The answer is that we have established that young men and women should go to school and that a high school education now has become a requisite for any kind of skill. Therefore, our question was, Can we not bring the academic level up so that the youngster can regain his own strength educationally and go back into the public schools from whence he dropped? Those who have not performed well at the public school have gone out. These are the ones, almost 80 percent of them, that are in the National Training School for Boys and other institutions. Therefore, what we are attempting to do is to raise his educational skill so that he can go back and enter the normal way of the American adolescent work. Our youngsters that we deal with at the Training School average between 14 and 19. We have been working with them. for over a year. We have a proportion that have gone out. One of the things we feel is necessary is to maintain contact and see the results of our efforts. We measure the increase in learning while they are with us, retention rates, and also find out what happens after they leave. We have processed in our project 41 students. Mandatory release was four, parole from the Institution 14, work release, five, awaiting parole decisions are now nine, and AWOL are nine. The 18, then, that are out, of those only one has gone back. Four are back in public school, and one is in junior college. The increase in the change in these individuals is that the bulk, 11, have increased between 1 and 1.9 grade levels for every 90 hours of performance they have had with us. We are extremely encouraged by the fact that these young men who society considered uneducatable are now performing at such a high rate. The question we would like to ask in reference to the bill is, Are there enough funds set aside for education, academicwise, for these youngsters considered juvenile delinquents? If there are not, the question is, How could they reestablish themselves in the normal adolescent world, the public school world? The second question I would like to ask is in reference to training. It is not enough that we ourselves can establish this kind of increase. Can others do it as well? Since we have closed the case 2 project, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has taken on responsibility for educating all students at the National Training School. All 240, for the first time in history, go to school under this system. They go a minimum of a half a day. They have just given an SAT. They have been open two and a half months in the total system. Over 75 percent of them have gone up 1.2 levels on an SAT, and the remaining 25 percent have either dropped on an average of 0.5, or no increase. It is interesting to note that these are youngsters who never wished to go to school, who are going to school now through programed instruction and this reinforcement system on the basis of these funds allowing them to purchase their own cigarettes, supplies, the various small commodities made available to them at the Training School. I notice that in the bill very little provision is made for training, and the educational aspect of the bill is quite minor. My major point is that if we are to send these youngsters back, 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds, we have to recognize that they must fit into this educational stream, and that it is the duty, I think, of the penal institutions and those institu tions which are then responsible for rehabilitation to attempt to bring them up to this academic level. That is in essence the statement of those two volumes. Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Selsky, would you like to proceed? STATEMENT OF CARL SELSKY, PROJECT DIRECTOR, YOUTH GROUP HOMES, DEPARTMENT OF WELFARE, WASHINGTON, D.C. Mr. SELSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this oppor tunity to appear. I represent the District of Columbia Welfare Department as Project Director of Youth Group Homes. I had short notice to appear, so I have no prepared statement. I do have a summary I prepared some time ago talking a little bit about our community-based program. We are a three-phased demonstration project financed by the Health, Education, and Welfare juvenile delinquency funds, and administered by the United Planning Organizations of the District of Columbia. The project began in October 1965, with the opening of our Youth Rehabilitation House in the Cardoza area of the city. The houses that we have are essentially alternatives to institutionalization. They are called halfway houses. One is a precommitment facility, one is a shelter facility, and one is a postcommitment facility. Ironically, the postcommitment facility opened first. We really should have opened the predelinquency shelter house first, but we did not. In October 1965, we accepted 10 boys from the Children's Center in Laurel, Md., the District of Columbia Welfare facility for juveniles. The houses that we have have 10 boys in each house. They live in them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is a staff member on duty at all times in the residences. We have a dynamic treatment program based on the high field demonstration which began in 1950. I will go to the second house and then go back to the treatment phases. We opened our youth probation house in July 1966, for 10 children also. The youngsters in this residence are on probation in the District of Columbia Juvenile Court and as a special condition of probation, an order of the court, they must live in the residence for the period designated by the house administrator, which averages about 6 months. The third residence, called the Youth Shelter House, also located in the Cardoza area-all three are opened in October of 1966. We began phasing in 10 children, not all in 1 day. The last residence is really a facility which we determined to be predelinquent. The youngsters are arrested and if their parents were available at the time of the arrest, they would not be placed in the receiving home where they end up, unfortunately. This facility keeps these youngsters, 10 of them, out of the reaches of the more sophisticated, aggressive delinquent who is in the receiv ing home. In two of the residences, youth rehabilitation and youth probation house, we utilize guided group interaction, as based on the high field program. These youngsters meet 5 days a week in group counseling or group therapy. It is not psychotherapy. We do not offer any panacea for all juvenile delinquency. We don't think we can do this. We select out certain kinds of youngsters who seem to be able to respond to this type of treatment. This works best with peeroriented children, average intellectual ability or better. We don't take the lone wolves or the passive youngsters. We take aggressive, hostile, acting out youngsters who can tolerate some pressures and anxiety. We think we have a good program. The program has been researched. One of the questions asked us is what is the measure of success for this type of treatment. As has been demonstrated in various institutions throughout the country and at high fields, certain things can be expected to happen, not only just behavioral changes, but attitudinal changes. We try to work with current phenomena, reality-based things. There are some things which Dr. Cohen mentioned which we also utilize. We work with things based on the present and realities of everyday life. The youngsters in their therapy sessions do not talk about topics Mr. PUCINSKI. If I may interrupt you, you are talking about 10 youngsters in a halfway house. How long have they been there? Mr. SELSKY. In two of the residences, youngsters have been there 6 or 7 months. We are phasing some of them into the next steps. Mr. PUCINSKI. What are the prospects for rehabilitation of these youngsters? Mr. SELEKY. Can I explain how they leave? Perhaps this might have some bearing. These are youngsters who make their own decisions, in a sense. They recommend who shall leave. If a youngster feels in 5 or 6 months that he is ready to leave, he must petition the other group members. He asks for a meeting of the other nine boys in the group. He has to pass through each one of them. If they determine that they think he still has some problems, they will not recommend that he be able to leave. So let us say the group recommends that he be able to leave. The therapist, who is the catalytic agent of change, the guiding force, though not the medium of change himself, must also give his recommendation. Mr. PUCINSKI. What do these youngsters do all day long? Mr. PUCINSKI. What kind of school? Mr. SELSKY. If public school age, they attend public schools. In the youth probation house, all three attend a public junior high school. And others work in the Neighborhood Youth Corps and the National Zoo. In the youth shelter house, they must attend public schools, either in their own communities or in the local school. Mr. PUCINSKI. As a practical application of this particular experiment, what are we learning from this to apply under this legislation before us? Mr. SELSKY. I think the link here is community-based programs. The guided group interaction which we utilize can be used in many other phases in education in public schools. These activities can also be utilized in prevention. Some of our youngsters are now out in the community helping form other neighborhood friendship groups. Some of our parents are out. Mr. Hathaway, you asked a question about involving the parents. In the youth probation house, we will not accept a boy unless his parents agree to come to the house for group counseling sessions. In one of the other houses, we do the same thing. We don't demand it, we cannot, but we try to involve them. Mr. PUCINSKI. Dr. Cohen, you talked about the program of new techniques for the functionally illiterate delinquent, but isn't one of the problems that we have in this country the fact that we don't have any facilities for dealing with the delinquent who is either normal or above normal in his intellectual capacity? We have a tendency to lump everything together the moment a youngster gets into trouble, whether a stolen car, or whatever it is. If we take him to our correctional institutions he is grouped with a bunch of boys who, in most instances, are subnormal in their intellectual achievement. I think this is a big problem. We have placed a great deal of emphasis on the so-called functionally illiterate. There is no question that we have to, to some extent at least. But I would like to know what are your views on creating facilities for the youngster who has a behavioral problem but who is intellectually perfectly normal, who maintains even above normal grades in his school environment. Where do you send a youngster like that? Mr. COHEN. That is a pretty complex question. The great majority of students we had were not functionally illiterates. The group we had were given the normal revised IQ examination. It was interesting to note that even those considered dull normally would be in Washington on the lower track. One of them increased 25 points on an IQ which would put him into the upper track. What we are dealing with, of course, is the fact that a lot of these tests that are being used test what I would call cultural growth. Our youngsters increased an average of 12.09 and we have taught them the culturation process within the system. The point I would like to make about these young men is that although some of them were at the very low levels, eight of our young men who have taken the GED's, the high school equivalencies, every single one has passed, including one not quite 16 years of age, by using this kind of procedure, by putting them on their own individal program, by testing them at the beginning so that each one is going successfully step by step. I think the interesting part of the program which shows a good amount of promise is the fact that success in an area where hitherto the young man has been unsuccessful gives him a new outlook, first not only a sense that he can take these funds and buy his way, where he lives, the food he buys, how he intends to spend his time, but he becomes quite proud of the fact that he is now doing algebra. He also starts to talk more. He has a larger repertoire about which he can start to talk to people. So the aspect of academic achievement, and this is for the bulk, is such that it gives them a sense of success, and success is probably one fo the highest reinforcements for additional success. What we are looking to see, then, is when a youngster has this new kind of intellectual role, what happens in terms of what you consider his values. In terms of the research begun at Southern California University, I took the lower group in a class from the University of Illinois, over 60 percent went through the university, and this was a group considered very far below. What we do not have is the facility and the systems by which we can bring up the intellectual resource. These youngsters do have it. They are quite able to think ahead, to plan ahead. I was told at the beginning that these young people could never think ahead, that they think for the moment. They wait for their paycheck at the end of the week, they put money in the bank, they send funds to their parents, send out applications for work. They do think ahead. When there is a meaningful and significant program, they learn to think ahead in the sense you like them to be the normal adolescent who is able to stay in school, think of the future, and the consequences of his own behavior. This is, of course, much too soon to judge, but what I feel about the program is that we have developed procedures which we can give to the others, the people who are the teachers, the personnel, the people directly from the Bureau of Prisons which we have trained. I have not brought in, for example, scholars from the universities and my own institution to deal with this. We are developing procedures which could be applicable, because we need this, we need a system which, when brought into play, under the normal operation, can hold, can be useful. This shows very encouraging signs. Mr. PUCINSKI. Mr. Hawkins. Mr. HAWKINS. I have just one question. I assume education of these students is provided by the State of Maryland. Mr. COHEN. NO. We have a program running right on the grounds at the National Training School, a separate building. We use standard texts where available, but with new procedures. Mr. HAWKINS. There is no connection with the public school system? Mr. COHEN. No; except for those youngsters who have reached the level and we then contact the school. We have a work-release program for the adults, but what about the youth? We feel those youngsters who have reached that level should go into school. We have students in the public school who come back to us. This is the role they must take again. They come back. A 17-year-old is going back to school. We have started what we call a school-release program. We are watching it very carefully. We have had some good relationships with the public school system in Washington. Mr. HAWKINS. Are these students recruited from that area or do they come from other areas? Mr. COHEN. The population is about 50 percent from the District of Columbia right now. That is because they are under contract with the welfare agencies. The other 50 percent are from east of the Mississippi. Therefore, the population that we can watch carefully is from the District of Columbia. Mr. HAWKINS. It would seem to me that areas from which they come should continue the funding of their educational cost. I would assume that some of these are dropouts and pushouts from some very able educational systems that should be responsible for continuing this preparation. I am wondering why it isn't being done. Mr. COHEN. I am not clear. Do you mean when a youngster goes back to Florida or Georgia; he goes into the public school system while on parole, and the State handles the educational system as it always has. What we have done is prepare him. We give a list of the accomplishments he has, the things he has completed well. By "well," we mean 90 percent or better-we consider the task well done. Nothing under an A is considered passing. With this kind of achievement, |