the use

not agree with our committee that, in spite of all temptations to do so,
of undergraduate students is detrimental to the best interest of the field as a
whole? There is often a conflict, is there not, between the student at the univer-
sity and the agency as to the amount of responsibility that the student should
be allowed to take? Is there not, moreover, often too informal a relationship,
such as societies asking the colleges for volunteers and undergraduate help,
without considering all the implications, not only for the student, but for stand-
ards of work?

While adapted and modified programs have their place, we cannot rest content with anything but the ultimate professional challenge.

The practice of case work, like the practice of law, medicine, or theology, surely calls for postgraduate training. The need for safeguards and restrictions was never more acute than today, and should not those of us who are interested in training play a courageous part by insisting that this training shall conform to the highest possible professional standards? This, too, is basic.

SOME PROGNOSTICATIONS IN THE FIELD
OF COMMUNITY WORK

Walter W. Pettit, School of Social Work, New York

In social work we are still in the twilight zone of undefined terminology, a condition inherent to a rapidly developing, unstandardized, unorganized vocation such as ours. The terms "field work," "case work," "technique," "social research," "attitude," "group," are used constantly and vary greatly in connotation. One of our problems in training is to arrive at some mutual understanding of what we are all talking about.

I recently ran across a group of persons who talked of training for social work and of field work in family agencies in the same terms that others do. On further acquaintance, training for social work turned out to be purely observation work, and family case work was research on case records in a family agency. Actually doing family case work was considered unnecessary in the training process. That, according to those authorities, was "common sense." This paper deals with a term used perhaps with greater variation in meaning than other terms in social work.

Community organization is used by people in many different senses. The American Association for Community Organization uses it in one way; the settlement and the school center group use it in another way. It is thought of in this paper as more inclusive than either of these uses. A case worker organizing a case committee, a settlement executive bringing her neighboring social workers together for regular conference, an executive's attempts to make his board more representative and more active, as well as a group worker forming a club

out of boys or girls-are all using, to a greater or less extent, what I should call principles of community organization.

This use of the term "community organization" is perhaps best defined as assisting a group of people to recognize their common needs and helping them to meet these needs. In Professor McIver's terms, it has to do with the process of like interests becoming common interests out of which associations develop.

Community organization has long been a part of the technique of social work. Soon after we abandoned distributing alms at the church door and recognized that the chief problem in social work was not the effect on the giver, but rather the change in the person assisted and in his community relationships, associations for the purpose of improving social conditions resulted. Probably some form of club work was carried on even earlier, and the well-organized Turner societies go back over a century and a quarter. Club work uses the principles of community organization in a small way. A well-organized club is a means of meeting group needs and of expanding those needs in the same way that a social agency does for the larger group.

During the war, when it was possible to develop organizations on an emotional basis with great ease, organization of groups on a large scale became a definite task. So-called "organizers" were sent hither and yon to develop various associations. One person I have heard of spent a night in a town, addressing a mass meeting and organizing then and there what were called safety councils. Since the war, however, there is fortunately little opportunity for community organization in this field apart from positions in which some other form of social work is involved. The best organization occurs only after actual needs have been demonstrated to the members of a group, usually through providing some form of service to the group. This requires that the worker, in addition to understanding how to organize, shall be efficient also in the field of the service required.

On this point there arises a question which it is probably impossible to answer dogmatically because of the lack of data. There seems to be much to be said for the case work method in demonstrating needs to a community. To what extent does leadership previously converted, or needs recognized on a purely intellectual level, result in a successful organization? How generally must the appeal be made through concrete instances, the product of some form of social case work? Is a boy scout council much more likely to have a firm foundation if it is organized as a result of the conviction of a community of the need for organized boys' work, a conviction based on concrete illustrations of this need?

The positions held by graduates in community organization of the New York School of Social Work bear out this idea that community organization work is frequently combined with some other form of social work. The last eleven students placed from the six-quarter course have entered so-called "community organization" positions in which in eight cases recreation work and

executive work are a large part of their daily routine: recreation work and case work in one case, executive work and case work in two cases, and the eleventh case is probably the only illustration among these eleven students of a position almost entirely in the field of community organization. This student is to be secretary of a state conference of social work.

At the New York School of Social Work we have therefore acted on the conviction from the beginning that there is but rarely an opportunity in social work for a person to do organization work only. It has been the rule to urge our students to take sufficient work in some other field so that positions might be open to them which, while primarily community organization, demand also certain other ability. We have done this in part through recommending to them various courses outside of our field. For example, they all take a beginning course in social case work, and are urged to take advanced work in the family case work field. Perhaps the most successful method of providing this technique in other fields is through field work opportunities. The student devotes half his time to field work, and through this contact with an agency he learns much of the methods used in the field in which the agency works-recreation, tuberculosis work, family case work, or whatever it may be. This attitude results in a number of interesting administrative problems which are still unsolved. What is an executive in a family case work agency? Should his training be primarily in the family case work field or in the community organization field? Recently we advised one man to go into family case work in preparation for an executive position which he secured. On the other hand, in the last year one man and one woman have gone from community organization into executive positions in family case work agencies. Both had had considerable experience in family case work. One possible solution for this training problem is a development which has already begun-joint advanced seminars in which students and staff members from several fields discuss the common problems arising out of field work.

This experience in the field of community organization, and particularly this development of combined programs of training representing several fields, is part of a tendency which, it seems to me, is manifest in social work today— the demand for a general social worker rather than a highly specialized one. In smaller cities and in rural sections this is especially true, but even in the more highly specialized agencies in our great cities, it is my belief that the job analysis of social work which Mr. Klein is to tell you of will show much less specialization than is frequently believed true. In addition, there is doubtless much shifting from positions in one field to those in another, a condition indicating little need for specialization. As an illustration of this point, take the graduates of the New York School of Social Work, some of whom at times have been rather highly specialized in certain fields, and had apparently little thought of seeking employment in any other field.

In a recent analysis of positions held by 221 students who have finished the

two-year course at the New York School of Social Work, 189, or 86 per cent, were found to be still in social work. Of these 189, but 122 are in the specific field for which they prepared. Thirty-five per cent of these 189 students are working in positions in social work which apparently are in some other field than they planned to enter when they were studying at the school. Twentynine of these students prepared to enter family case work, but only 17 of them are at present employed in that field. In community organization but 26 of the 36 students who prepared for that field are still in it, but 24 others have come into the community organization field from other fields. If a person wants to enter the community organization field, he has about one-fifth as much of a chance of securing a position in that field by majoring as a psychiatric social worker or as a policewoman as he has by majoring in community organization. In some of the other fields the facts are even more surprising.

Certainly this kind of data leads one to question the advisability of too high specialization in a field in which the workers change from position to position with apparently less regard to their major preparation than might be supposed. The situation would seem to argue for a much more general preparation in which certain subjects such as family case work, community organization, and mental hygiene would form an essential part of the course.

The policy of emphasis on specialization frequently causes the worker to lose his perspective on social problems as a whole. The specialist in social work, as in medicine, is liable to place undue emphasis on his own interest, neglecting the numerous problems closely related to his own. A psychiatric social worker, devoting much time to the problem of a member of a gang, may well find that her efforts are thwarted by the greater influence of the boy's companions. The problem may be primarily one of group organization rather than of individual maladjustment. The specialist in the community field frequently loses sight of the intimate group relationship which the case worker has, and the slow educational work she has been doing. The recreation worker may well devote all her energies to providing services in the leisure-time field. In social work we need workers who can do a good piece of family case work, but who can also carry the significance of the work over to the public. The cloistered life is highly incompatible with social work. No matter what the special calling of the social worker may be, he must play the part of an engineer in social technique and organization for as large a group of people as his position and personality can influence.

A corollary of this is the principle that a social worker belongs to his community to an extent true of but few other professions. His conduct, his dress, his ideas, must not be too far in advance of the community, or he loses his influence. His particular work, his success in molding opinion, the continuance of his organization, may well depend upon some superficial action. A Red Cross chapter in one county is closed because the executive secretary smokes in her Another loses her position because she wears her skirts too short, or

room.

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bobs her hair, or lacks ease in society, or insists on commuting. The social worker's relation to his community is somewhat the same as the minister's to his parish.

If this be granted, and certainly many of us are not prepared to do so, then it is necessary that a social worker be given the equipment to help him in the varied problems he is to meet as a leader in his community. This means that in addition to doing a good piece of family case work, he must have his philosophy in the field of penology, he must know modern methods of dealing with problems of children, of treatment of behavior cases, of industrial problems, and so on, through the whole curriculum of a school of social work. This must include an understanding of his relationship to the community, his responsibility for discovering community needs, helping the public to solve them, keeping his board, his committees, his membership, in the closest relationship to his work. There is his use of volunteers, the amount of responsibility he can delegate, the extent to which he can experiment, his plans for securing public support for well-demonstrated parts of his work. All this is a part of his community organization program.

There would, therefore, seem to be no place in a social work training program for community organization apart from other methods of work. A social worker is of necessity often a community organizer. A community organizer, at least in the field of social work, must almost always use some other technique than that of community organization. General social workers, rather than various highly specialized individuals, are what the professon needs at present.

JOB ANALYSIS IN SOCIAL WORK

Philip Klein, Executive Secretary, American Association
of Social Workers, New York

The idea of job analysis has been in the minds of those concerned with the program of the American Association of Social Workers for some years past. During 1924 the need for a job analysis study was borne in upon the administration of the association by the growing needs of the vocational bureau and as a result of developments in the field of civil service. Early in 1924 social workers in Washington, D.C., who were in close touch with the work of the federal classification board urged the association to draw up and submit to the board a series of job specifications or brief analyses of positions in social work that might be used in determining the relative status of social workers employed by the government and in fixing salary schedules. This suggestion has not been carried out because, without collecting first-hand information concerning what in actual practice positions require in respect to duties and qualifications, it has been felt no authoritative or truly representative information could be given.