the establishment of a study unit for children who either have been returned to the institution because they have been unable to become adjusted in foster homes or need special study at the time of commitment. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 67 SOUTH CAROLINA Through the Public Welfare Act passed by the 1937 legislature, South Carolina has a comprehensive State Department o f Public Welfare for the first time. The Child Welfare Division o f the State Department of Public Welfare, in addition to administering aid to dependent children, administers the program for childwelfare services which was initiated in the summer o f 1937. The State Children’s Bureau, established in 1920 and extended in 1930 but not included in the new State Department of Public Welfare, is authorized “ to place in free family homes for adoption, destitute, delinquent, neglected, and dependent children committed to their care” and to arrange for institutional placement of children. The Chil dren’s Bureau had a limited staff and an inadequate appropriation and the time was ripe and the need great for an expansion o f services through the new State Department of Public Welfare. In addition to the State Children’s Bureau, other State-supported agencies and institutions for children are: Industrial schools for delinquent white boys and white girls and a reformatory for delinquent Negro boys; the State training school for white feeble-minded and the John De la Howe School for normal white de pendent boys and girls. All of the institutions are crowded and have many pending applications. Most of these institutions and agencies have cooperated to the utmost with the Child Welfare Division, and several of them have grasped eagerly the services available through this source. Generous psychological service has been extended to the Child Welfare Division and to county depart ments of public welfare by the staff of the State training school and by the traveling mental-hygiene clinic of the State hospital. Five counties now have workers paid from Federal funds for child-welfare services as members o f the staff of the county departments of public welfare. Two counties have both a white and a Negro worker. Already, awareness o f the significance of services for children on the part of county boards and the commu nities is increasing. Attendance officers, teachers, and other school officials, pro bate judges, city and county officials, health departments, and many private citizens have sought the services of children’s workers in dealing with various problems. In two of the child-welfare units community centers for Negroes were estab lished. These activities represent a fine cooperation o f various community ele ments, both white and Negro, as well as o f generous material gifts. Students of two Negro colleges in one county contributed their time in repairing and equipping a building for use as the community center and in directing some o f its activities. In the other county the project was promoted by the Negro women’s civic club under the leadership of the Negro child-welfare worker. It is gratifying to see in both of these counties that the work for white and colored children has been accepted by the local boards as an integral part o f the county welfare program. Children’s workers give reports regularly at board meetings. A study of juvenile delinquency in one county, made in the summer o f 1937, has been useful to the child-welfare workers, white and Negro, who were placed in that unit. Because of the scarcity o f trained workers and the heavy volume o f work in the public-assistance field in the county public-welfare departments, the three child-welfare consultants serving the remaining 41 counties of the State have had to give case-work services in many problems which local workers were not equipped by training or experence to deal with. As the year progressed and the county assistance case loads became somewhat stabilized, general county workers have assumed more responsibility in children’s cases. One evidence of the value of this consultant service is the change in attitude of some county workers and board https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 68 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 members. After interpretation by the consultant, two county boards have recog nized their responsibility for financing foster-home care for neglected Negro children. Much o f the success o f the child-welfare consultants’ efforts is due to the understanding and intelligent cooperation o f the district field supervisors o f the public-assistance staff. The value o f the child-welfare advisory committee, organized soon after the program was set up, is manifest. Three formal meetings o f the advisory com mittee have been held and frequent informal contact is maintained with individual members. SOUTH DAKOTA In South Dakota a small beginning in child-welfare work had been made by the State Child Welfare Commission before the advent o f child-welfare services provided under the Social Security Act. Child-welfare services, first undertaken jointly by the State Child-Welfare Commission and State Public Welfare Com mission, were administered by the State Social Security Commission after it replaced both earlier commissions. At first case-work services only, without funds for children’s care in counties plagued by grasshoppers and drouth, were received with little enthusiasm. The complaint was made that child-welfare workers found too many children with needs which could be met only by expenditures from county and local funds. Child-welfare workers looked for other sources of aid. A women’s club was per suaded to raise money for shoes for children who must trudge cold, windy miles to school. A Red Cross chapter provided glasses for children unable to see well enough to do their school work. A church gave furniture for a home which had been unfit to live in, and a board of county commissioners paid for boardinghome care o f children who had formerly been advertised for adoption in the news papers or over the radio. Such cooperative endeavors not only brought the finan cial aid needed but resulted in an increasing number of referrals o f nonrelief cases, indicating a growing appreciation o f case-work service. Sometimes the problem o f one child was a community problem affecting many children in the community. The child-welfare worker became a community worker as well as a case worker, emphasizing the prevention o f children’s problems and carrying her appeal for understanding and help to service clubs, women’s clubs, church groups, the parent-teacher association, or to any other group which would give her the opportunity to present the needs o f children. # The prevention and treatment o f delinquency has been given special emphasis. Previously delinquency, and all too often dependency, had been met by sending the child to the State training school, where care was provided at no cost to the county and where, it was reasoned, the child escaped unfavorable home condi tions. Probation was little used; the need for prevention was not often recognized. Child-welfare workers sought early behavior problems in the schools. T o pre vent delinquency one community, under the leadership o f the child-welfare worker, established and equipped a boys’ recreation center with funds raised by the town’s business men who themselves put on an amateur show. In another city a youth council, of which the child-welfare worker was a member, surveyed the recreational needs o f boys and girls and worked out ways to meet them. A Girl Scout troop was started by one child-welfare worker for a group o f girls already known to the police matron. Child-welfare workers acted as probation officers, a service welcomed by the juvenile courts and the schools. As a demonstration project, a case worker was provided at the training school, where such services were entirely lacking. For this enterprise the interest shown by the American Legion and the State-wide release o f the report o f the Osborne Associa tion helped arouse public opinion concerning the deplorable conditions at the https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 69 training school. People began to see that the causes o f a child’s delinquency may be beyond the child’s control and the community may be responsible. In a State like South Dakota, where the total population is no greater than that of a fair-sized eastern city, it is possible to coordinate the work o f various State agencies and institutions, even though the distances are great. Child-welfare workers obtained social case histories of all children authorized by the State Board o f Health for treatment through the Division o f Crippled Children; and gave case-work services to crippled children who needed it. The Division o f Voca tional Rehabilitation in the State Department of Public Instruction used the services o f child-welfare workers for many o f their cases. Children in need o f educational training at the State schools for the deaf and blind were frequently discovered by child-welfare workers, and arrangements were made with the parents and with the schools for their attendance. Close working relationships have been established with children’s homes in the State and with homes for un married mothers. Perhaps the greatest amount o f coordination has been attained with the field staff o f the State school for the feeble-minded. From the childwelfare-services demonstration of the mutual benefits to be derived from a close working relationship has recently come a program o f short institutes at the State school for the instruction of county social-security directors and case workers in giving assistance to the State school in the supervision o f the mentally deficient in their own homes. The services o f a children’s worker have been available in every county in the State, but there was more need for such service than a necessarily limited staff could give. A larger State appropriation will be requested. Child-welfare workers, through their case-work and community activities and talks before clubs and interested groups, have developed a growing understanding o f the need for child care and protection. The incongruity of adequate provision for the aged and none for children has permeated the public consciousness. TENNESSEE During the period from January 1 through October 1938 the development that seems of most significance in the program for child-welfare services in Tennessee is the integration of services to children into the entire public-welfare structure on State, regional, and county levels. With field consultants responsible for helping regional directors and county workers to develop better understanding o f children’s work, adjustments have been made in schedules and in content o f regular regional staff meetings so as to include child welfare. It has not been found necessary to hold special child-welfare institutes in order to have child-welfare problems included in the staff discussions. In regular supervisory conferences child-welfare problems receive their share o f attention and the value o f these discussions has carried over to improve the service in the administration of the other phases o f the public-welfare program. Responsibility for handling children’s cases at an early stage increasingly is being assumed by the county workers. Requests for guidance by the field con sultant and for the transfer of cases to regional child-welfare workers are stated now in such a way that it is evident the county worker is more aware of children’s needs, is more able to face limitations, and is assuming more responsibility for getting help in situations which she does not feel entirely adequate to handle, as contrasted to a former attitude o f shifting responsibility to the consultant or the child-welfare worker. A decrease in commitments from rural counties to State training schools is directly related to the increased responsibility for understanding and attempting to meet children’s needs on the part o f county workers and to the fact that there are now regional child-welfare workers in each o f the nine regions in the State. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 70 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 Children in almshouses who were eligible for aid-to-dependent-children grants no longer fall between the responsibility of the field supervisor and the case con sultant, but the field consultant has the authority to help the regional director in getting special grants approved where plans were not completed before county allotments were filled. This holds true in other cases which were at first rejected for aid-to-dependent-children grants but have been added subsequently as the workers have grown in understanding and in ability deal with problems. More and more workers are becoming interested in reading professional litera ture, in participation in staff meetings, and in shaping their plans to study in schools o f social work. Several workers who have returned from educational leave and a former member o f the child-welfare staff have been placed in responsi ble positions in two urban offices and have answered a great need for qualified personnel. Greater responsibility for administration has challenged those primarily inter ested in child welfare to relate specialized functions to the total job so that their performance can be more effective. A problem which in the earlier stage at times seemed irréconciliable, namely, the welfare o f the client versus the development of the worker, no longer looms so large. Neither the worker nor the regional director is confused by dual relationships. With the authority for decisions regarding assignment of cases to the child-welfare worker or the county worker vested in one person, conflicts do not arise. The time will never come when we can be entirely satisfied with the quality of work done by the staff as a whole because there is so much more to learn, but we believe some obstructions have been eliminated and the administrative pattern set which allows freedom o f growth and development and increasingly effective performance. TEXAS Although the Texas Legislature has created a Division o f Public Welfare in the State Board of Control, which has been responsible for the administration of most of the State’s welfare activities, the lack o f an appropriation has prevented the development o f the Division or the establishment of programs for aid to dependent children or assistance to the needy blind. Except for old-age assistance and the maintenance o f eleemosynary institutions, responsibility for assistance to the needy has been left to the counties, which are limited in funds and prevented by legal restrictions from developing adequate programs. In 1931 the Division o f Child Welfare was established under the State Board of Control as the children’s agency for the State, with responsibility for enforcement of laws for the protection o f children, for gathering and giving out information on child welfare, and for raising standards of care for children through inspection and supervision of agencies, institutions, and family homes caring for children away from their own people. The limited appropriation and small staff made it impos sible for the Division to spread its services to the 254 counties in Texas. The establishment o f child-welfare services enabled the Division of Child Welfare to respond to many more requests for service, which thereupon increased as serv ices became available. Districts were set up for the interpretation o f child-wel fare needs as well as for services in behalf o f individual children, as this was con sidered to be essential to local participation in child-welfare units. Because of a serious lack of workers equipped to give special services to children in Texas, an intensive training program for chijd-welfare workers was introduced in the program for child-welfare services, into which selected workers with some background and experience were accepted and given preparation for case work https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 71 with special problems of children, interpretation o f child-welfare needs, and community organization before their placement in particular areas. Local child-welfare units have had a slow but steady development, with com munity organization an important part o f the progress. One unit was the inter esting result o f a series o f reports or requests for help from 1 rural county, in which a study revealed that 18 different groups were developing some phase o f com munity assistance, independent o f each other. The county readily accepted the opportunity o f having a child-welfare worker who has brought about the develop ment o f a community council for coordination o f services and expenditures. Much intensive effort has been devoted to giving assistance to boards and executives o f children’s agencies in the rural areas, including help in making intake studies and analyses o f population, which have led to the adoption of better standards o f care. The program for child-welfare services in Texas initiated two tri-State con ferences— one with Oklahoma and New Mexico in the west, the other with Arkansas and Louisiana in the east— for a discussion o f the laws and policies o f each State and their common problems. Both conferences led to a better under standing o f interstate problems involving children and an increased opportunity for mutual planning. Along with its program o f interpretation, cooperation with juvenile courts and other agencies, and case-work service to individual children, the Division o f Child Welfare has made some studies o f State-wide problems as a basis for more extensive services. A delinquency study beginning with the consideration o f 132 boys, 12 years o f age or younger, who had been committed to the State Juvenile Training School was followed by an effort to make other plans for them. This study led to activities for the prevention o f delinquency in which local community studies are made. A study o f adoptions from court records has provided definite in formation upon which to base future plans for safeguarding children in adoption. Plans have been effected for intake and discharge studies o f State institutions in rural areas and the provision by State hospitals for psychological services in special cases. Initial steps have been taken to bring about joint planning with the State Department of Health, regarding activities of maternity homes licensed by the State Department o f Health. A series o f conferences with the State Crippled Children’s Division has resulted in a closer working relationship and progress being made in the development o f foster-home care for crippled children and other social planning in which necessary social services will be provided by the Division of Child Welfare. UTAH Child-welfare services were introduced into the Utah public-welfare program in April 1936, when the first Federal grant was made through the United States Children’s Bureau, but the program was not fully effective until a Division of Child-Welfare Services was established in the Bureau of Assistance and Service by the State Department o f Public Welfare. An advisory committee of five members was appointed to give technical advice in developing the special provisions for children in the public-welfare program. In 1937 the legislature provided for permanent organization of the State De partment o f Public Welfare and authorized the Department to administer public assistance, to cooperate with the Federal Government in receiving funds for public-health and welfare purposes, and to promote the enforcement o f all laws for the protection of mentally defective, illegitimate, dependent, neglected, or delinquent children and to cooperate to this end with juvenile courts and childwelfare agencies. Responsibility for the licensing of child-placing agencies was https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 72 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 transferred to the State Department o f Public Welfare from the State Board of Health. Prior to this time the only responsibility assumed by the State for the care o f children was through State subsidy to private agencies. Some local responsibility was assumed by the county commissioners upon order from the juvenile court. Interest in child welfare increased more rapidly than the program could be developed. Few persons were available who met the qualifications established for the position of child-welfare worker. In order to obtain persons equipped to deal with children’s problems, it was necessary to assist some o f the workers to obtain training. Five persons, granted leave on part salary, attended schools o f social work and returned to child-welfare positions in the State. One o f this number was released to strengthen the staff o f a private child-placing agency. At the close o f the fiscal year ended June 30, 1938, the child-welfare staff con sisted o f nine members and four persons on educational leave. One person had received 1 year’s graduate training and one person 2 years* training. Of the seven local workers all but two had received professional training in recognized schools o f social work. Plans for the ensuing year also made provision for professional training. B y June 30, 1938, 8 county departments o f public welfare were employing 7 child-welfare workers. Four additional counties had been selected, the programs to begin as soon as qualified workers became available. In each o f the counties the program was developed as a service of the county department o f public welfare, closely correlated with the work of the juvenile courts, public schools, publichealth programs, services for crippled children, State institutions, and private children’s agencies. During June service was given to 333 families presenting special problems relating to children. Included in these cases were 1,063 children under 21 years o f age. The total monthly cost of local programs was $1,040, or an average salary of $123 and an average of $33 for travel in each county. Counties with child-welfare workers met 15 percent o f their salary and travel costs; 50 per cent of their salaries was paid by Federal funds; and State funds were used to pay the balance. The 8 counties had populations totaling 130,071, varying from 7,000 to 49,000. Thus services were available to about half of the rural population o f the State, estimated at 261,573. In cooperation with the Bureau o f Research and Statistics o f the State Depart ment of Public Welfare regular statistical reporting o f child-welfare services was started, and a uniform reporting system was introduced in the child-placing agencies for collecting information about children under foster care. A study of detention practices was made which revealed rather general use of jails for the detention of juveniles, although such confinement is in violation of the State law. On the basis o f this information, plans were made to assist the juvenile court in one county to use boarding homes for detention purposes. Also initiated was a study of adoptions granted during the period from January 1, 1936, to April 30, 1938. Introduction o f child-welfare services into the counties has o f necessity been one o f obtaining personnel and establishing the programs locally. Insufficient consideration has been given to supervision o f case-work activities. However, care has been taken to employ persons whose experience and training prepared them to maintain satisfactory standards o f work. Before the program is extended to include every county o f the State, refinement o f existing services is needed. Before the legislature is requested to appropriate additional funds for child-welfare purposes, more workers prepared to deal with children’s problems are needed to assist in the further development o f the program. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 73 VERMONT From 1917, when the State Department o f Public Welfare (then known as the Department o f Probation and Charities) was formed, to 1936, when the program for child-welfare services began in Vermont, provision had been made for the care o f neglected children committed by the courts. From 1919 a mothers’ aid law had been in effect. But in all those years never had more than three field workers been employed at any one time. A high-grade State-wide private children’s aid society established about 15 years ago supplemented the efforts o f the State De partment during this period. No family welfare society has been in operation until very recently and then only in the largest city, Burlington. With the coming of child-welfare services the picture has materially changed. Under the general direction of a trained and experienced case worker provided by the program for child-welfare services, known as the director o f case-work services and responsible to the commissioner o f public welfare, an integrated State pro gram for child welfare has been in effect for more than a year. The State is being divided into districts. Seven districts have already been set up and are in opera tion and others are being planned. In four o f the smaller areas, child-welfareservice workers are doing demonstration work for all types o f cases— committed children, aid to dependent children, and preventive cases— and the State-paid workers, now numbering eight, are covering the rest o f the State. Smaller case loads and smaller territories of operation are gradually raising standards of work for children throughout the State and not in the demonstration areas alone. Staff meetings which include all the children’s workers have resulted in better case work. One of Vermont’s problems is her form of local government, namely, the town ship as the unit o f operation. With some 240 such townships welfare programs are in the hands of the overseers o f the poor, who change periodically. Therefore, a major educational program is being carried on with that group. With more time at their disposal the child-welfare workers are receiving more understanding approval, especially in the aid-to-dependent-children cases. Average grants for aid to dependent children have risen in the past year from $19.21 to $23.40 per family. Maximum family grants have risen from $26 to $104 during this same period. With the ratio o f children in special institutions or in foster homes 1 at about twice that prevailing for the country as a whole and the ratio o f aid-to-dependentchildren cases next to the lowest, it is high time to study the situation and, if possible, correct the cause. A study o f State wards is now being made by the Child Welfare League o f America, with a State advisory committee in close touch with developments, and is being financed by funds for child-welfare services. The whole child-welfare staff has participated in the gathering o f material, which in itself has had educational value. VIRGINIA The program for child-welfare services in Virginia was inaugurated in March 1936 with the purpose of increasing services for dependent children and placing greater emphasis upon preventive work in the child-welfare field. At that time there was no general State-wide public-assistance program. The facilities avail able for the care of dependent children were mainly private child-caring institu tions, a State-wide private child-placing agency with major emphasis on adop tions, and the State Children’s Bureau with a small staff, which was charged by l Children under Institutional Care and In Foster Homes, 1933, p. 8. Washington, 1935. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis U. S. Bureau o f the Census, 74 Child-Welfare Services, 1936-38 law to care for dependent, delinquent, and defective children. The Children’s Bureau was created by the acts o f 1922 and charged with the care of dependent children, but moneys were never made available for that purpose. Within 2 years after the inauguration o f a general State public-assistance program in June 1936, 93 of the 100 counties and 23 of the 24 independent cities in Virginia had organized departments of public welfare. This basic organization made possible the development o f child-welfare services. At the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1938, the Virginia plan for child-welfare services was in full effect. Major emphasis was placed on strengthening the exist ing State agency, the Children’s Bureau in the State Department o f Public Welfare, and on providing local public services in selected units. The State staff had been expanded to include a director, 3 supervisors, and 12 field workers other than those in the Study Division. They were paid by Federal and State funds and divided their services between the State’s program for direct care and the program for child-welfare services. An average o f 200 child-welfare cases were carried by the field workers each month. These cases involved consultation with the superintendents of welfare and actual service in the placement and super vision of children in foster homes. Applications for other types of service increased to such an extent that the intake had to be limited to the most urgent cases, especially those involving the break down of the family home. Perhaps the best way o f judging the success of the State-wide plan is the fact that during the year 100 fewer children were committed as delinquent to the State Children’s Bureau for care than during the previous year. In Virginia children found to be delinquent and not suitable for care locally are committed to the State Department o f Public Welfare, the Study Division o f the State Children’s Bureau serving as the central receiving agency in cooperation with the Mental-Hygiene Bureau. Through funds for child-welfare services the Study Division was strengthened by the addition o f a Negro case worker and o f a white worker to give special or intensive case work to a selected group. The State was fortunate in obtaining the services o f a representative o f the United States Children’s Bureau, who was assigned for several months to the Study Division, and who helped to create a better understanding o f the problems involved. A medical social worker was assigned to the clinic division of the Medical College of Virginia for work in a program limited to crippled children under 18 years of age from rural areas. There has been a steady increase in requests for services, and for the last 6 months o f the year the case load varied between 75 and 90 children’s cases. In addition there were approximately 100 cases for follow-up service only. On June 30, 1938, there were 9 local child-welfare units with experienced children’s workers in charge. These units included 17 separate governmental areas. The program was developed as a part of the local welfare departments, and the superintendents of welfare referred only the cases which involved the care of dependent children with special difficulties. Case loads were limited so that intensive supervision could be given. A supervisor from the State office has given her full time to the supervision of these local workers. The special consultant on Negro child welfare of the United States Children’s Bureau who assisted the Study Division o f the State Children’s Bureau also made a special study of the problems relating to Negro cases in a selected rural county. As a result, a Negro worker was placed there permanently. The problems brought to her attention have been varied. In cooperation with the superintendent of welfare and the principal o f a Negro high school, a study was made in one small community which showed a lack of recreational facilities, crowded housing con ditions, and other social problems. These were brought to the attention of out https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 75 standing citizens, and as a result a W. P. A. project was obtained for the com munity and a recreational center was opened in M ay 1938. Attendance at this center has averaged 66 per day. WASHINGTON The first recognition by the State of Washington o f its responsibility in develop ing State-wide services for children was set forth in the establishment Of a Division o f Child Welfare in the State Department o f Public Welfare in 1935. This Divi sion took over the functions o f the Child Welfare Division o f the State Depart ment o f Business Control, which had been established in 1933 for the purpose of inspecting and licensing child-caring institutions. The Division began to develop the program for child-welfare services, as outlined in the Federal Social Security Act o f 1935, to strengthen services for the protection and care o f dependent and neglected children* especially in rural areas. In 1937 the State Legislature established a new public-welfare code providing for a coordinated Federal, State, and county program of public assistance, setting up the State Department of Social Security, and making it responsible for super vision o f old-age assistance, public assistance, assistance to the blind, and children’s services. The administration of these programs was placed in the county welfare departments, and provision was made for joint Federal, State, and county financ ing. The Division for Children o f the State Department o f Social Security was given the power to cooperate with the Federal Government in providing services for the protection o f homeless, dependent, and neglected children and children in danger o f becoming delinquent. In addition to the development of the program for child-welfare services in cooperation with the United States Children’s Bureau, the Division for Children is responsible also for the aid-to-dependent-children program, services for crippled children, and the approval and certification of private child-caring agencies and certification of foster homes. An assistant supervisor o f each of these services has been placed in the Division for Children. In addition, consultant services have been available for the 36 children’s workers who are now working in 29 of the 39 county welfare departments of the State. The Division for Children plans to place children’s workers in every county of the State within the next biennium. Children’s workers of the county welfare departments give services to any child in need of care or protection. Children are referred by the schools, courts, prosecuting attorneys, other divisions of the county welfare departments, and other individuals in the community. It has been gratifying to note the use of the children’s worker made by the courts and the schools, especially in the small counties. Most of the children served are in their own homes or the homes of relatives, although care in a foster home or an institution is provided for a child who needs care outside of his own family group. The children’s workers also arrange for the care and treatment o f crippled children and assist in planning for and with the child and his family after the necessary medical or surgical treatment has been given. To get qualified workers in the program for child-welfare services has been a problem. Special' qualifications for children’s workers have been maintained, and they are now being made a part of the merit system of the State Department of Social Security, so that only workers with adequate training and experience will be employed. In September 1937 a clinical psychologist was added to the staff of the Division for Children. His services have been made available upon the request of the 212620°—40----- 6 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 76 Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 children’s workers o f the county welfare departments, for children needing psychometric tests and an interpretation of behavior problems. He has met also with the staffs o f the county welfare departments, child-welfare committees, representatives of the schools and courts in an effort to bring about a better understanding o f the mental development and the mental hygiene o f children. In the annual meeting o f the State association o f superior court judges in August 1937, it was agreed that the care of dependent children was an adminis trative and not a judicial function and that dependent children should be referred to the children’s workers of the county welfare departments for determining the best plan for each child. Payments for foster care were to be made by the county welfare departments. Such an arrangement was to be tried until the 1939 session of the legislature, when a decision might be reached as to the possible needed amendments in the juvenile-court law on the basis o f this experience. Except in the cases of a limited number of children cared for directly by county welfare departments, the usual procedure before this time was that payment should be made for a dependent child upon order of the superior court. A census, taken in January 1938, of all dependent children who were being cared for outside their own homes and whose care was being paid for from public funds, marked the first time that a complete count was made in the State. It showed that 816 dependent children were being cared for by public funds in institutions or foster homes. More than half o f these children were being cared for by private agencies or institutions which were being paid either $10 or $12 a month per child by the courts or a lump-sum payment for all children who were referred from an individual county. A small number of children had been placed directly in foster homes by the courts. As the county welfare depart ments have assumed payment for these children, a review has been made to determine what kind o f care seemed best to fit the needs o f each child and plans were made accordingly. Many o f these children have been returned to their own homes or to the homes of relatives, either with or without the assistance o f aid-todependent-children funds. WEST VIRGINIA When the broader program for child-welfare services in West Virginia was inaugurated in 1936 with the aid of Federal funds, 8 children’s workers were placed on the staffs of county departments of public assistance in 8 different counties; 1 children’s worker was placed in an area consisting o f 3 counties and 1 in an area consisting of 2 counties. Of these 10 children’s workers, o r ig in a lly paid from Federal funds, the State and counties have now assumed financial responsibility for all but 4 and have provided funds for 9 additional children’s workers. The integration of child-welfare services with the general assistance program has been made possible through the cooperative relationship existing between the State and the county departments. The program is administered by the Division o f Child Welfare o f the Children’s Bureau under the State De partment o f Public Assistance. In an attempt to decentralize the supervision o f children legally committed to the State, who heretofore were supervised by State workers whose districts included several counties, the State wards in seven counties were placed in Sep tember 1937 under the supervision of the county children’s worker in each of these counties. It is anticipated that eventually all State wards will be super vised by county children’s workers. The care o f mentally defective children in the State is one o f the unmet needs. T o determine the number o f these children who are now being cared for and publicly supported in foster homes and in institutions, approximately 600 chil https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 77 dren were given psychological tests. This cross section of a special group presents a picture of the need for more adequate facilities for the care of mentally defective children throughout the State. In considering the need of reorganization o f the State Children’s Bureau, the Child Welfare League o f America was asked to make a study of the Bureau. This study extended over a period of 3% months and included a review o f all the functions of the Bureau and the relationship o f child-welfare services to other phases of the work o f the Bureau. The need for better coordination of services to children had been apparent and was confirmed by the League’s survey. Therefore, in June 1938, the Division of Foster Care in which the supervision o f State wards had been vested was dis solved as a separate division and its responsibility was taken over by the Division of Child Welfare. As the needs of children committed to the State are no different from other dependent and neglected children, it has been possible to integrate the child-welfare program, both administratively in the State office and locally in the counties. During the year additional duties consisting o f case-work service to children on parole were assumed by this Division. The assumption of these duties added to the case loads o f children’s workers and increased the volume of work in the State office, as referrals were made to counties through the State office. As the duties of the supervisor were increased by these additional State services, the payment of part of her salary was taken over by the State. During the past year many children have received temporary care at the State children’s camp. The total number o f children receiving this care has varied from month to month, as placement in the camp is made on a temporary basis pending more permanent plans for them either with their own families or relatives or in foster homes. Frequently the State Children’s Bureau receives requests from the county departments to place children in camp while the depart ments are making more adequate plans for the children in their own communities. A social worker who is a member of the State staff gives case-work service to the children in camp from rural counties and assists in planning for their future care. The need for staff training and development in the public-assistance program was recognized when the West Virginia public welfare law o f 1936 was passed, and provision for such training was made. It was possible for the State Chil dren’s Bureau to utilize a portion o f the Federal funds for child-welfare services for the training of the staff on the job and in professional schools o f social work. The supervisor of training has visited the county children’s workers and has used the actual problems and situations as a basis for teaching. One of the problems in developing child-welfare services is the lack o f trained personnel. As the State has assumed the financial responsibility for some of the county children’s workers, Federal funds have been utilized for educational leave for some o f the staff to attend graduate schools of social work. WISCONSIN The program in Wisconsin for developing local child-welfare services is an ex pansion o f the program carried on by the Juvenile Department o f the State Board o f Control since the passage o f the Children’s Code by the State Legislature in 1929. Expansion has been brought about by adding more field workers to the State «taflf, by providing an in-service training program that has made possible a better per formance by the staff, and by placing workers in rural counties to carry on the various activities included in the program. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 78 Typical developments during the year July 1, 1937, to June 30, 1938, were: 1. The Lafayette County advisory committee, confronted by the problem o f how to provide for certain mentally defective children and wishing to plan comprehensively for the whole county, arranged a study o f one rural school— the first of a series— by psychologists and psychiatrists. A social study was made of each child, including physical and psychometric examinations. It was found that a large percentage of these children would never be able to compete successfully with other children of the same age. Supported by the recommendations of the specialists and the approval of the advisory committee, the superintendent presented to the school board sugges tions for a new system— a system which abolished progression by grades— in his most discouraging school. Groups were formed according to the rapidity with which each child could advance, and the heartache from failing to pass was eliminated. Finally, through simple and patient explanation, parents were won over to an enthusiastic approval of the plan. 2. The Crawford County advisory child-welfare committee, stimulated by a growing interest in individual cases in their own locality, began a general survey of recreational needs and resources which resulted in action being started through the Parent-Teacher Association and the Works Progress Administration for a recreational program in one village. 3. Interest was first aroused in a child-welfare program for Marquette County through talks given by representatives o f the Juvenile Department at a meeting o f the federated women’s clubs o£ the county. The Federated ParentTeacher Association then voted to sponsor a child-welfare program. A study of county needs and resources was made, and efforts were directed toward making the people generally aware of conditions surrounding children. In formation as to how a county children’s worker might be obtained was re quested. More than 30 organizations and many individuals, including mem bers of the county board o f supervisors and county officials, wrote to the Juvenile Department requesting the services of a county children’s worker to develop child-welfare services in the county. 4. Antigo, county seat of Langlade County, has many children coming into the city to attend high school. These children necessarily must live in foster homes from Monday morning until Friday evening. Upon investiga tion by the children’s worker, it was learned that a group of these rural highschool students had rooms set quite apart from the owner of the property, with an outside entrance and no supervision. Each student brought a basket o f food from the farm on Monday morning. As cooking facilities were not available, their meals were eaten cold. Revelation of this situation stimulated the interest of the worker, the advisory committee, and the school in finding out whether other rural young sters were living under similar conditions. A survey was made of the rooming houses where high-school students resided away from their parents. As a result of this survey, arrangements were made whereby people who wished to rent rooms to high-school students could talk with the children’s worker and the worker could discuss with them the needs of these young highschool students. The rooms were visited and approved or not approved. This has done away with the use of living places below a minimum standard. At the present time all homes used as rooming houses are licensed. 5. Two 1-day conferences were held to discuss Indian child-welfare prob lems such as: nonattendance of the Indian child at school; attitudes of white residents and school-board members and teachers toward the Indian children; lack of school facilities; isolation of the Indian families; need for tuition and https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis State Summaries 79 transportation; health o f the Indian child; indifference o f the Indian parents toward education, health, and social standards; inadequate food, clothing, and housing of many o f the Indian families; and a foster-home program for the Indian child. 6. Two 1-day conferences o f the entire staff o f the Juvenile Department and representatives of public and private child-welfare agencies, juvenile courts, hospitals, physicians, district attorneys, and individuals from all parts of the State discussed methods for safeguarding the child born out o f wedlock and the child to be adopted. 7. An in-service training program has been carried on for the purpose of improving staff performance. The program has included both formal instruc tion and supervision. An attempt was made to meet the individual needs of each worker. WYOMING Note.— The first State plan for child-welfare services was approved December 4, 1939. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis A p p e n d i x 1 .— Text of the Sections of the Social Security Act Relating to Grants to States for ChildWelfare Services, as Amended by the Social Security Act Amendments of 19391 [Original law printed in roman; new law printed in italics.] Title V.— GRANTS TO STATES FOR M ATERN AL AND CHILD W ELFARE * * * * * # * Part 3.— CH ILD -W E LFA RE SERVICES Sec. 521. (a ) For the purpose o f enabling the United States, through the Children’s Bureau, to cooperate with State public-welfare agencies in establishing, extending, and strengthening, especially in predominantly rural areas, publicwelfare services (hereinafter in this section referred to as “ child-welfare services” ) for the protection and care o f homeless, dependent, and neglected children, and children in danger of becoming delinquent, there is hereby authorized to be appro priated for each fiscal year, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $1,510,000. Such amount shall be allotted by the Secretary of Labor for use by cooperating State public-welfare agencies on the basis o f plans developed jointly by the State agency and the Children’s Bureau, to each State, $10,000, and the remainder to each State on the basis of such plans, not to exceed such part of the remainder as the rural population o f such State bears to the total rural population of the United States. The amount so allotted shall be expended for payment of part of the cost of district, county, or other local child-welfare services in areas predominantly rural, and for developing State services for the encourage ment and assistance of adequate methods of community child-welfare organiza tion in areas predominantly rural and other areas of special need. The amount of any allotment to a State under this section for any fiscal year remaining unpaid to such State at the end of such fiscal year shall be available for payment to such State under this section until the end o f the second succeeding fiscal year. No payment to a State under this section shall be made out of its allotment for any fiscal year until its allotment for the preceding fiscal year has been exhausted or has ceased to be available. (b ) From the sums appropriated therefor and the allotments available under subsection (a) the Secretary of Labor shall from time to time certify to the Secre tary of the Treasury the amounts to be paid to the States, and the Secretary of the Treasury shall, through the Division of Disbursement o f the Treasury Department and prior to audit or settlement by the General Accounting Office, make payments of such amounts from such allotments at the time or times specified by the Secre tary of Labor. * * i 49 Stat. 629; Stat. 1360. 80 https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis * # * * * Sections o f Social Security Act ( Text) 81 Part 5 — A D M IN ISTR ATIO N Sec. 541. (a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1936, the sum of $425,000,2 for all necessary expenses o f the Chil dren’s Bureau in administering the provisions of this title, except section 531. (£>) The Children’s Bureau shall make such studies and investigations as will promote the efficient administration o f this title, except section 531. (c) The Secretary of Labor shall include in his annual report to Congress a full account of the administration of this title, except section 531. * * * * * * * Title X L -G E N E R A L PROVISIONS D EFINITIO NS Section 1101. (a) When used in this act— (1) The term “ State” (except when used in sec. 531) includes Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia, and when used in titles V and VI of such act (including sec. 531) includes Puerto R ic o .8 (2) The term “ United States” when used in a geographical sense means the States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia. * * * * * * * (d ) Nothing in this act shall be construed as authorizing any Federal official, agent, or representative, in carrying out any of the provisions of this act, to take charge of any child over the objection of either o f the parents of such child, or of the person standing in loco parentis to such child. RULES AN D REGULATIONS Sec. 1102. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Social Security Board, respectively, shall make and publish such rules and regulations, not inconsistent with this act, as may be necessary to the efficient administration of the functions with which each is charged under this act. SEPARABILITY Sec. 1103. If any provision of this act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the act, and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby. RESERVATION OF POW ER Sec. 1104. The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision o f this act is hereby reserved to the Congress. SHORT TITLE Sec. 1105. This act may be cited as the “ Social Security A ct.” 3 The amount for each fiscal year is determined by Federal appropriation acts. 3 Amendment effective January 1, 1940. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Child-Welfare Services, 1936—38 82 Appendix 2. Federal Funds Available to States for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1939, and Federal Pay ments to States for Fiscal Years Ended June 30,1936, 1937, 1938, and 1939 for Child-Welfare Services Under the Social Security Act, Title V, Part 3 State i Available for payment, fiscal year, 1939 3 Total_________ $2,225,799.21 Payment, fiscal year 1937 Payment, fiscal year 1936 (Feb. l june 30) $1,520,893.74 $1,351,638.44 Payment, fiscal year 1939 Payment, fiscal year 1938 $969,827.23 $227,954.12 Alabama. _ ________ Alaska __________ Arizona __ ______ Arkansas. ________ C a lifo rn ia ._________ 53,069.25 16,159.62 40,800.68 79,387.12 8 5 i174.74 43,236.77 6, 847. 89 2 i ; 061.17 33,460.92 2 8 i277.35 39,607.66 5,725.00 2;335.00 22,176.47 23,896.16 41,850.32 18,684.34 5,404.82 9,311.64 18;140.41 6,300.00 C o lo r a d o ___________ Connecticut_________ Delaware _________ District o f Columbia. Florida__ __________ 25,270.53 32, 792.13 2i;225.23 19,217.20 24,918.11 19,842.37 14;873.05 14; 820.64 15,816.28 22,715.46 20,107.92 13,028.58 9; 643.10 7,700.91 29,477.26 12,974.46 10 ;291.26 8 i720.85 5,582. 26 17,857.15 G e o r g ia ._ ___ __ Hawaii ___________ Idaho. ____ _______ I llin o is ______ _____ Indiana_________ 64,581.59 14,827.42 19,228.52 69,161.78 57|089.33 55,724.58 l i ; 534.24 11,637.37 42,899.19 37; 344. 52 42,478.06 H i 415. 68 14;453.35 48,853.36 3 i ; 000.18 33,569.94 I o w a ____ Kansas . _ _ _ __ Kentucky______ . Louisiana . ______ Maine___________ 56,056.31 43,204.39 51,926.63 46,421.48 30,416.53 49,107.46 27;128.86 46,996.63 35;480.02 20,881.94 32,626. 54 2 i; 809. 44 47,580.71 27,119.39 17,936.67 23,293.86 28;251.02 30,270.92 35;840.19 13,719.56 M a r y la n d .________ Massachusetts___ Michigan _________ Minnesota _ _ Mississippi.. ._ __ 37,253.01 34,624.48 52,347.62 37,066.71 69,782.49 26,845.02 7,675.11 30,626.04 33,189.28 31,862.85 14,344.73 12,292.07 44,170.02 38,073.84 11,438.75 16,333.17 10,174.55 23,950.99 29,489.92 7,336.00 3,250.00 10,102.50 11,300.00 M isso u ri___________ M o n ta n a __________ Nebraska. _____ Nevada. _ _____ New Hampshire_____ 54,965.92 21,460.04 40,656.58 11,466.06 13,521.18 38,745.71 20,829.17 28,638.64 11,091.06 7,436.00 37,474.18 16,888.94 23,542.23 12,268.82 13,835.92 43,301.64 16,072.95 17,216.41 13,131.44 13,868.59 9,225.00 2,062.50 8,572.84 842.57 4,971.68 New Jersey ______ New M e x ic o _______ 25,411.10 11,071.10 57,141.76 6 i ; 212.70 19,950.25 21,354.76 16,732.36 50.958.49 61,088.76 16,368.92 15,622.41 13,243.62 8,790.58 39; 597.04 15,963.62 1,896.67 6,582.00 North Carolina______ North Dakota. 39,236.73 17,418.52 83, 798.74 69;093.55 28,846.02 Ohio. ______________ Oklahoma _________ O re g o n ___ Pennsylvania ____ Rhode Is la n d ______ 105,290.75 65,177.49 26,455.72 124,820.97 18,657.68 60,376.16 59,904.73 22,542.16 70,519.94 12,411.48 32,150.10 40,869.58 22,074.39 62,637.22 3,250.00 23,643.52 24,398. 76 13, 716.41 35,162.64 6,983.00 2,260.20 964.44 5,440.00 South Carolina_____ South Dakota __ Tennessee . . . Texas. ... . Utah______ ______ 38,625.25 23,540.58 57,500.87 113;879.47 23,541.92 32,817.39 2 i; 749.43 47, 207.43 69;330.27 14,622.95 31,484.17 20 ;432.31 38, 587. 77 65;519.34 7,630.12 20,325.80 28,438.75 42; 438. 21 14,665.36 *27,349.74 3,450.00 Vermont____________ Virginia_____________ Washington __ West Virginia_______ W is co n sin ._________ Wyoming 3__________ 16,068.74 43,235.52 23,255.94 33,494.77 36, 939. 27 12, 848.03 15,184.05 40,153.97 20,062.67 28, 125.47 34,473.14 14,494.55 51,851.59 21,616.10 38,623.52 40,613.45 15,305.42 32,566.67 22,484.36 28,437.24 37,710.92 3,372.46 8,930.00 9,300.00 11,079.00 5,600.57 15,884.96 21,620.26 2 i; 192.36 1,883.00 1,790.00 1,666.30 6,255.07 4,348.61 12,953.40 4,153.71 1,881.63 12,126.89 5,040.00 1 The term “ State” includes Alaska, the District o f Columbia, and Hawaii. 1Includes in addition to the allotment for the fiscal year 1939 amounts from 1937 and 1938 allot ments to the States remaining unpaid at the close o f the fiscal year 1938. 3 The first State plan for child-welfare services for Wyoming was approved December 4,1939. o https://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
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