The peripheral groups will include lay representatives from PTA membership, associations of school boards, and representatives of various private agencies and organizations such as National Probation and Parole Association, Association of Police Chiefs, juvenile court judges, Association for Psychiatric Treatment of Offenders, Family Service Association of America, etc. In addition, representatives of the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Office of Education, and Juvenile Delinquency Services Section of the U.S. Children's Bureau would be included.

The conference plans, organization, and special themes will be worked out in greater detail with help from the association's advisory group. Date of the invitational conference: May 14-15, 1959.

Products. As one outcome of this conference, an appendix statement will be prepared as a guide to implementation including suggestions on how to stimulate local interest, how to plan, and how to make use of the NEA and supplementary materials.

Presentation of NEA project, recommendations, and findings via some national TV program such as "Omnibus," "Meet the Press," and through education TV outlets. The same approach could be taken through radio.

Feedback to annual national meetings of educators and other professional groups who come in close contact with the delinquent child and his family. Publication of documents I, II, and III, together with the appendix statement. Thought should be given to outlining script material to interest some agency in the preparation of a series of films to parallel the major document as follows: Film 1, "Juvenile Delinquency-Meaning and Causes"; film 2, "Desirable School Practices for Prevention and Control"; film 3, "How It Was Done in X Town." WILLIAM C. KVARACEUS, Director.

REPORT OF PROGRESS JUVENILE DELINQUENCY PROJECT

GOALS

General

To help the school administrator and the classroom teacher in the education and rehabilitation of the predelinquent and delinquent.

Specific

To suggest specific and desirable practices in dealing more effectively with the nonconforming, overt-aggressive youngster who jeopardizes the education of the class as a whole, as well as the welfare and morale of the teacher.

PHASE 1

Using an interdisciplinary team, a working document is being prepared which distills the best current thought as to definition of delinquency, meaning, and causes. This statement will be used as a base on which to consider desirable and alternative school practices for prevention and control. Members of the interdisciplinary team of experts:

Milton L. Barron, sociologist, College of the City of New York, New York City. Edward M. Daniels, M.D., psychiatrist, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, and associated with the Newton, Mass., Public Schools.

William C. Kvaraceus, psychologist, director of NEA's Project on Juvenile Delinquency, Washington, D.C.

Preston A. McLendon, M.D., American Academy of Pediatrics, and chairman of the Conference on the Role of Pediatric Services in the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, Washington, D.C.

Walter B. Miller, cultural anthropologist, director, Special Youth Program Research, Roxbury, Mass., and lecturer in the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.

Benjamin F. Thompson, criminologist, Youth Division, Department of Corrections, Lansing, Mich.

The last work session of the interdisciplinary team has been held and a first draft of the document is now ready for use in phase 2.

PHASE 2

A number of workshops involving educators and other youth workers have been planned to consider desirable school practices and adaptations that stem

from the basic document prepared in phase 1, which will be made available to the participants in advance of each of the workshops.

To date the following meetings have been arranged with the cooperation of

these groups:

SSP, Philadelphia, February 9-11.

Delinquency Conference, American Academy of Pediatrics, Arden House, N.Y., February 16 and 17.

AASA, Atlantic City, February 18.
ASCD, Cincinnati, March 4 and 5.

NEA Classroom Teachers, Salt Lake City, March 6.

University of Delaware, March 25.

NEA Classroom Teachers, Hartford, April 2.

-CEC, Atlantic City, April 7-11.

HPER, Indianapolis, April 15–17.

Elementary Teachers' Delinquency Workshop, Lansing, April 22 and 23. Illinois Governor's Conference, Youth and Community Service, Chicago, May 7 and 8.

As a result of these sessions, a second publication incorporating desirable practices, or "guides for school action" will be forthcoming.

PHASE 3

A national survey is being made to locate, describe, and to illustrate school programs which have taken a delinquency focus and which have succeeded in denting the delinquency problem. This will result in a third publication in which a number of schools will tell their story. Programs will be selected which best illustrate the theory and practices evolved from the first two phases.

With the cooperation of State school officers and secretaries of State education associations and other agencies, we have to date received about 70 reports de scribing delinquency prevention and control efforts involving school personnel. These are being studied and analyzed with the cooperation of the Council for Exceptional Children.

PHASE 4

A National Invitation Conference on Implementation is planned for May 14-15, 1959. A summary of the three phases will be presented with a focus on implementation of desirable practices for prevention and control at the local level. The core group invited will consist of school personnel; the peripheral group will be made up of other youth workers, lay and professional.

PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE FROM NEA

Glick, Selma J. "Spotting Potential Delinquents in the School," Exceptional Children, XX (May 1954), pp. 342–346. 20 cents.

Reviews the available data concerning the construction and validation of the Glueck social prediction table and indicates its potential use in a school program.

Hill, Arthur S., Miller, Leonard M., Gabbard, Hazel F. "Schools Face the Delinquency Problem," Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, vol. 37, No. 198 (December 1953), pp. 181-221. 30 cents.

Discusses types of services schools might render the delinquent and predelinquent. Gives specific illustrations of school programs in action. Kvaraceus, William C. "If Your School and Community Want the Facts on Juvenile Delinquency," Exceptional Children, XXV (October 1958), pp. 57–67. 30 cents.

Kvaraceus, William C. Juvenile Delinquency: What Research Says to the Teacher, No. 15. Washington, D.C., Department of Classroom Teachers and the American Educational Research Association, 1958. 32 p. 25 cents. Presents implications for classroom teachers based upon research and theory. Moore, Bernice Milburn. "Juvenile Delinquency: Research, Theory, and Comment." Washington, D.C. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Educational Association, 1958. 64 p. $1.

Analyzes social problems related to delinquent behavior and examines the school's role in alleviating delinquency.

National Education Association. "Teacher Opinion on Pupil Behavior, 1955-56," Research Bulletin of the National Educational Association, XXXIV (April 1956), pp. 51-107. 50 cents.

Presents the opinions and judgments of 4,270 classroom teachers concerning the nature and trend of current misbehavior among children.

Schools Help Prevent Delinquency. Research Bulletin of the National Education Association, vol. XXXI, No. 3. Washington 6: Research Division of the National Education Association, 1953, pp. 99–132.

An overall look at the problem of delinquent behavior, with specific reference to what schools can do and are doing to prevent and control undesirable behavior.

[From General Federation Clubwoman, January 1959]

IF YOU WANT TO HELP THE DELINQUENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY

The modern clubwoman represents a strategic and powerful resource for child welfare in every community. As a woman she has a natural affinity and relationship with children that stem from her motherhood role. As a club member and a participant in many different associations, boards, committees, and commissions she is apt to concern herself seriously with youth legislation, with the quality of existing child and family-serving agencies and organizations, with gaps in community services, and with the improvement of environmental and social hazards to growth and development of youth. And, of course, as a motherparent she plays a dominant role in child rearing, especially in the early postnatal and preschool period, thereby shaping the personality of her own young by bending and sometimes pruning the tender twig.

Taken collectively, clubwomen, conceived as an organized and informed motherhood, could make a real dent in the nationwide delinquency problem-but only if their efforts are carefully guided, and only if their efforts show a certain quality. Poorly guided, or lacking certain qualities, the endeavors of women's organizations can prove more harmful than helpful. Hence, to insure help and to avoid hindrance, I would admonish the woman clubworker as follows:

Be willing to face the facts.-In spite of the loud and irritated complaint that can be heard around the Nation concerning the delinquency surge, there is still much denial of any local delinquency problem, and much sticking of the head in local sands. Yet the amount of delinquency as measured by court appearances has doubled in the short span of years between 1948 and 1956. At the same time, more than a million youngsters have a police contact annually because of some behavioral episode. But there is something very peculiar about this segment of our noisy and sick youth at the local level. They are always anonymous. They never have individual faces or local addresses. But they are not just statistics in a table. They are children who live on any street, in any town. They have names, faces, parents, and teachers.

Against this awful reality of the delinquency phenomenon too many local citizens, when queried concerning any local delinquency problem, will deflect or deny it. They will point to the nearest large urban and industrial center, usually a safe distance away from home. The delinquent seems to inhabit only other communities or other neighborhoods. The glib answer, "We don't have much of a delinquency problem here, really," too often represents an evasion of the fact that no community is immune or free of the delinquency taint today. Delinquency has invaded all sectors of society. It can be found in favored suburbia, as well as in the depressed and blighted streets of the large and dirty city. If we are to help the delinquent, we must be willing to take the blinders off and to face the harsh reality of aberrant behavior that is taking place in our own town, on our own street, and even in our own backyard.

Don't get emotionally involved.-The delinquent is a very irritated and irritating member of our society. He can be a pain in the neck and a real thorn in the tender side of the community (or any other part of the sensitive anatomy). It is hard to refrain from striking back at the young offender or at his neglectful parents, especially if it was your car that was marked up, or your purse that was stolen by some young hoodlum. True, the delinquent is generally a child full of hate and hostility. But he is met with equal hate and hostility on the part of the offended adult community. A good example of such strong venom can be found in Mr. Howard Whitman's piece of annoyance in last September's issue of Better Homes and Gardens in which he sounds the call for open season on the misbehaving student by urging the schools to "throw the rowdies out." But they are not garbage. These are children.

In helping offensive and offending children we shall need to retain an impersonal and objective attitude. Like the surgeon who calmly ministers unto a patient suffering from some foul and cancerous growth, the community must preserve a positive and helpful point of view, distinguishing always between the disease and the disease. With the delinquent this means viewing him in the spirit of redemptive love and taking care to reject the sin without rejecting the sinner.

In sharp contrast to the positive point of view which permeates the community as it reaches out to help the polio victim, the blind or partially seeing, the deaf and hard of hearing, and the cerebral palised, the youngster who falls in the delinquent category only gets the back of the community's hand. He is the unwanted one-a social outcast who seldom has a friend in court. Yet, not unlike other handicapped children, he, too, is much in the need of help. One of the reasons why adults find the delinquent "hard to take" centers around their own frequent involvement in the delinquency drama. They see in the recurring delinquent acts the mirrored reflection of their own adult inadequacies and failings. Seeing this, not always understanding this, the threatened adult is apt to try to erase the reflection by getting rid of the problem the easiest way she knows how. One way is to deny its existence; another way is to place the offending youngsters safely out of sight and out of mind in a State institution.

There is ever present the danger with well-meaning lay groups of the otherextreme as found in the meddlesome sterotype of the "do-gooder" who identifies with the "poor delinquent" and thereby trips over the boobytrap of sentimentalism. The interested and concerned lay worker must avoid maudlin sentiment with the same meticulous care that she sidesteps the retaliatory reaction in striking back at the young offender. Here are the Scylla and the Charybdis that frequently wreck the good intentions and efforts of many child-welfare lay workers.

Get informed.-There is no shortage of opinions about the delinquent and what to do for him, to him, or with him. But we do suffer from a serious shortage of facts on the delinquency story. The clubwoman, to be effective, must base her opinions on the best available data concerning the meaning and implications of delinquency, as well as on the implications of research as to causes and promising practices for prevention and control. Lacking such facts the lay community will run the risk of letting its efforts wash down the drain through the appeal to the usual palliatives such as the curfew, the woodshed, and antiparent legislation. Such approaches may not only be ineffective, they may actually be harmful in that they can lull local groups into a false sense of complacency with the feeling that they have come to grips with the delinquency problem when they have not even touched a surface symptom. There are three kinds of knowledge regarding delinquency that the clubwoman must be aware of if she is to be practical in her approach to the complex and many-sided problem of delinquency.

First, the community, (usually the professional workers) must be informed on the theory (this is not a dirty word, this is a magic and holy word) of delinquent behavior as a form of adjustment in our culture. Facts at this level of knowledge indicate, for example, that delinquency is a symptom, that there is no primacy of causes that will explain why youngsters adopt the delinquency pattern, that there are many varieties of delinquents, and that every delinquent has his own special reasons for his aberrant behavior. Research-oriented theory alone can provide the sensible and economical basis on which to plan action programs. Programs to aid the delinquent which are based solely on "commonsense" can easily lead the community astray. Just as the native jungle dweller sees little "commonsense" in the way Salk vaccine is produced, and in the "silly notion" that three injections can control a dread and crippling disease, some of the approaches to delinquency prevention and control may also apear farfetched and unreasonable to many native city dwellers. If the practices are research-tested in the behavioral sciences, only then can they bear the seal of approval for community use.

This does not mean that the active clubwoman must turn professional; it does imply, however, that the interested and concerned lay worker should be sensitive to the need of, and dependency on, research-oriented theory as the only practical approach to community planning and action.

Second, the clubwoman and the professional workers must get the facts on delinquency for their own community. How much and what type of delinquency is prevalent? Where does it occur most frequently? What families are represented in the delinquent population? What is the delinquent's school picture? Answers to such questions will enable the community to know the kind and extent of delinquency with which it must cope. Some communities face more severe and pressing problems than others. Very often each neighborhood has its own unique features and its own special brand of delinquency. Hence, most cities and towns (in the large metropolitan centers this will mean neighborhoods) will need to tailor a delinquency prevention and control program to meet local needs. While much can be learned from the successful experiences and efforts of other counties or municipalities, it is seldom that one city can take over in toto the kind of program that has worked elsewhere. This will mean getting local facts with the cooperation of such agencies and organizations as the schools, churches, probation offices, and juvenile courts. Without adequate data on the local scene, both lay and professional workers will be feeling their way and groping in the dark.

Third, in helping the individual delinquent the community must seek out the facts in each instance using case study techniques. This means providing competently trained personnel for child study and diagnosis. Generally this will include psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists as found in the classical design of a child guidance clinic. Lacking such special services, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to unlock the meaning of any child's delinquent behavior and to plan a treatment and rehabilitation program. Working to this level of knowledge the clubwoman can help by urging and supporting the procurement of a clinical team whether on the local, county, or regional basis, depending upon need and population density.

The No. 1 problem in the country today is not the delinquency problem as such. Rather it is public apathy, misunderstanding, and ignorance concerning the meaning of such maladjustive behavior and the community practices that really offer the best promise of help in prevention and control. Until we have a more informed citizenry, professional efforts to help the delinquent will be stalled and handicapped for lack of moral and financial support. Here is the great opportunity for an informed and highly motivated women's club membership.

Place the accent on prevention.-There are two approaches to prevention: One centers around the overall improvement of experiences provided by the home, school, church, and neighborhood; the other involves prevention through early and systematic identification of those youngsters who appear prone, vulnerable, or susceptible to the development of the delinquent pattern of behavior. The bedrock approach, then, is to work for better homes, for better churches, for better police, and for better juvenile courts. At the same time a concerted effort must be made to utilize the results of research which indicate the telltale signs of potential delinquency. By noting certain factors within the personal makeup of the delinquent and factors within the home, school, and neighborhood, it is possible today to spot many of the future delinquents.

Any community approach that merely treats delinquents after police and court contact, will hardly do more than hold its own in extinguishing fires. What is needed is the preventive effort safeguarding against a possible conflagration.

Work for coordination.—Delinquency is everyone's business; everyone must get in the act. Without careful coordination among juvenile court, police, schools, church, recreation, child guidance clinic, group work agencies, hospitals, and family-serving agencies the community may become a setting for an oldfashioned Mack Sennett comedy. Failure to coordinate may mean duplication of effort, serious gaps in essential services, and sibling agency rivalry for clientele and volunteer leadership.

Coordination of community services will be forthcoming only as a consequence of overall planning and study. This will call for the organization of a community group such as a Council of Social Agencies, a Youth Council, or Coordinating Council. Always such a coordinating community group should have lay, professional, and youth participation in its membership. Again here is where the informed clubwoman can play an important role.

Involve youth themselves.—Any community approach to delinquency prevention and control will enjoy little success if it does not stimulate general youth par