present alarming trend. Participants from many other youth-serving organizations joined the symposium's cosponsors in signing a position statement, a copy of which is attached.

But I think perhaps I ought to read the names of the organizations that signed this position paper along with the American Parents committee.

They are: The American Parents Committee, Big Brothers of America, International Juvenile Officers Association, Joint Commission on Mental Health of Children, National Association for Retarded Children, National Association of Social Workers, National Council of Junveile Court Judges, National Council of Jewish Women, National Conference of Superintendents of Training Schools and Reformatories, National Education Association, and Washington Pastoral Counseling Service.

Part of the reason for widespread drug experimentation by youth is, we are convinced, the lack of factual information available as to the relative dangers of different drugs. We therefore respect fully urge full funding for the research and education programs on narcotic addiction and drug abuse. This would include NIMH's drug-abuse research grants, research for child mental health, and staffing of mental health centers. NIMH has a primary responsibility in coordinating and disseminating research findings, technical information, and scientific advances in this field. In addition, the Institute's National Clearinghouse for Mental Health Information (the world's largest computerized repository of mental health findings) is actively engaged in assisting the researcher and therapist keep abreast of technical information of drug abuse.

Early diagnosis and treatment of emotionally-disturbed children is, of course, the "ounce of prevention" that could prevent further illicit drug experimentation by teenagers and now, even by primary grade students. Accordingly, we earnestly hope your committee will grant full authorized funds for this coming year's appropriation for Public Law 90-538, the Handicapped Children's Early Education Act, and title VI of ESEA, for the education of seriously emotionallydisturbed children. For juveniles in need of rehabilitation, we also urge granting the full authorized amount for second year findings of Public Law 90-445, the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act, which has so far been granted only $5 million planning money for all the States. Staffing and construction of juvenile detention. centers, establishment of "halfway houses" for youthful offenders, probation and aftercare services for adjudicated delinquents are all needs which the Federal Government has yet to help the States in meeting.

Preventing mental retardation in the newborn is perhaps the most effective means available for preventing later years of remedial care and treatment. And yet, for the maternal and child health programs of the U.S. Children's Bureau, we regretfully note that $1 million less than the authorized amount for these programs, is budgeted for the coming year. Of the total requested, $31 million is requested for familyplanning services for an estimated 1.3 million participants. Surveys have shown that, in the past year, over 5 million mothers served by health clinics throughout the country have requested such services. If these requests could be met fully, the tragedy of unwanted and neglected children could be in large part avoided.

The American Parents Committee has suported, over the past two decades, the concept of categorical grants for elementary and secondary education, as well as other specific Federal programs affecting children. We therefore hope for fullest possible funding, under title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments, for education aid specifically for Indian and migrant children, and other children of low-income families. In the April budget revisions, we gratefully note there has been no change from the original budget request for ESEA's title I, which reflects the greater student load with an increase of $103 million over the previous year.

In the face of a nation-wide shortage of teachers, it is gratifying to learn that, as of this month, the U.S. Office of Education has announced that over 4,200 applications have been received directly by the Teacher Corps for 1,200 available 1969 intern positions, with another 2,000-3,000 applications received on the local level. This enthusiastic response to the concept of the Teacher Corps should, we hope, receive full acknowledgment in the form of authorized appropriations under Public Law 90-35, the Education Professions Act, which authorizes more than double the amount requested in the fiscal 1970 Budget. Maximum encouragement should be given to those applicants who volunteer for teaching in innercity schools, and in Spanish-speaking areas where English is taught as a second language.

The Vocational Education Amendments have earmarked 40 percent of its grants to the States for (a) children from impoverished areas; (b) the physically and mentally handicapped; and (c) postsecondary vocational students. Although the coming year's total budget request falls below fiscal 1970 authorizations by over $500 million, it is increasingly evident that vocational education needs to be upgraded in the public's mind, to prevent increasing numbers of high-school "dropouts" for whom the traditional high school courses have little or no immediate relevance. For those adolescents whose formal education will end at the high-school level, it is imperative, we feel, to give increased emphasis and stature to vocational education, if we are to decrease the present level of our 700,000 high-school "drop-outs", many of whom subsequently swell the ranks of hard-core unemployed or chronic delinquents.

The American Parents committee has gone on record in opposition to the proposed "freeze" in State percentages of children qualifying for Federal aid under the aid to Families with dependent children (AFDC) program. Fortunately, in his April revisions on the HEW budget, the President has called for a postponement of another year for the AFDC "freeze," and has added $322 million for fiscal 1970, to implement this program. We strongly support continuance of the AFDC program without the punitive aspects of limiting the number of each State's children eligible, regardless of obvious need.

However, we oppose the cut of $200,000 in the child welfare training program of the Children's Bureau, and the cut of $2.2 million from the original 1970 Budget request, under Section 511 of the Social Security Amendments, for the Bureau's training of professional personnel for crippled children. For the Bureau's entire child welfare programs, the revised Budget request is less than half the authorized amount.

In a special guest editorial appearing in the March 1969 issue of Parents' magazine, the president of the Child Welfare League of America has called for equal rights for all American children, and emphasized the following present inequities:

An estimated 10 million youngsters are dependent, neglected, or homeless; yet only a small fraction of their number are getting child welfare services:

Child welfare service encompasses preventive work with children living with their own families; daycare; adoption; foster care; protective and other services. Yet it is the only area of human need for which the Federal Government does not provide funds on a matching basis with the States:

Over 11 million children under the age of 12 have mothers who are employed: yet throughout the country there are daycare centers for only 500,000 children—and this despite recent mandatory provisions in the Social Security amendments that require AFDČ mothers to seek employment through job training: (Yet, for this job-training program (WIN), the April budget has cut $35 million from the January budget request, $10 million of which applies to child care services and $25 million for work-training.)

Because of the extreme shortage of child welfare services, many children spend their early years waiting to be adopted; many suffer physical abuse, despite enactment of Child Abuse Laws by all the States; other children are shifted from one foster home to another without any chance to develop family ties.

Under the Social Security laws, by July 1975, child welfare services must be available to all parts of each state. Yet it is difficult to see how this can be accomplished if, year after year, appropriations for child welfare fall so far below authorizations. The social cost to our Nation in the neglect of children is, of course, inestimable. This is the "social dynamite" that brings staggering costs in later years for rehabilitation of alienated youths and adult criminals. In the recent report of the President's Commission on Violence, it was established that over half the crimes in our cities are committed by juveniles, and that 70 percent of adult criminals have juvenile delinquency records. Preventive measures are always less costly than social repairwork. The Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children, in its report this month after a 3-year study, has emphasized treating the total needs of the child before the age of 5, adding "If we fail to provide the resources in the community, we will pile up another generation of children destined to the juvenile courts, reformatories, jails, welfare institutions and our wards of State hospitals." The effective interrelation of child health, adequate nutrition, education and welfare services, must be high on our national priority list if we value our Nation's future.

(Attachment to statement follows:)

PARTICIPANTS' POSITION STATEMENT

SYMPOSIUM ON YOUTH IN CRISIS

February 27, 1969, Washington, D.C.

To the President of the United States and Members of the 91st Congress: We, the undersigned, have joined in this symposium with the shared conviction that in the unimpaired minds and bodies of our Nation's children and youth rests the future of our country, in its finest aspirations.

To this end, we rededicate our individual and collective forces to protect the future so embodied. We also call upon the executive and legislative branches of our Government to share with us this sense of priority, either by enacting and approving new legislation or by strengthening existing legislation to the extent already authorized, to meet the needs of those American children whose future is imperiled either physically or mentally, by the neglect or indifference of their families, their State, or their country. For The American Parents Committee, Barbara D. McGarry, executive director; Big Brothers of America, William H. Bruce, research director; International Juvenile Officer's Association, Hugh Carpenter, executive director, and Lt. William H. Conner, board of directors; Joint Commission on Mental Health of Children, Reginald S. Lourie, president; National Association for Retarded Children, Dr. Philip Roos, executive director; National Association of Social Workers, Rudolph T. Danstedt, Washington representative; National Council of Juvenile Court Judges, John F. X. Irving, executive director; National Council of Jewish Women, Mrs. Leonard H. Weiner, president; National Conference of Superintendents of Training Schools and Reformatories, Roy L. McLaughlin, president; National Education Association, John M. Lumley, assistant executive secretary for Federal relations: Washington Pastoral Counseling Service, Rev. S. Lewis Morgan,

Jr.

Mr. HECHT. Thank you very much.

Mr. NATCHER. Mr. Hecht, we want to thank you and Mrs. McGarry for your appearance before our committee at this time.

FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1969.

PROGRAMS OF THE REHABILITATION SERVICES ADMINISTRATION AND PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT OF THE HANDICAPPED

WITNESS

MR. E. B. WHITTEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL REHABILİTATION ASSOCIATION

Mr. NATCHER. Our next witness is Mr. E. B. Whitten, the executive director of the National Rehabilitation Association.

Mr. Whitten, it is a pleasure to have you appear at this time and we will be glad to hear from you.

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Chairman, my name is E. B. Whitten. I am director of the National Rehabilitation Association, an organization whose membership consists of 35,000 individuals and organizations, all of whom are concerned for the rehabilitation of handicapped and otherwise disadvantaged individuals. Approximately one-half of its members are individuals who work in some kind of rehabilitation program, the remainder being individuals with no professional stake in rehabilitation, but who are interested as laymen in the rehabilitation of handicapped people and joined the National Rehabilitation Association to indicate this interest and concern. The organization was formed in 1925 and has been in continuous existence since that time. It has been active in legislative hearings relative to rehabilitation for handicapped individuals, and has appeared numerous times before appropriations committees and committees of substance dealing with problems of handicapped individuals.

Today, I appear in support of appropriations for programs administered by the Rehabilitation Services Administration. In the following paragraphs, I shall enumerate the requests that the National Rehabilitation Association is making of this committee, giving brief explanations of the reasons for our request. Then, we shall speak in greater detail of at least two of the programs.

(1) Section 2.—We request that the appropriation authority for section 2 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act remain at $600 million for 1970, as provided in the law and recommended by the preceding administration. To support this authority, we request that a total of $528 million be appropriated, this being the amount that estimates made in March 1969 indicate will be needed to match the State monies available to support the program.

(2) Section 12.-We request that $10 million be appropriated for rehabilitation facilities and the staffing of facilities under section 12 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act. It will be noted that the appropriation authority for this section for 1970 is $20 million. The preceding administration recommended $1,850,000 for this program, which is the identical amount appropriated for the preceding year. The present administration recommended reducing the $1,850,000 to $550,000 and confining the use of this sum to the staffing of facilities. The justification of these low sums is stated as being that 10 percent of the appropriations under section 2 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act can be used for construction, the inference being that this makes unnecessary a substantial program of vocational rehabilitation facilities under section 12. The National Rehabilitation Association supported the idea of permitting construction under section 2, but it has never taken the position that a construction program under section 2 can take the place of the kind of construction program visualized under section 12. The fact is that some States will not be able to use any of their section 2 appropriations for facilities without reducing the level of case services, which no State would want to do. It is also true that certain types of rehabilitation facilities, particularly those involving participation of two or more States in one project, cannot very conveniently be built under section 2. We believe, accordingly, that there should remain a substantial program for the construction and staffing of vocational rehabilitation facilities under section 12. The recent studies of the facility programs in the States have indicated a need for approximately $200 million for such construction. It is felt that $20 million for 1970 will make it possible to get under way a substantial program. We would like to testify, in addition, that a network of appropriate rehabilitation facilities is absolutely necessary for the development and conducting of a good State-Federal vocational rehabilitation program.

(3) Section 15.-We request that $50 million be appropriated to initiate the vocational evaluation and work adjustment program authorized in the 1968 legislation-section 15. The preceding administration recommended $10 million to initiate this program, while the present administration recommended no funding of this program for 1970. We shall speak further of this program a little later.

(4) Training. We request that $4 million be added to the proposal of the current administration for training of rehabilitation personnel. Although the budget estimates combine training of rehabilitation per