While the case committee members do not make specific plans for a child, they do think through problems involving the children and give the worker the benefit of different points of view.

Individuals selected for case committees should be tolerant and nonjudgmental and should be willing to listen to both sides of the question.

Through the work of such a committee the child-welfare worker has an opportunity to enlist assistance from others in the community who can help her to find foster homes, secure medical care for children, and assist with school problems and recreational activities. Because of their growing knowledge of case-work services and of detailed information regarding the program the members of the case committee are in a particularly strategic position to interpret further the program of child. welfare.

The treasurer of the board heads the finance committee. He issues all checks, keeps an account of expenses, and is responsible for the finances of the board.

welfare program in order to be able to interpret it to the community. Frequently this committee asks for the opportunity to speak before service clubs, study groups, and other organizations in the community, asking that each of them devote at least one program a year to child welfare. A speakers' bureau, from which speakers are supplied for these programs, has been helpful. It has been found more effective to have laymen interpreting a child-welfare program and discussing its achievements in the community than to have this done by professional workers, who are expected to be enthusiastic about their own programs.

For good public relations

This committee sees to it that information regarding the child-welfare program is given to the press frequently, showing the value of informative news regarding social work and the destructive effects of sob stories.

The value of this was demonstrated by a press report of a case-committee meeting, the agenda of which had been planned around the subject of adoptions. The newspaper article reported the discussion in some detail and gave the names of the committee members attending. The last sentence of the article stated that the committee had taken under consideration the current adoption problems of the child-welfare unit.

As a result of this article a local attorney gained a better understanding of the factors involved in adoption placements and of the community's interest in having a good adoption program. He telephoned the child-welfare unit the day the article appeared, to say he was withdrawing from a case in which he was representing the adoption petitioners, who were contesting the unit's custody of the child.

Committee gives practical help

The service committee, as its name implies, serves in the material sense, making arrangements providing for clothing, shoes, hospitalization, nursing service, and so forth. The members may make available supplementary diets, including grade-A milk for children needing it. In some communities a very active motor corps has been or(Continued on page 206)

195

OWARD THE CLOSE of the

T

last century some pioneers in the field of human welfare hoped that the twentieth century would be the "Century of the Child." Instead, the first half of the century has been marked by wars, depressions, and world-wide terror and destruction. Civilization is now at the crossroads. As we approach the midpoint of the century, we find much of the world struggling, in the shadow of division and aggression, to emerge from the devastation of war, and we know that the character of our own participation in world events will be a decisive factor in determining what the next 50 years will be like.

Of one thing we can be sure-we must press forward in the task which has challenged the best efforts of so many in the past five decades-the task of assuring to all children their full opportunity to develop their capacities and powers for personal fulfilment and social usefulness. We must begin in the homes and communities where the children of our own country live, but we must play an enlightened and generous part in a world-wide movement in behalf of childhood.

Some of the major developments in relation to children and youth that face us now are these:

Birth rates and population increase

About 3,900,000 live births occurred in 1947, the largest number ever reported in this country. This represents an increase of over 50 percent as compared with 1940 figures. The number of children under the age of 5 years in 1947 was 36 percent higher than in 1940, but in the Western States the increase in this age group was 76 percent.

As a result of the increase in birth rates, more than 5,000,000 children will probably be added to the elementaryschool population within the next decade. It is obvious that there will be tremendous pressures for expansion on schools, and on health and social agencies. This will be particularly acute in the West, where the greatest increase in child population under the age of 5 years has occurred.

Mobility of population

This decade has seen great shifts in population. Between 1940 and 1947, about one-fifth of the families had moved from their county of residence and were living in another county, and often in another State. The movement was primarily from agricultural, rural areas, to industrial urban areas, and from the North and South to the West. Some 5,000,000 people living on farms migrated to cities during the war years, and a great proportion of these have not returned to farms. As a result of mobility and of the foreign service which so many of our young people have seen, millions of people have come to know other parts of the United States and cther countries, and have acquired a sense of reality about the outside world. On the other hand, migration has subjected many families to special strains.

Economic conditions

There were some 8,000,000 people unemployed in 1940; in 1947 the number was only a little more than 2,000,000. Progress has not been entirely upward,

Excerpted from remarks made at opening session of Conference on State Planning for Children and Youth at Washington, D. C., March 30-April 1, 1948.

however. As to real income the peak

was reached in 1944. Since then, there has been a decline of nearly 10 percent.

In 1945 the average (median) income of families having four or more children under 18 years of age was about $2,100 as compared with $2.800 for those with one or two children. About one-third of urban families with children under the age of 18 years had annual incomes of less than $2,500, but more than two-fifths of urban families with four or more children under 18 years of age had incomes under this amount.

We have a social-security system, but millions of families are excluded from it. The security it provides is meager indeed. What is the effect of security. or of insecurity, on the development of a child? How do young people in families receiving social-security benefits feel about the system and its effect upon family life?

Housing

In 1947, 2,800,000 families were liv ing doubled up with other families. An additional 500,000 families were living in temporary housing, trailers, rooming houses, and other makeshift accommo dations.

It is estimated that at least 1,500,000new dwelling units should be built annually in the United States. One million units were completed in 1947. At least 15,500,000 units are needed be-j tween now and 1960.

Race

At least 13 percent of our children and young people under 20 years of age are subject to discrimination because of race. What does this mean to a child's development? In 1945, the average an nual income of nonwhite families was only about half that of white families ($1,538 as compared with $2.718. Nonwhite families are likely to pay more for far less adequate housing. By the tests of maternal and infant mor tality, educational opportunity, and all other similar tests, the children of nonwhite families are at a serious disad vantage.

Health

We have made great gains in cutting down on maternal and infant deaths. But hundreds of mothers and thousand

of infants still die needlessly. We have increasing awareness of what child health needs are and how to meet them, increased public and private services, new tools in drugs, operations, and preventive measures. We have, however, a long and arduous task ahead before good child-health services are available to all children. Of special importance is more adequate provision for school health services.

Mental health

We are beginning to understand that the foundations of good mental and emotional health, the ability of a person to establish good relationships with other people, are laid in earliest infancy. There is deepened understanding of the importance of the tie between mother and baby. We see the importance of adapting both home and school experi ences to the child's individual and developing needs, for leisure on the part of parents and teachers to work together in making possible for the child some unity of experience, attitudes, and aspirations in home and classroom. We see how the home, the church, the school, and the community agencies need to intermesh to afford for the child the milieu and the experiences best adapted to his growth, and how the help of child-guidance experts is often needed.

Home care and the measures needed to supplement or substitute for such care

At the same time, the circumstances of their lives make it increasingly difficult for many parents to play their predominantly important part in the growth of the child's personality. In 1946, almost 2,000,000 women with children under 10 years of age were in the labor force. In the same year, 910,000 women in the labor force were the heads of families with one or more children under 18 years of age.

Nearly 4,000,000 children have lost one or both parents by death; 700,000 are in homes broken by divorce, desertion, or separation; over 100,000 babies are born out of wedlock each year, and Over two-fifths of the unmarried mothers are under the age of 20 years.

Education and employment

To provide all children with the educational opportunities they should have requires far greater expenditure and

How can education be more adequately related to vocational guidance and placement?

What measures are necessary to assure a sufficient supply of technically trained people for technical pursuits, and of professionally prepared people for the various professional services modern needs require?

On the basis of present estimates, we need at least 5,000 more pediatricians, 50,000 more public-health nurses, 100,000 more teachers, 15,000 more childwelfare workers, 10,000 more psychiatrists for children's and family services. How are we to get these additional workers with special preparation?

and the responsibilities they will have to assume. We cannot know what the future will hold, but we should be able to assume in some degree at least what characteristics and qualities of body, mind, and spirit will be essential if youth are to develop so as to play their part in the task of building a world order based on peace, justice, human freedom, and the exercise of social responsibility. May not our first task in preparing for a Midcentury White House Conference be to develop clearer understanding of these qualities, and to test all our provisions for children by the criterion of what they contribute toward children's development?

MARGARET A. EMERY

H

OW can we provide good foster care for all children who need it? What are some of the recent developments that may affect our planning of foster-care services in a given State or community? How have Federal funds for child-welfare services aided in improving foster-care services?

First, we must look at foster care in its proper setting as part of a broader program of social services to children. We must think of services to the child in his own home, which may make foster care unnecessary. But if foster care becomes necessary, we must think of the services that should be available to protect all children in such care. Then we shall be ready to consider special types of foster care and the problems concerning such care in a given community.

In looking at foster-care services in this way we must consider State services and local services, and the problem of getting personnel for both types of service.

What are State services?

As State services, we think of the protections that the law prescribes for all children of the State. We think of the services of the State public welfare department for assuring adequate standards of child care. We think of that department's leadership and guidance in development of child-welfare programs. We think of the help the department gives local agencies, public and private, to improve their programs. We think of the funds provided to local public welfare departments for staff and for children's maintenance. We think of the safeguards for children. in foster care, children born out of wedlock, and others who need special protection. In brief, we think of the laws,

the staff, the facilities, and the funds that express what the State wants for its children.

What are local services?

Now let us look at local services— those given in the community where the child lives. They are provided by both public and private agencies. They offer a wide variety of facilities-foster-family homes, institutions, and day-care ily homes, institutions, and day-care centers. They include case-work services to individual children; they include also services to children in groups. They include the help that the social worker or the executive gives toward improving the community's program or the community's understanding of children, individually and collectively. They are all that the community does to make it possible for each child to receive the social services he needs, when he needs them.

Stating the problem

The problem facing us today is: How can we obtain the necessary State and local services for children who need care away from their own homes? How can we obtain personnel to give these services?

State services expanded

What are some of the trends in State services that may help us in solving this problem?

The first and most important trend is toward acceptance of governmental responsibility for welfare services, with broad services for children as an integral part of them. Nothing has contributed more to this trend than the So

Condensed from remarks made before the Conference Group on Child Care, Welfare Council of New York City, April 1, 1948.

cial Security Act, passed in 1935. Under this act the States have been able to move forward on a broad front in their child-welfare programs.

Before 1935 many States had no State-wide public services primarily for children, except perhaps State institutions. Now every State has recognized in law its responsibility for the protec tion of children. Every State has a State public welfare agency, or a separate division or bureau of welfare, including child welfare, in a State department.

Although Federal funds for child welfare are very limited, they have played an important part in strengthening State services for children. Increasingly, State public welfare departments are providing general childwelfare consultants to give regular help to every county in the State. In addition, during the current fiscal year a number of States have budgeted Federal child-welfare funds for personnel to develop special services for foster. care: In 15 of these States, to work with children's institutions, especially State institutions; in 12, to give special serv ice in adoption programs; in 18, to im prove such services as foster-family! care, day care, or licensing of childplacing and child-caring agencies.

The second important trend is away from merely providing protection for isolated groups of children and toward providing it for all children needing care away from their own homes. We see this trend in several aspects:

Within the last 5 years about half the States have passed laws concerning li censing of child-care facilities. The older laws provided for licensing cer tain types of foster homes, such as those caring for more than three children or those caring for children under 2. The newer laws, recognizing that the State has responsibility for protecting al children in foster care, require a license for operating any type of foster home. without regard to the number of chil dren cared for or their age.

Likewise, more children in group care are receiving protection. The pres sures of the war stimulated provisions for licensing day-care centers. Recent developments in legislation concerning hospitals have affected the licensing program for child-care facilities. States are clarifying the division of responsibility for licensing between

health and welfare departments, according to the primary purpose of the service provided. In this way they are moving toward making sure that all child-caring facilities are covered by the licensing law.

The responsibility of the State in relation to adoption has recently received special attention in practically every State. In 1947 the legislatures of two States enacted new adoption laws and at least 22 amended the old laws.

The Children's Bureau some time ago prepared a preliminary draft of a statement of essentials of adoption law and procedures. The Bureau recently invited a group of staff members from both public and private agencies to give us their advice regarding proposed changes in this statement. These persons came from 11 States that have wide variations in their adoption and public welfare laws. Both the legal and the social-work profession participated.

The group was unanimous in believing that the State public welfare department has the ultimate responsibility in adoption. They pointed out that the court makes a legal determination as to what is best for the child. The State public welfare department, as administrative agency of the State, then becomes responsible for seeing that services are rendered. It can delegate some activities, but it still has over-all responsibility for this duty.

One of the most significant outgrowths of the interest in adoptions is recognition of the importance of basic social services. Obviously the most effective time to safeguard the child is when he is about to be placed, rather than afterward. Therefore State public welfare departments are stressing development of social services not only for children being adopted but for all children for whom care away from their own homes is considered.

This movement toward safeguarding all children placed away from their own homes is part of a broader movement, recently described by Dr. Donald Howard as "the gradual development of social work from a salvage operation picking up broken bits of humanity to a far more constructive role." This role is to make available to all children and all families the social services that have heretofore been available primarly to disadvantaged groups.