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fornia Commission for the Study of Problem Children in a report submitted in January, 1929, as follows:3

The commission was very much interested in the description of an organization now in operation in the city of Berkeley, called the Berkeley Coordinating Council. This enterprise has obtained wide publicity, not merely in the State but elsewhere in the Nation, as a unique and extremely interesting social experiment. . . . The commission thinks it might be desirable to consider the appointment of a State coordinator, thoroughly familiar with the Berkeley Coordinating Council, who might go from community to community upon request and attempt to introduce the system or some modification of it throughout the State.

The nation-wide recognition which has been accorded the Berkeley plan is illustrated in a report prepared under the joint auspices of the New York State Bureau of Municipal Information and the School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The statement is made in this report that "the Berkeley plan is a forward step in crime prevention work and should be considered seriously by other cities, both large and small. A coordinating council is needed in every city in the country." Upon this basis the recommendation is offered that a coordinating council be established in every city of New York State "either as a part of the crime prevention bureau or as a separate organization."

The behavior clinic. -As a general executive agency for promoting cooperation and efficiency in the service of childhood, the coordinating council has been most effective. A further development toward even more intensive study and treatment of individual children who exhibit distinct behavior problems has found its way through the organization (in 1928) of the behavior clinic, which is sponsored by the board of education and by the coordinating council and which is working in immediate relationship to them.

The clinic is under the administrative guidance of the assistant superintendent of schools, who is also a member of the coordinating council and the director of the bureau of research and guidance, having under his direction all those school activities which are designed to make provision for the individual differences of children and for the adjustment of problem cases. The clinical staff consists of the following:

(a) One psychiatrist of national repute, who during the first two years of the operation of the clinic donated his services for part time, but who more recently has been placed upon a paid basis for three half days per week. His is the ultimate responsibility of diagnosing the problems of personal maladjustment that arise and of analyzing

Report of the California Commission for the Study of Problem Children. Sacramento, Calif., State Printing Office, 1929. (P. 42.) The members of the commission were as follows: Paul Rieger, chairman; Kenyon J. Scudder, secretary; Norman Fenton, research consultant; Mariana Bertola, Elizabeth McManus, Lewis M. Terman, Miriam Van Waters, and John P. Plover.

'Hubert R. Gallagher. Crime Prevention as a Municipal Function. Syracuse, N. Y., Syracuse University, 1930. 66 pp.

emotional conflicts, domestic difficulties, physical inferiorities, and various other causal factors as they affect the behavior of childhood. Upon him also devolves the responsibility of recommending desirable means of helping the child and of adjusting his environment to meet his needs.

(b) One pediatrician who works directly with the psychiatrist and who at present donates his services. He conducts the initial physical and medical examinations of the children when they are referred to the clinic.

(c) One psychologist, who is the assistant director of the bureau of research and guidance. This person has the assistance of selected counselors and teachers in the schools who have been trained to give intelligence tests. Every child upon admission to the clinic is given an intelligence test, and other psychological investigations are carried on which may throw light upon the causes of his behavior and the most effective possibilities of treatment.

(d) Four visiting counselors, each of whom devotes half time to the clinical social work, the other half being given to teaching, counseling, or other responsibilities in the school system. Through repeated contacts with both the child and his parents these workers keep open the pathway between the clinic and the home. They study the parental relationship and the reaction of the child to the environment in which he lives. They make appointments with welfare agencies concerned with the treatment of the child, and they use every means at their disposal to see that these appointments are kept and that the recommendations made by the psychiatrist are carried out.

Procedure of the behavior clinic.-The plan of work which the clinic has adopted is as follows:

1. Principals and teachers are asked periodically to report all serious behavior problems in their schools. A serious behavior problem is defined as "one which varies sufficiently from normal behavior to cause the teacher to feel that the child can not be managed satisfactorily with the group." It is specified that such problems need not be flagrant ones of rebellion or delinquency; they may equally well involve the child who shows a neurotic disorder or an extreme tendency to shrink within himself. Withdrawal as well as attack, undue reticence as well as extreme aggressiveness, smoldering resentment as well as open revolt, hidden emotional complexes as well as manifest temperamental difficulties-all are included in the category of "serious behavior problems."

2. For each child thus reported, principals and teachers make out a detailed record of objective evidence, indicating instances of his unsocial behavior. This report includes also items concerning the child's school record, as well as a rating of personality traits.

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3. The staff of psychological and social workers furnish information regarding mental ability and interest, home environment, social influences, and any other data that can be gathered from psychological and social investigation.

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FIGURE 2.-This chart represents only that segment of the organization of the Berkeley public schools which relates to the program of child adjustment described in this bulletin.

4. The pediatrician and the psychiatrist make physical, medical, and neuropsychiatric examinations of the child.

5. With all the evidence before them, the clinical staff sits in consultation, interviews teachers, principal, and parents, and makes recommendations for treatment. Such recommendations may involve medical care, readjustment in home or school, assistance

from social agencies, or attention to environmental conditions of any kind.

6. In needy cases medical treatment is furnished at nominal cost by the city health center. Contact with the home is made by the visiting counselor to whom the case is assigned. School adjustments may involve a change of school, a change of class, or counsel to the teacher and principal for a modified approach to the child.

7. All developments in the case are followed by the visiting counselor, and periodic reports of progress are made by the school. The child is brought before the clinic at stated intervals for reexamination and counsel.

A chart showing the place of the behavior clinic in the school system and the interrelationships among all the agencies involved in the program of child adjustment is given on page 12. Each unit may give effective service in its own field, but in order to supplement its work it needs also the effective service of every other unit. There is but one purpose for which they all exist, and that is the abiding welfare of the children whom they serve.

CHAPTER II. SOME CLINICAL PICTURES1

The general methods used by the clinic in the adjustment of problems brought to its attention have been described in the previous chapter. The specific treatment applied to individual cases varies with the type of problem to such a degree that no single prescription can be offered as meeting the needs of all cases save the very general one of the physician: Find the source of the difficulty and eliminate it. Physical, social, environmental, emotional factors all play a part in the picture of the whole. Whatever is wrong in each part of the picture distorts the whole until correction is made and harmony is restored.

The functioning of the clinic, therefore, can best be described through illustrative pictures of the lives of some of the children who have needed help. Each one represents the story of a human struggle, often hidden away in the deepest recesses of child life, yet none the less overwhelming and devastating. If we are willing to take the time and to make the effort to probe deeply, gently, patiently, understandingly, we may hope to find a way to bring back into the picture the harmony and the beauty that belong there.

1. JOE

The problem.-He sat picking the frayed cuff of his little faded coat, a perfect picture of depression and despair. He had entered school about a month late, having moved to the city from a large wheat ranch in Montana. In the past year his father had lost all of his property in wheat speculation. His mother had died of cancer, and the family, consisting of the father and seven children, had been left adrift without a rudder. Apparently the mother had been the guiding spirit in the family, and when she went no one knew what to do. The oldest girl, Joe's half sister, was keeping house on the $100 a month which the father earned as an elevator operator. Between this half sister and the boy there was a decided conflict, which added to the general unhappiness and depression in the home. Joe was 13 years old and was entering the eighth grade. He said he thought he could keep up with the class, although he bragged that since he was 8 years old he had been difficult to handle in school, seldom studied, and was usually in trouble with the teacher or principal. The boy was tense and uneasy, but tried to put on a "bold front.'

1 The clinical pictures described in this chapter have been contributed by Mrs. Helen Russ, one of the visiting counselors connected with the behavior clinic.

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