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ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL FORCES

appointed directly by public officials has been adopted as a permane for the community trust. Such unanimity is not true of welfare fede have a variety of organization which is rich in possibilities but which is of future readjustment which does not commend itself to the man who is for all time to come.

9. The public interest is after all paramount and I think that the the community trust, with a committee composed in major part of rep public officials with powers of visitation and the requirement of const audit, is a more comprehensive and perfect plan for protecting the publi has yet been devised by a welfare federation. The Cleveland Foundation be inspected at any time by the law director of the city while the found pelled to publish yearly a complete audit of its receipts and disbursemen of continuing the comparison, I find no city where the public appoints the even a considerable minority of the governing board of a community feder present division seems to be largely between agency and contributor, with a small representation through public officials or individuals selected by t The co-operation which can exist between foundation and federation i by the results of the Cleveland Recreation Survey. Closely following the of the Recreation Survey, the Welfare Federation was asked to head up the forces of Cleveland through the formation of a Recreation Council. T close co-operation between the Cleveland Foundation and the Welfare Feder an organization was brought into being and Rowland Haynes was brought t to direct it. The foundation thereupon withdrew from the field entirely, Recreation Council as a part of the Welfare Federation, the place where belongs. Such initiation and promotion the foundation can leaving everything that suggests maintenance to the federations.

everywhere r

After all, the maintenance of social agencies from year to year is the great he tion which federations can perform. Yearly drives instead of being dreaded Th cated should be welcomed as opportunities to educate the public in those slo lems and responsibilities the solution of which can come only when the pub of oughly educated by that sure process of paying regularly for its own shore and

THE CENTRAL COUNCIL OF SOCIAL AGENCIES-ACTUAL;

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

tio

in

bu

Francis H. McLean, Field Director, American Association for Organizing th

Social Work, New York City

Broadly speaking, a central council may conceivably function in thirteen different ways. These may be catalogued as follows:

1. Educational as to methods with reference to its member societies; as to progress with reference to community.

2. Approval or disapproval (and its effect) of new undertakings in the 5.

field initiated by others.

council.

3. Development of new activities along a logical program through influer

4. Re-organization of old agencies.

for (

com

tell.

for t

has been adopted andonment or combination of any agencies unnecessary or superfluous or imity is not tra

rich in posprovement and intensive development of co-operative relationship between

ommend itself

:velopment of standards of work.

amount and evelopments in public departments.

mposed in rogram of legislative development.

nd the repecific co-operative activities carried on by the central council itself. int consultation regarding budgets and mutually agreed-upon changes. The Clearrangement sequence of financial campaigns.

lan for protect

of the city rdvise agencies as to right kind of publicity.

receipts and central councils, particularly, those in Columbus, Ohio; St. Louis, and ere the phe, have been reviewed in connection with their functioning up to this time. e or two points we have considered the Minneapolis experience as well as the cy and co two surveys worked out through newly organized councils in Memphis and

ard of a c

Closely need not pause on the educational development as I assume no proof would s asked to Ended. The councils have been exceedingly strong on this side.

reation C

and the ROVAL OR DISAPPROVAL OF NEW UNDERTAKINGS IN THE SOCIAL FIELD, ynes was in

INITIATED BY OTHERS

the filter since the self-survey, completed by the Central Council of Social Agencies the plouis in 1916, the council has had an opportunity to consider in advance every can eved new undertaking in the social field.

ations metimes the propositions have been put up to them directly, sometimes through years-dorsement Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, with a request for a report. becision of the central council has been approved almost without exception, and I

know the exceptions. It has prevented as big a proposition as the establishment hospital. Let it be understood that it has been teamwork of the central council its one Endorsement Committee which has resulted in this. The number of proposiacted upon during one year have been as high as seventeen.

ttention should be called, by way of illustration, to an incident of two years ago S-Louis when three separate associations were beginning campaigns for funds to homes for working girls. The central council was instrumental in having two of combine in their campaign. The third did not come in. It was also successful vising their building budget, cutting down the amounts which they were setting to raise. This involved a discussion of the type of building to be used and the ber of girls to be considered.

In Columbus several projected enterprises have come to the council for approval, bly the Children's Boarding Home Bureau of the Red Cross and the Columbus al Survey.

The report of the Milwaukee Council is that many come to them. For example, se interested in the establishment of a Traveler's Aid Society.

It may be said that in St. Louis there is certainty of review, but that this is not initely so in Milwaukee. In Columbus there is real control.

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ACTIVITIES BY THE COUNCIL ITSELF

There can be no question of the success of the councils in the logical and orderly and necessary development of the field by the initiation through its influence of new activities as required and as soon as the community may support them.

In Columbus the council was officially and entirely responsible for the development in the following eight activities: general registration bureau; shelter houses in the parks and supervision of recreation; medical inspection of schools; bureau of Social Service in the Chamber of Commerce; Bureau of Social Service in the Ohio Council of Public Efficiency; Children's Free Dental Clinic, raising, indeed, the first budget for it; Citizens Committee of Juvenile Court; the re-organization of the old council itself into the present Council of Social Agencies.

Furthermore it has participated in the inauguration of a series of activities which have filled in the gaps in its original social chart of activities and has gone beyond that in connection with other activities. It has been the center of development during a remarkable decade of growth. On the social chart prepared by the central council in 1911 there were fifty gaps listed in the social needs of the community. A recent examination indicated that these gaps had been filled and to some degree progress had gone beyond what would be recognized as very sound lines. Thus in the correctional field there is now to be found the public defender in addition to the satisfaction of the needs listed in 1911. A Psychological Clinic and a State Bureau of Juvenile Research are to be found in the field of defectives or near-defectives, not thought of in 1911. In only one field, that of temporary homes for adults, does there appear to be a growth apparent which is not along the logical lines fixed by the council. There is not yet a municipal lodging house which was then suggested, but there is an increase of five such institutions, two, however, because of the colored immigration.

Through all this development the direct or moral influence of the council runs, and where its influence may have ended, that of agencies created through its efforts has begun; as for example, the Social Service Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce and the Social Service Branch of the Ohio Bureau of Public Efficiency.

The Milwaukee Council reports that following the recommendations of special committees, the following eight new activities were established: Legal Aid Society; Juvenile Protective Association; Centralized Budget; Milwaukee Urban League; Department of Summer Outings in Big Brothers and Big Sisters organizations; Medical Social Service; venereal and psychopathic clinics; increase in boarding clubs for working girls.

REORGANIZATION OF OLD AGENCIES

In St. Louis reorganization has been effected in a number of instances, notably in connection with the clearing up of a bad mess in the rescue home field and the actual establishment of an agency which replaced the others, and in turning a home for colored orphans into a semi-placing-out agency under a trained case worker.

The Columbus Council was largely responsible for the reorganization of the State Employment Bureau into the City State Free Employment Bureau. It also developed the war-time campaigns for the Red Cross and assumed definite leadership in many war-time activities. It also broadened the scope of work of two settlement: wide neighborhood representation.

In Milwaukee the chief feat of the council was the very radical reorganizat family social work society into an agency which was fairly adequate for its fic

before it was an absurdity. Also it reorganized the Registration Bureau and has been responsible for the reshaping of an agency for boys' work which was most unsatisfactory. The most important reorganization under central council auspices, apart from that of the Associated Charities in Milwaukee, occurred in Minneapolis in the pre-war period. A Humane Society did work for both animals and children and there was also a Juvenile Protective Association interested in community problems affecting children. After very delicate handling of some touchy people, including some heavy contributors, the safeguarding of some sources of revenue, these two societies were combined into the Juvenile Protective League with a trained worker. A new animal society, the Animal Rescue League, was established which attracted far more attention to animal work than the old Humane Society ever did.

ABANDONMENT OR COMBINATION OF ANY AGENCIES UNNECESSARY OR
SUPERFLUOUS OR INEFFICIENT

Only St. Louis has anything definite to report on this subject.

It has forced the abandonment of an expensive lodging house for men under semi

religious auspices, against great odds after the survey had been made.

It has forced out of St. Louis a children's home, a settlement. It has been making efforts now to eliminate another children's institution and a rescue home which did not come into the reorganization previously mentioned.

IMPROVEMENT AND INTENSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CO-OPERATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

BETWEEN AGENCIES

Milwaukee reports next to the exchange, the case conferences of case-working agencies which previously considered closed cases but this year is taking up open ones. This has led not only to better understanding but better work and is reflected for instance in the fact that one agency has improved its records because it had so little to offer when the other agencies were offering so much.

There have also been the South Side and Central Field Workers' conferences for all workers, case and otherwise, in those particular parts of the city.

The Boys' Workers' conferences and the Girls' Workers' conferences, Special bodies organized by the council, have had a remarkable career. The Boys' workers have definitely considered together the further development of work for boys and the responsibility of each agency. The Girls' Workers' Conference has been similarly active in a common program. The Medical Social Service Conference, a newer grouping, should also be noted.

In St. Louis the years which have been devoted to the establishment of standards, the self-survey which followed, and the various considerations of different parts of the survey since it was made, have left their ressive mark upon intensive relationships and developments. To this I myself ar testimony, for I knew St. Louis before it had a council and in the years foes not mean that all have been affected but it does mean a field practic its methods of working together and in its understanding of contacts

the hundreds of recommendations which were made. I hope that with the estab ment of an office for the council and a paid executive, this may be made possible the same time, that the improvements have been exceedingly noticeable and re able and widespread has been the evidence of everyone in St. Louis with whom s consulted. Still I am not able to give you accurately the sum-total and inte would require a pamphlet in itself to discuss it.

In the field of work for children, for example, there has been improveme along the line with the carrying-out of scores of individual recommendations, improvement in standards of admission and discharge on the part of a number institutions, with a very intensive study of individualized care of children made b children's committee. There has been steady improvement in personnel. The us recall that the black sheep of an institution has been eliminated and one reorg with a case worker in charge. A new enterprise (since the survey) submitted its to the council with the result that they were immensely modified, transforming i an old-fashioned congregate institution to one on the cottage plan with a tas worker in charge.

In the case work field the two most important societies have most conside advanced, another has limited its work as suggested, and in a fourth there has be practical transformation.

The survey plus council approach, as it affects intensive co-operatic ordination, and the improvement of standards in an effective manner, may be trated from quite recent experiences in two other cities, Atlanta and Memphis, the councils are of recent formation.

In the summer of 1919 a survey of the social agencies of Atlanta was made nically under the auspices of the new city Board of Public Welfare, but really insistence of the newly organized central council which raised the money for it. board, however, became badly involved in politics. For a long time the survey was buried, but it was finally resurrected by the council. Many of the recomm tions were discussed by the surveyors with the agencies in advance of its comple The Board of Public Welfare had sent to each organization a copy of that part survey referring to it. Other than that there has been no follow-up work. central council recently has decided to engage a trained secretary on full time.

But despite this it is interesting to note that a recent review indicated improvements:

1. That a home for children had discontinued taking defectives, had sec

money to decorate a very poor interior and to paint it, and also to provide better re tional opportunities. This was up to May, 1921. Then the survey was followe a study of the State Board, without other than suggestive force, however, whose rec mendations were practically the same as those of the survey. There has followed the carrying-out of the recommendations the installation of records, medical ins tion, and medical records, and tests for venereal disease. Other recommendati are being taken up in order.

2. In the case of another children's institution neither the survey nor the S Board's report have moved it at all, as yet.

3. A home-finding society, where as yet only a survey has been made (there State Board inspection), has practically reorganized, putting in a new board of dis