Thesis work. The theses should be developed out of the field experience and should be built upon actual needs of our social agencies as far as possible. It is essential that a member of the faculty give special thought and attention to the thesis work of all the students, and that the specialists on the faculty be brought into conference. Anything written in connection with field work is bound to be suggestive only because the schools of social work are pioneering. The educator and the social worker have a great task before them in building a procedure out of the experience of social effort which has, in the last fifty years, brought about more progress than all the centuries before. The future, however, presents opportunities greater still. As we conquer individual and environmental handicaps, deeper spiritual relationships come forward. In all we do to meet immediate situations, the higher qualities in family life must be brought out. The saving of the genius of man is the task of industry, and the realization of the obligations to our democracy, our civic challenge. Unless we know where technique is heading, our instruction will never help society. In all that we do we must draw from life, and give back in terms of life. IS THE AGENCY OR THE INDIVIDUAL PRIMARILY RESPONSIBLE Miriam Van Waters, Referee, Juvenile Court, Los Angeles This problem is like the question which agitates Mr. Bryan: Did the egg or the chick come first? There are certain other questions we must answer before we can place responsibility either upon the agency or the social worker for the development of the professional attitude. For example, is social work a profession, or stated differently, do social workers form a professional group? Do we as social workers achieve a planned, desired change, or adaptation in the course of human events because of our efforts? There will be two responses to this inquiry: some persons will arise enthusiastically and say yes, pointing to individual cases with successful, happy endings. Others will say no, pointing in disgust to our blunders and individual failures. Both responses are based upon the same method, personal reaction; individual experience and opinion flowing from emotional satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, in the field of social work, A recent definition of a social group is made by Eduard C. Lindeman: "A social group is any number of human personalities acting jointly to express and attain a common goal." Social workers may rightfully claim title to membership in such a general social group. The professional groups, in addition to their function of "acting jointly to express and attain a common goal," have certain other traits, responsibilities, and privileges. Physicians, lawyers, and priests are professional people. Every newsboy and drummer knows this, and if doctors, lawyers, or ministers should hold congress in any city, all the inhabitants would understand who they were and what they were driving at. Can we say the same for a social workers' conference? Two very low-brow salesmen were talking in the hotel lobby: "Who are these welfare workers?" "O, they're a bunch of bolsheviks!" "Yes, they're the people who take your children away from you.” How shall we know the true professional group? First, it has a special work to perform in the world, a task clearly defined, a monopoly of service in a limited field which exists to satisfy some deep human need. Doctors heal the sick, preside over the whole province of physical well-being, and everyone understands this. From the sociologist's point of view it is instructive to note that in proportion to the degree in which physicians widen their field they are misunderstood by the public. The bedside doctor is still the popular idea of a good doctor, whereas the public health sanitarian is just another kind of governmental official to be supported and endured. Lawyers enable you to protect your property, settle your disputes, exercise your pugnacity; they are supposed to keep you out of jail, just as doctors keep you from pain. The ministry attends to your longings for respectability and spirituality. They take care of your concern with the affairs of the other world, and they dignify the crises of your life, birth, baptism, graduation, marriage, and death, and lift the social taboos from these thresholds. These ancient professions are so clearly outlined, and their services so deeply needed, that public opinion acts as a protectorate should any serious conflict arise between the anointed and the charlatan. The second characteristic of a professional group is its possession of special technique and skill, the result of a long period of training and discipline. Arising from professional work and training we may distinguish the following characteristics: the development of a code of ethics; the possession of a sense of honor, or the feeling of belonging to a special group, which engenders loyalty; the attainment of community recognition and respect. • Social workers unquestionably have some professional characteristics. They have a differentiated task, that of establishing and preserving social relationships; they undergo a period of training. So do teachers, nurses, and engineers, groups in the process of becoming professions. Have social workers a code of ethics? Possession of a code of ethics determines the matter of loyalty and community respect. Questions of conduct and feeling arising out of our threefold responsibility-to our clients, to our fellow-workers, and to the community! How shall we formulate our duties? How shall we make adequate response to conflicting demands and definitions? In the midst of a dynamic social order, how give emphasis to the rights of the individual? How shall we proceed in the conflict of youth versus authority, the individual versus tradition? Our ethical code must give us a guiding line in these matters. Yet a code of professional ethics is never a mere set of answers to questions of etiquette, such as: "How shall I behave in a given situation?" It is a living expression of the spirit of service; it is our faith made visible. A code is not a statement of minimum standards of behavior worked out in staff meeting, but it is something that evolves slowly, something deeply dug for, finely forged out of fundamental human experience. That social workers are beginning to develop it is evident in those who meet unpopularity, political onslaughts, crises of hostile public opinion with courage and adroitness. Florence Kelly and the child labor advocates, Judge Lindsey and the Ku Klux Klan, and the serene, triumphant humanism of Jane Addams in war and peace-these serve as examples. To possess a code of ethics is to possess a style of life. As Oscar Wilde said: "Life itself is an art and has its modes of style no less than the arts which seek to express it." Social workers are thinking about ethics. Dr. Cabot, Professor Tufts, and others are formulating their findings, but we are in twilight still. Do social workers feel loyalty to one another? We all know how doctors stand up for doctors; and lawyers while Rabelais finds their habits predatory and their leader, "Gripe-men-all," a fit prototype of the whole tribe of "furred law cats"-still rush to defend each other from attack, bitterly resenting the least unfavorable comment on their mutual honor. Social workers present no such united front to the enemy. They have not evolved that feeling of team play and kinship which repudiates gossip. Overhear a group of social workers talking in the lobby: "Did you know that Mr. X did some awfully shady things during community chest drive?" "I always thought he would." Or: "Miss W was guilty of shocking misconduct in C-" "Well, I did not know she would stoop to that, but I have always thought she was neurotic." Do social workers possess the understanding, the respect, the general recognition of the community? Not the least in the world. In spite of the hospitality of the citizens and the good-humored tolerance of the press, the common man of Denver hasn't the slightest conception of our problems, nor why we encumber the earth. Boston is probably the only city in America where social work is understood, and that is because Bostonians claim to have invented it. We will attain community recognition when we deserve it, when we make clear demonstration of the use of our tools, the integrity of our motives, the worth-whileness of our efforts to increase human happiness and social well-being. Our loyalty then, too, will become apparent, for, in Royce's phrase, "loyalty is the devotion of the self to the community." To conclude our preliminary sketch, social workers are not yet professional 1 people; they do not possess all the earmarks of a professional group. Social work is a profession in the making; it is growing into the stature of a true profession. Now who is primarily responsible for professional growth-the agency, or the individual? It is a joint responsibility. One cannot conceive an adequate social agency which is devoid of the feeling of responsibility for the fullest professional growth of all its individuals. Certain fundamentals we may expect from the agency: First, an opportunity for the exercise of technical skill is to be expected. To furnish this, the organization must work in a clearly defined field, with uniform procedure and a limited intake. Second, there should be careful supervision by trained case work supervisors who are capable of leadership. It is not enough that the executive be a good leader. Staff members in training should have daily contact with stimulating personalities and constructive criticism. Third, there should be frequent staff conferences. In addition to case discussions, routine business, and matters of organization policy, the meetings should inform the workers of what is going on in the community. They should themselves be serving on committees, participating in community thought, feeling, and action. Even an excellent monologue by the executive (if he is capable of giving one) cannot take the place of a meeting where there is genuine interchange of ideas. Fourth, contact with the literature. The agency that is responsible for the guidance of young social workers should fill its shelves with all the standard books in its field, with some glimpses into surrounding fields. Its table should be covered with current periodicals and pamphlets. The worker should be given sufficient leisure to read, though an earnest worker creates his own leisure for this purpose. Whenever a worker tells you he is "too busy to read," the chances are he is not worth training. Fifth, there should be a spirit of growth within the agency. The agency that is capable of promoting the professional growth of individuals is itself alive and pulsing with the impulse toward growth. This is known not only by the output itself, but through many big and little signs. There is a co-operative policy. All the workers from the head down are free from dogmatism and the fetish of infallibility. Mistakes are made and freely admitted. Divergent views are expressed. There is loyalty and enthusiasm. There is always some forwardlooking enterprise afoot. Although the office runs smoothly, no one could possibly get the idea that this agency is engaged in business. It is dedicated to social work, and the human beings in it are partly scientists, partly artists and artisans. The agency is always undertaking some piece of research and is giving each worker a chance to know not only the technique of his own case work, but what the whole thing is about. The responsible agency is tremendously concerned with the problem of professional ethics. The question as to who is responsible for professional growth cannot be answered without a look at the duties and functions of the training school. We should assume: first, adequate courses of study; second, adequate field work opportunities; third, a careful selection of intake. There should be a choice at the doors of the training school as to who should go into social work. One executive of a large social agency employing only graduates of training schools reports one casualty in five; others, one in three. "You could tell at a glance that she would never make a social worker; why did they let her graduate?” is a remark frequently heard. Let us admit the prime essential of personality. There is a type of person who can do research work brilliantly and who makes a pathetic failure of case work. The training school ought to recognize these types. ކ The training school is the logical place for giving some remedial treatment for undesirable traits. The common failings are: harshness, egotism, those who feel self-pity, those who disrupt agencies, pessimists, optimists, standpatters, gushers, sentimentalists, chronic complainers, unconstructive critics, those who have strong personal prejudices, professional reformers and uplifters, those who always have a physical alibi, those who are slovenly in dress, manners, or speech, those who do not possess the spirit of social work, have felt no vital call, and those whom it is impossible for any man, woman, or child to love. Sometimes it is true that worth-while persons show some of these traits. They should be mercilessly pointed out in the training school. If correctional measures are not effective, the student should be told to seek some other field of activity where he cannot do so much harm. There is ample room in the training school for sorting out, and it is urgently needed. Let us consider what responsibility the individual should bear. In reality he must bear all the responsibility. As Havelock Ellis says, when we are confused and harassed with the chaos of the modern world, there remains the individual. The individual cannot be free from responsibility for the general progress of social work. He must himself be a well-adjusted individual, capable of hard work without depression. Although he should find his chief outlet in his task, he must be secure enough in his own personal and social relationships so that he need not derive all of his emotional satisfaction from his clients. He should be preeminently loyal, and capable of an adequate response to leadership. He must possess adroitness, serenity, and patience. He should be seeking professional growth with all the power of his being. He should not be deterred by the kind of executive who lacks confidence in his ability, nor the academic man who said: "What we want to produce is mere case workers; we want them to stay contented as such, and not strive for higher positions." It is important for us all to remember that professional growth is only partly a matter of acquiring skill; it is chiefly an affair of the spirit. And the true social worker is a team worker seeking his complete expression in the world of other human beings. |