them?" "How can neglectful parents be helped to do a better job? * * *What is happening to children of working mothers?" Without the minds, hands, and hearts of a competent staff no program can achieve its objectives. How, for example, can the Children's Bureau develop and put into practice the newest proven concepts of child welfare services without the necessary specialists? Take the field of foster care for an example. Much has been learned through experience over the years. Formerly, child welfare workers took dependent, neglected, abused children out of their own homes whenever possible, put them into foster home and institutional care. The outward results were satisfying-rosier cheeks, scrubbed bodies, clean clothes. But the inward results were often devastating. In recent years, child welfare people have learned what deep-rooted damage this separation of children from families causes. To child welfare offices come many well-intentioned parents who don't know how to be good mothers and fathers because they had none of their own; girls bearing children out of wedlock with the only help given to them being quick placement of their babies for adoption; children whose bizarre behavior has made them outcasts among their schoolmates and neighbors. Today child welfare workers try to keep the child in his own home and to help his parents become better parents. As a consequence the call is greater than ever before for homemaker service to safeguard, protect, and stabilize families; for day care to protect children of working mothers through foster family day care homes and day care centers; for agencies geared not to just a single service, but to the great variety of services required if children's needs are to be metcounseling, placement in all types of foster care, work with unmarried mothers and adoptive couples and perhaps most important of all, new professional skills in working with parents and children in their own homes. Success in strengthening families depends largely on good community planning and organization. The coverage of child welfare services must be so complete that agencies can reach out to and serve all children and parents who need their help-whether they live on farms, in the central city, or in the suburbs, and regardless of income or of the individual problem. To give leadership to States in this complex area requires people with professional skills. The Council strongly believes that the Children's Bureau has been seriously handicapped in doing its job because of the lack of sufficient staff. It is incumbent upon the Congress to provide the financial means to enable the Children's Bureau to carry out its functions and duties. The need for additional personnel will become even more critical in the recommended program for expanded services. 80118 O 62 - 17 PART II BACKGROUND INFORMATION FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC AND VOLUNTARY CHILD WELFARE PROGRAMS The family, as the basic unit in our society, has primary responsibility for the child. Child welfare agencies see as their first obligation, in serving children, giving parents every assistance possible that will help them fulfill their parental roles, meet the needs of their children, and retain their rights as parents. When the individual family is unable to fulfill its responsibility to its children, society must meet this obligation by providing each child with services adequate to meet his physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This responsibility may be assumed by the voluntary associations of which the family is a part the church, the neighborhood, the voluntary social agencies which may be sponsored by any one of them, or by the general community through its public services. All child welfare services are rooted in concern for children. Such services are a manifestation of man's desire to help others, of the community's common concern for all its members or of man's need to translate love of God into service to man. Child welfare agencies carry out one of the fundamental functions of a democracy-conservation of the rights and opportunities of its people and enhancement of their welfare. It is the joint responsibility of public and voluntary agencies to give leadership in making certain that no child goes uncared for. No fixed formula can be applied to the organization of community child welfare services. The services given by voluntary and public agencies, and the division of responsibility between them, is determined by community needs, tradition, public attitudes, sources and availability of funds, and the structural pattern of services existing in a community at any given time. At present, no sharp, unchanging line can be drawn between the functions of public and voluntary agencies. For example, it is sound to have the same service offered by both a public and voluntary agency provided each agency does not duplicate service to the same child or the same family. Differences in services, in coverage, in the availability of service, and in the right of clients to have a choice as to the source of service, usually make it necessary for voluntary and public agencies to exist side by side. However, public and voluntary agencies work together, to the fullest possible extent, to develop services that complement each other and to clarify the responsibility of each group. By so doing, these agencies avoid confusion as to what services exist and the appropriate agency available to meet needs. The child welfare agency's responsibility extends not only to those children whom it serves directly, but to all children. It is in a strategic position to serve as spokesman for children. As such, it is sensitive to unmet needs in the community and in the Nation. It is able to interpret the necessity for expansion of essential services under appropriate auspices, whether public or voluntary. Services in the child welfare program Major child welfare services include the following: 1. Social services to a child or youth in his own home-including casework (counseling) with him or his parents or relatives, dealing with problems of behavior, emotional, and social adjustment, parent-child relationships, a physical or mental handicap, delinquent behavior or conflict with the law. 2. Social services to neglected, abused, or exploited children— frequently called "protective service." 3. Social services to unmarried mothers and their babies. 5. Foster care: Full-time care in family homes, institutions, or other group-care facilities, either on a temporary or long-term basis. 6. Adoption service. 7. Day-care services: Part-time care of children in family daycare homes or in group situations during daytime periods usually when parents are absent from the home because of employment. Certain other services are part of child welfare: 1. Those to establish and maintain adequate standards for social services and facilities for children-licensing and regulation of social agencies, institutions, foster homes, day-care centers. 2. Those to promote coordination and cooperation among organizations, agencies and groups in community planning and development of services. Although individual services are separate and distinct, all child welfare work is closely interrelated by unity of purpose and philosophy-protection and advancement of the welfare of children and their families-and of method--a common body of knowledge, skills, and techniques in working with children and parents. A comprehensive program of services in local communities is one of the acid tests of the U.S. system of child welfare. Lack of one service can cause actual misuse of another. Take foster care, for example. In communities scattered over the Nation, study after study has revealed that many children could have remained in their own homes had casework, homemaker, or day-care services been available prior to foster care placement. Child welfare services aim at the more inclusive social goal of fostering the fullest possible realization of the potentialities of children. Although precise information on costs is lacking, certain services are known to be less costly than others. Serving a child adequately in his own home may cost the community less in the long run than placing him in foster care; yet three-fourths of all public child welfare expenditures reported annually to the Children's Bureau by State and local public welfare agencies are for foster care. These expenditures do not include expenditures of public institutions. Perhaps foster-care service, since it consumes so large a share of the "child welfare dollar" has hindered development of other services. Yet at the same time evidence points to severe limitations in and underfinancing of foster-care service in many parts of the Nation. Most of the services may be provided either by a public or a voluntary agency. Most agencies provide more than one of these services. Diversity in administration of services makes cooperation and coordination of agency work indispensable. Children for whom child welfare services are designed Children and youth whose social well-being these social services seek to promote and protect include those who Are dependent, neglected, abandoned, delinquent or in danger of becoming delinquent; Have social, economic, or behavior problems, or need custody, guardianship or adoption because of disturbance in family and social relations, loss or incapacity of parents or birth out of wedlock: Are ill, physically handicapped, or suffer from emotional or mental disabilities; Have problems arising from special conditions in the home, such as employment or illness of the mother; Have problems resulting from community conditions or family circumstances children who live in socially and economically depressed areas, or belong to migrant or minority groups. Social problems exist in all parts of our Nation, reach all cultural groups, all races, religions, and economic levels. These problems vary in intensity with economic level, geographic area or group characteristic. But the need for these child welfare services is not limited to people in low-income groups. In a study by the Children's Bureau a few years ago, only 9 percent of children served by public child welfare workers were living in families receiving public assistance. The percentage of such children served by voluntary child welfare agencies is probably even smaller. Many people now pay in whole or in part for foster care, day care, adoption, or counseling. Since basic economic problems which used to bring families to child welfare agencies are now handled through old-age and survivors insurance and public assistance programs, specialized child welfare programs deal more and more with behavior and social adjustment problems. As a consequence the demand for psychological and psychiatric counseling and treatment has increased. Public child welfare services Role of Federal, State, and local governments. The focus here will be primarily on public child welfare services and the role of governments at the Federal, State, and local level. The role of the Children's Bureau and the effect of Federal grants on State and local programs are considered in other sections of this report. Table 1 (appendix, p. 44) shows the size of the Federal grantin-aid program, measured by dollar amounts available to the States.1 These figures, beginning in 1936 when the program came into operation show both amounts appropriated and amounts expended by the States. Two major patterns of State public welfare organization exist for services to children.-Under "State administered" programs the State itself, through local or district agency offices, operates, administers, and finances the child welfare program. Under the "State supervised" All tables will be found in the appendix. program, local units of government (counties or cities) operate the service under supervision and regulation of the State public welfare department. States under this system usually assist in financing local services. Under either type of administration, certain public responsibilities are carried directly by the State public welfare department. Some facilities or services may be directly operated at the State level and serve the entire State. Standard setting and regulation, such as licensing and consultation, are typically State responsibilities though in actual execution of these responsibilities, local governments or local units of the State government may participate. Consultation with and supervision of social agencies and institutions, planning for child welfare services, staff development and training, statistics and research, and other broad functions are carried by the State public welfare agencies. These agencies also cooperate with the Federal Government in developing State plans and annual budgets for use of child welfare grants under the Federal grant-in-aid program. State public welfare departments, of course, carry other functions in addition to child welfare. In amount of money, caseload, and in other ways, the volume of the public assistance program far exceeds that of the child welfare program. Most States in order to give proper emphasis to the child welfare program have established a child welfare division within the State public welfare agency. The local public child welfare agency is either a county department of welfare or a local or district office of a State public welfare agency in a State-administered program.-There are also, in some States, city departments of public welfare. Some State public child welfare services. are offered on a district basis to a number of counties. States vary widely in geographic distribution of public welfare services for children. No requirement was made in the Social Security Act for statewide operations of child welfare programs as was provided for public assistance programs. The best available information on geographic coverage of local public child welfare services comes from State public welfare agency reports on distribution of public child welfare personnel. According to these reports, in about one-half the counties in the United States services of a full-time public child welfare worker are not available, even under multicounty arrangements that spread services over several counties. These uncovered counties, containing one-fourth of the Nation's children, are mainly rural. At present, in two-thirds of the urban counties (70 percent), but in less than half the rural (47 percent), the services of full-time public child welfare workers are available. Trends since 1946 in number of counties served by full-time child welfare workers are presented in table 2. During the earlier part of the period covered by this table, gains in coverage of services occurred in both urban and rural counties. In rceent years, however, no substantial change has occurred. Public welfare services to children often are rendered by "general welfare workers" who give part time to child welfare and part time to the public assistance programs. While these workers may give service to children, question can often be raised as to its extent. Caseloads in public assistance often are large and take up most of the worker's time. Service to children frequently is given only in emer |