immediate establishment of two units of the project in the Bronx would insure a sound and realistic approach to the teen-age problem in that borough. Brooklyn It is indicated above that the work with gangs by the New York City Youth Board was started in two sections of Brooklyn, namely, Bedford-Stuyvesant and South Brooklyn. At that time the units worked with the 11 most difficult gangs in the area as selected from public and private agency records. The work with these groups has proven successful to the point that we have terminated our work with some and have begun to work with other groups. During the process of working in these areas, however, we have become aware of the needs of other groups who have become involved in antisocial activities. It is, therefore, fair to say at this point that we are in no way adequately working with all of the groups that need coverage and hence we are not in reality fulfilling the principle of saturation, so important for effective work of this type. In examining the extent of needed additional service, we have found that there are at present time 5 groups in South Brooklyn and 4 groups in Bedford-Stuyvesant needing coverage by street-club workers. All of these groups are similar to those described above in the East Harlem and the Bronx and their need for service has been manifested in the quantity and degree of all types of antisocial behavior which they have demonstrated. In order to provide very much needed, minimally adequate service in these areas, these groups must be serviced. TREATMENT SERVICES Experience in working with members of street clubs has conclusively established that a substantial number of them and their families are in dire need of help on an individual basis. While the services provided by the street club worker are adequate to meet the needs of most of the gang members, there is a hard core of youngsters and their families who require intensive long-range individual treatment services if their behavior patterns are to be modified into more socially acceptable directions. In addition, there are large numbers of younger children who are vulnerable to the same social and emotional factors and who are in jeopardy of developing the same patterns of antisocial behavior as gang members who also require individual treatment services. In the long run, effective work with these groups represent a long step toward the prevention of the formation of future antisocial teen-age groups. The families of these youngsters are characterized by a high incidence of broken homes, alcoholism, emotional instability and antisocial behavior. They represent not only the most resistive clients, but also the most damaged. They cannot be referred for help to the voluntary community agencies because they will not go for treatment. Furthermore, most of these agencies are not equipped by experience to provide help for resistive parents and aggressive adolescents. The youth board through its various projects has developed successful methods of helping these groups. The "reaching out" techniques employed in the referral units and elsewhere have demonstrated that no matter how deteriorated a family may be, some rehabilitation is possible. This proposal for treatment services will include not only direct casework help to identified gang members, but also to those youngsters who are displaying symptoms which indicate they are potential gang members. Unless some assistance can be provided at an early stage many of these youths will develop into the adolescent antisocial gang members of tomorrow. Prevention in this area is as essential as in public health. If we had not found out how to control typhoid fever and tuberculosis, we would still be appropriating a large share of our public funds to the care of these diseases. The cost to the taxpayer for the care of a criminal is much larger than the cost of preventing him from becoming a criminal. The plan proposed involves not only the provision of case work services, but sufficient psychiatric time to allow for consultation on cases in which symptoms indicate the possibility of mental illness. RECOMMENDATION To implement this proposed expansion of the street club program and related treatment services, it is recommended that an emergency appropriation of $456,440 be made by the board of estimate to the youth board budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1954, through June 30, 1955. The breakdown of this proposed expenditure is contained in the attached budget. Central services: Proposed budget I. EXPANSION OF STREET CLUB PROGRAM 1 administrative supervisor 1 stenographer-- Subtotal__- Expansion of East Harlem unit (Puerto Rican section): 3 street club workers at $4,030_ Expansion of East Harlem unit (Italian section): 1 supervisor at $5,150___ 1 senior street club worker at $4,700_ 6 street club workers at $4,030_. 3 stenographers at $2,765_-_. Subtotal___. $6,000 2, 765 8,765 12, 090 5, 150 4, 700 24, 180 8, 295 42, 325 1 1 Rent, if rent-free space is secured, a saving in this item will be noted. 1 Rent1 Subtotal Proposed budget-Continued II. NEW TREATMENT SERVICES Central services: 1 administrative supervisor__ 6, 000 2 consultant psychiatrists (5 hours a week, 44 weeks, 440 hours, at $15 an hour)_. 6, 600 1 Rent, if rent-free space as secured, a saving in this item will be noted. (The report of Ralph W. Whelan, executive director, New York City Youth Board, is inserted in the record, as follows:) YOUTH BOARD: 1954 (A paper presented at the general staff meeting of the Social Security Administration, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington D. C., November 17) By Ralph W. Whelan, Executive Director, New York City Youth Board Your invitation to come to Washington to discuss the work of the New York City Youth Board is, I believe, a great honor for our agency. Even more important, it presents an opportunity to share with you some of the concepts we have developed and problems and achievements we have experienced during the past 7 years in developing an integrated community program for the prevention and control of delinquency. My feeling regarding this opportunity is heightened, on the one hand by the fact that, as we are all too well aware, juvenile delinquency continues to be a pressing national problem, and, on the other hand, because of the great impact that the services administered by your department have on the well-being of so many children and their families. YB FUNCTIONS The youth board was established in 1947 under the New York State Youth Commission Act and by resolution of the New York City Board of Estimate. The youth board is a public agency; it has four major functions under the State Youth Commission Act. They are: to coordinate the activities of public, private, and religious agencies; to make studies and analyses of the problems of youth guidance and the prevention of juvenile delinquency; to seek to remove the causes of juvenile delinquency; and to approve applications for financial aid to public and private agencies for the operation of recreation and youth-service projects. As you can readily see, these functions are broad and the youth board has a relationship to practically every agency in the city of New York providing services to children and youth under 21 years of age who are potential or actual delinquents. The youth board comprises 27 members-10 public officials who are ex officio members and 17 lay members appointed by the mayor who represent the various cultural, civic, and welfare interests in the community. The ex officio members are the heads of those public agencies most vitally concerned with our youngsters-the domestic relations court, the court of special sessions, the schools, the Housing authority and the departments of health, parks, police and welfare, the department of correction, and the city magistrates courts. To carry out its responsibilities, the youth board each year receives from the board of estimate of the city of New York an appropriation upward of $1,185,000. This money is matched by the State of New York through its State youth commission; thus we have approximately $2,400,000 available annually. This may sound like a large sum of money but, seen in perspective, it dwindles because of the fact that New York City has almost 22 million children and youth under 21 years of age. The State law is an enabling act and based on the principle of home rule; therefore, the initiative and responsibility rests with the local community. As to New York City, we submit annually a package proposal to the State youth commission and upon receiving their overall approval, we are free to carry out its implementation. It should be pointed out, however, that we do make periodic administrative reviews and evaluations of the various aspects of our program which are valuable as guideposts, both to us and to the youth commission in terms of program adjustments and planning. In addition, the field representative of the State youth commission keeps in close touch with our program planning, development, and operation. UNIQUE PROGRAM Actually, when the youth board began there was scarcely a precedent to follow. Our program was not built on any preconceived blueprint or pet idea of any particular individual. Rather were our concepts forged and beaten out through endless joint conferences between board and staff, meetings with professional advisory committees representing public and private agencies and sessions with both small and large community groups representing a cross section of New York City's neighborhoods. One of the most significant was the Bronx pilot project, a broad community self-study involving the active participation of 170 representatives of that borough. Out of the warp and woof of these dynamic experiences began to emerge the outline of a pattern. Embodied were sound concepts from the bodies of knowledge of psychiatry, casework, group work, public welfare, recreation, family relations, religious education, and last, but not least, commonsense. It became apparent that it would be necessary for the youth board to: 1. Concentrate its efforts in areas of highest delinquency, if the program were to have an effective impact, 2. Develop a method of locating or detecting children and their families and young people with incipient problems and getting them to needed services promptly, and 3. Develop ways and means of reaching those children, young people, and their families who reveal serious social pathology and who, in the past, have resisted the services of social agencies. FOCUSED ON HIGHEST DELINQUENCY AREAS As a first step, our research department pinpointed the areas of highest delinquency in the city. It was the board's conviction that, if the program were to be effective, it must be concentrated in the areas of greatest need. Thus, our program from the beginning focused on the 11 areas with the highest delinquency rates. Each of these areas has a population of 200,000 or more persons. Literally, they are communities the size of Hartford, Conn.; Toledo, Ohio; or Sacramento, Calif. Together, these high delinquency areas were producing almost 3 out of every 5 known delinquents in the city, although they contain only about one-half of the child population. Once our target areas had been outlined and our initial reconnaissance completed, we established our beachhead. In short, because we wanted to reach the broadest cross section of children in each of the 11 areas and, because the school is the one single institution that is in touch with all children, we established, as the hub of our entire program, referral units serving public and parochial schools in each area. The referral units are operated through contract with the division of child welfare of the board of education. This step was taken because the youth board held the firm conviction that its primary functions were in the areas of planning and financial supplementation to existing agencies. Therefore, we have, whenever possible, initiated or expanded services through contractual relationships with ongoing public and voluntary agencies. The referral units, through policies and procedures established jointly by the board of education and the youth board, act as detection centers. They locate child problems as early as possible, study and diagnose such problems, locate appropriate community resources to treat them, and prepare the families and children involved for referral to these services. The referral units help the teacher identify not only the aggressive, acting-out youngster, but also the neurotic, withdrawn child. Each unit is staffed with a qualified casework supervisor and 4 trained caseworkers who have had at least 3 years of professional experience. While it is closely tied in with the schools, the referral units also works with all other agencies in the community to locate children whose problems, if untreated, might lead to serious consequences. We allocate approximately $360,000 annually for this phase of our program. At this point you are probably asking the following questions: Since most of the existing youth guidance and family services are already overburdened with work, what is the advantage of detecting still more problems? Where can suitable treatment be found for the children whom the referral units identify as actual or potential delinquents? To supply these resources, the youth board provides funds for existing social agencies to increase their services. The board has entered into contract with 17 voluntary casework agencies and child-guidance clinics to provide treatment for children and their families who are referred to them by our referral units. CONTRACT AGENCIES In signing a contract to serve youth board referrals, the treatment agencies agree to certain basic stipulations. Contract terms deal with the agency's approach, and what we call the reaching-out philosophy. The families we send to them have not in most instances sought our help on their own initiative. They have been prepared by the referral unit to accept referral and verbalize |