we thereby get at the preventive side of things and make it possible for people to meet their problems themselves and therefore find it unnecessary to come for material assistance to the Government itself. In other words, it is a stitch-in-time kind of thing. This is particularly pertinent in connection with child welfare services, where there are family situations, sometimes called protective services.

Mr. ALGER. Is the need as recognizable though in the stitch-in-time sense, and I am trying to follow your logic. Economic need is readily recognizable, when people say they are short of food, clothing, housing, whatever the need, but how do you detect need without economic need? Are you going to dig into the families, or are you going to wait until it is dropped on your doorstep, because if you do not use economic need, how are you going to detect, until it is abloslutely thrown in the court, when the mother turns away from the children and the neighbors hear the children crying, that sort of thing?

If you do not use economic need, I am wondering how you can use other guidelines to detect the care that is needed by the community? Mr. BONDY. I think one example is the one you cited, sir; that is, in family situations where in the schools there will come to light an incompatibility in the home where the children are not under the kind of guidance and help that we all hope to see children have. The school will find that this results in truancy from the school, leading to delinquent action.

You get a cause-and-effect relationship, and there is thereby at that point such as the schools, in child welfare services also, in the context of community organizations, an ability to determine that need exists which does not solely require, or may be very little require, material assistance; but if allowed to go on and snowball up could constitute a big problem for the community when you add those situations all together.

Mr. ALGER. Then the question is, at this point, whether we need the Federal Governmnet to enter the picture in a larger degree than we have had in the past?

Mr. BONDY. I think, Mr. Congressman, only in the sense that the Federal, State, and local system of public welfare is the system that we all seem to have accepted as the proper one.

Mr. ALGER. Yes; but there are great encroachments on the present State system now, residence requirement and others, as you know, in this bill so I think that is what we have to think of.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions of Mr. Bondy? If not, Mr. Bondy, we thank you, sir.

Mr. BONDY. Thank you.

(The statement by the National Council of Jewish Women, referred to in Mr. Bondy's testimony, follows:)

STATEMENT OF NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN, INC., NEW YORK N.Y.

The National Council of Jewish Women, a voluntary organization with membership of 123,000 in 329 affiliated local units, has a long history of support and assistance for the less fortunate members of the community. It is our experience and our conviction that provision of services to prevent dependency and get to the root of its causes are essential to any program concerned with human welfare and human dignity. We commend the general approach of H.R. 10032 for attempting to provide such services and to rehabilitate those whose dependency has too often been taken for granted.

At these hearings, a number of voluntary organizations are appearing to state their views. Their spokesmen represent, primarily, the views of the professional social agency supported by voluntary contributions. We are here representing the women who contribute their time and funds to provide needed services in their own communities. Such voluntary groups can, we believe, meet a tremendous need by helping to find new and additional ways of coping with complicated social and individual problems. We believe that President Kennedy's reference to the need to be imaginative in dealing with these problems, "to encourage experimental, pilot, or demonstration projects that *** make our welfare programs more flexible and adaptable to local needs," applies to voluntary agencies and it applies to Government agencies too. Because we believe deeply in joint citizen-governmental action we count upon the Federal Government to give leadership and direction in utilizing every approcah which has been tried with any success.

I wish to comment more specifically only on the provisions to strengthen child welfare services and to authorize the inclusion of day-care grants; because council women have some direct experience working with such programs. The first day-care center sponsored by a council section was started in 1944. In taking a sample of council sponsored day-care centers, we find that in 5 com'munities studied we are able to serve a total of 405 children. We know in each of these places how vital this small service is and how much additional facilities are needed. The day-care center for children is one of the most important single factors in reestablishing self-sufficiency in families and preventing dependency.

In the services to children which the National Council of Jewish Women provides in the community-whether day-care centers, rehabilitation centers, or special services to the handicapped-we make no distinction between those whose families are on public welfare and those who are not. We believe that the further extension of this principle, already embodied in the provision for child welfare services, is important to the future welfare of our children.

Mrs. CHARLES HYMES,
National President.

FEBRUARY 8, 1962.

The CHAIRMAN. Miss Colborn?

Miss Colborn, will you please identify yourself for this record. We recall your other appearances before the committee.

STATEMENT OF MISS FERN M. COLBORN, SECRETARY FOR SOCIAL EDUCATION AND ACTION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF SETTLEMENTS AND NEIGHBORHOOD CENTERS, NEW YORK CITY Miss COLBORN. I am Fern M. Colborn, Secretary for Social Education and Action of the National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers, 226 West 47th Street, New York City.

The CHAIRMAN. You are recognized, Miss Colborn.

Miss COLBORN. The National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers is made up of 308 member agencies and branches located in 88 cities of 31 States.

I am here to testify in favor of the new public welfare amendments as embodied in H.R. 10032. The authority of organization to present this testimony is based upon official action taken at our annual meeting held in Boston, June 1960, and upon legislative goals adopted by our board of directors, meeting at Hull House, Chicago, January 27, 1962. The public welfare program of the United States as embodied in laws passed by the Congress, going back to the days of the great depression, and repeatedly amended since: and the laws of the various States and localities provide for the collective responsibility of society to meet individual needs. This program is one of the major achievements of our way of life today. Our organization has been a friend

of this program since the beginning, and we come here today as a friendly critic and, hopefully, to win your support toward moving this great program on to further gains. New needs call for new approaches.

We are now faced with certain problems that have developed as a result of two or three generations within the same family having received their full sustenance from a public assistance program. The mobility of our population, for whatever reason, contínues to be at a very high rate. Further, this mobility has now been going on for more than 10 years. It is mainly from our rural areas to urban centers. The tempo has stepped up since World War II, between the States and between the possessions of the United States to the mainland. It is not unlike many of the situations existing in the underdeveloped countries today. We have a stepped-up birthrate. As a country, we benefit from the great strides in automation but suffer from the attendant problems: an oversupply of unskilled workers, and workers who have skills for jobs that are now nonexistent.

Public welfare and human need: This testimony is directed toward the vital problem of alleviating human need, rather than the technical side of these amendments. We consider the latter important, but we will leave such testimony to others.

Special needs this legislation can meet: Our experience in working with today's problems leads us to believe that dependency can be reduced, particularly in relation to some of the newer problems which we now face. We see these, generally, as follows:

There is the so-called hard-core unemployed. Almost always these families are the victims of dependency which may be caused by lack of education, or because their jobs have disappeared due to scientific improvements of our time. A health or accident problem may have impaired their ability to work. The wage earners in these families can be helped, either through a training program, a retraining program, or a counseling program, so that they may find their place in society. These families that are now unproductive can become productive. Jobs must also be made available with local communities. However, if this is to happen, then, too, we have a whole group of disorganized families for whom life has become too complex, so that they tend to become spectators rather than participants. They need the kind of friendly hand that will help them to find their places in their own communities and help them to learn the very elementary steps that have to be taken so that responsibility can be assumed for one's own future. This is particularly true of many of our younger people.

With the two or three generations of families whose sole income has been from relief, which is an entirely new phenomenon in our society, may I say, we find this group of families associating with each other; the daughters marry the weaker, dependent men of other dependent families, and each generation producing a weaker family. We believe that this cycle must be stopped and know from results already achieved in this area that it can be stopped.

Migration has meant that families are cut off from the ties with near reltaives, and the wider family upon which previous generations could depend is not present in the new community. These families need the social worker as a friend and counselor at many critical times

in their lives. Often these families beget big trouble that began with little troubles, but the friendly hand has been absent to help them through these little troubles. In their home communities, a relative might have given this support; in the urban areas these relatives are not present. In previous generations the church might have given this support, but in our communities today too often these people do not affiliate with any church.

As urban communities have become more and more complex we find families in need of help do not know how to ask for help, or where to turn. May I say that this phenomenon of our complex urban areas is not only true of low-income families, but equally true of a large number of other urban families. The result is that too many families are reaching a point where trouble is a way of life, rather than a temporary problem to overcome. As we have worked with these families, it is not hard to find that they often have strengths that can be brought to the fore and built upon, and this is the question that is so often asked, whether or not you can motivate the dependent families to change. We find that the strength these families have when you take the trouble to discover them can become a chain reaction for the good use as troubles they have had become a chain reaction in the opposite way. Except for a small group of families who have been so destroyed by the situations in which they find themselves that they may be “incurable," we find that in the majority of the multiproblem families motivation for the positive is always present. What is needed is the worker who can get close enough to help them find the key that will unlock that which is good. With many of these families it doesn't take a great amount of work to discover this point. As we give attention to these people by accepting families where they are, as they are, and by lending a helping hand to which is added professional skills, we are truly able to assist these families.

In the past, we have by and large tended to direct a great amount of our public welfare programs toward the child. Sometimes we feel, in our work, that the child has been "oversold" in the public programs at the expense of his parents. We say and we know-again from experience that as we strengthen the hands of the parents we solve the problem of the child. Moreover, there will never be enough professional workers to go around. If sound family life is so important to our society, why should we not develop our public welfare programs in a way that will help parents do their rightful job? It is so easy, in our efforts to do good, to offend people who have little. May I illustrate? One of our settlements has done an extremely careful job in selection of families who needed special help at Christmas time. First, the skill of the social caseworker was used to determine which families needed special help. Then this caseworker worked with the parents to find out the needs of the family, and the parents in turn came to the agency and picked up the gifts, much as other parents go to the store to select their gifts. Last Christmas, two little Puerto Rican women came to this agency to get the gifts for their families. These were very lowincome families. They had sickness: the husbands of both were alcoholic. Although they did not know each other, they happened to arrive at the worker's office at the same time. As they surveyed the things which they were to take home, they said, almost in the same breath, "But there is nothing for mothers." It seems to us that as

carefully as this agency tried to do its job, it was suddently apparent that, as an agency, they had been negligent in strengthening these adults, who were the mothers--but not recognizing that they were the ones who may have sacrificed most. I am telling this story not to advocate Christmas gifts for mothers, as such, but rather I am advocating a new approach to parents as people: parents, who have their own needs, and needs which must not be overlooked if we are to help them to help their children and others in their families.

We have developed a very complex set of services in our communities today. By and large these have developed along specialized lines. If we are to meet the needs of the kinds of families I have been talking about here, we must go much further in integration of services to these families than we have done so far. It seems to me that integrated services are part of what is envisioned in these new amendments. This point is extremely important. I visited a city recently where I found, in one housing project, 36 different agencies visiting the families there for one reason or another. In another housing project, in that same city, 16 different agencies were visiting the families, and in both of the projects there were a number of families who had 8 or 10 workers from public and private agencies coming to the same family, each with their specialized service. This produces unnecessary confusion and hardship upon the family. It is a waste of resources in this field, and the sooner we begin working toward the integration of services for these families with one worker carrying on the contacts with the family, the sooner we will move ahead.

The kinds of problems that I am talking about require expert, technical skill. For this reason we very strongly support the personnel improvement program that is envisioned in these amendments. We need more people to do this training, and the training needs to be done in more parts of the country. Further, there are various levels of training, and various kinds of training that are largely overlooked and might well be considered. For example, most cities have information centers to guide families to needed services. Most families new to the city, or who can't read, neither know where these information centers are, nor are they able to discover how they can use them. This is part of learning how to live in the city. We need to give much more attention to general orientation to city life, in the days ahead.

In one of our local settlements we have a social worker who was born in India, and is constantly comparing what he learns in this country with the international situation. He has been working in one of our demonstration programs toward meeting the needs of the multiproblem families, and recently made this observation: "You know, these families are like the underdeveloped nations. They each go their own way. We give them all kinds of assistance, and it seems that we are not getting anywhere. And then, all of a sudden, they take off on their own, and really assume their independent responsibilities."

Some service might best be provided through contracts. The social problems existing in our urban communities today are so enormous that the harnessing up of all available services toward meeting the needs is essential, if they are to be solved.

Moreover, resourcefulness and variety of services needed may already be available in many communities but must be expanded to reach more people. It would therefore be more economic both in terms of