PART I. A DESCRIPTION OF ORGANIZATION

AND METHOD

CHAPTER I. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PROGRAM

The technique of an experiment dealing with human behavior is dependent upon the background of the social life and social facilities against which it is projected. There is little freedom in controlling the conditions under which one works. On the contrary, we must accept the social situation as we find it and then attempt to build the structure of experimental procedure on the basis of what we have. Local school conditions, environmental influences, home situations, and community organizations all have an important bearing upon the problem of adjusting children's difficulties. For this reason the setting into which the present experiment was introduced must first be described. The scene of the experiment.-The scene of the experiment is the city of Berkeley, Calif., which, according to the 1930 census, had a population of 82,109. There are in the city 1 senior high school, 4 junior high schools, and 17 elementary schools. In these full-time day schools of the city the average daily attendance for the year 1929-30 was 12,049, distributed as follows:

The city has adopted progressive ideals of governmental organization and of educational objectives. The location of the State university among the low-lying hills of its eastern border has helped to make it a center of cultural opportunity and professional service. Opposite, stretching along its western line, lies the water-front district, with its numerous factories and South European population. Between these two extremes there is the cosmopolitan array of citizenry that can be found in any American city.

The school program.-The Berkeley school system has long had its program of classification and counseling. The assistant superintendent of schools is also the director of research and guidance, in administrative charge of classification, of special classes, of school counseling, and of all individual adjustment work. In each school there is a teacher or a group of teachers who act as counselors and who, with the

cooperation of the classroom teacher, study individual needs, make contacts with the pupil and his home, and offer recommendation for adjustment. A carefully organized plan of testing and of cumulative records is in operation which makes available at any time and in any school objective evidence regarding the abilities and achievements of any child. Emphasis is placed upon the child as a complex human personality and upon the importance of finding out all that can be known about him before any steps should be taken in guidance. Educational, mental, physical, social, and emotional factors are all taken into consideration.

Such a program is not unknown in the schools of our country. Many other cities have accepted similar ideals of making the childthe whole child-the center of school activities. Berkeley has undertaken the additional task of making this school program only one part of a larger coordinated plan involving the cooperation of school and social agencies in their common responsibility of child guidance. To this end, in the year 1924 the Berkeley Coordinating Council was organized.

The coordinating council.-As in many other towns of its size, one finds in this western city numerous civic and social agencies at work for community betterment. The health department, in addition to its ordinary duties of general supervision of health and sanitation, supervises a health center which offers clinical service to those who need it. The welfare society carries on charitable activities of a social nature. The police department lays great stress upon a preventive program among children, seeking through its policewoman and its probation officer to recognize and to solve the problems of predelinquency before actual legal offense may be committed. The school department has its bureau of research and guidance, already mentioned.

All these agencies, as well as those of a less public nature, have as one of their major purposes the furtherance of child welfare. Each one is attacking the problem from a different angle and each one has much to contribute to the total cause. Yet in Berkeley there existed until recently the same situation which is still found in many other citiesone which was marked by an almost total lack of active cooperation among the officials involved. Except for the unusual case which demanded a careful sifting of its history and interrelationships, it might be said that no one agency had an intelligent comprehension of what the others were about. Such a situation not only leads to frequent duplication, waste, and inefficiency of service, but it is often actually harmful in its results upon the individual under treatment. Leaders of the movement felt that if any community is to concentrate effectively upon the adjustment of problem children, then it should have the unselfish cooperation of all the agencies that have to

do with child life. Each agency must be willing to surrender prerogatives or to accept additional responsibility if the case seems to demand it. All must unite in their willingness to serve in the way that seems best for the interests of boys and girls and for the betterment of the community.

It was to foster this spirit of cooperation that representative executives of the schools, the police department, and the health department met in the year 1924 to discuss ways and means for a better coordination of work, especially with reference to salvaging maladjusted children. The group met informally several times, then effected an organization, and called itself "The Berkeley Coordinating Council for Child Welfare." Its aims and purposes were stated as follows:1

1. To promote the physical, moral, and mental welfare of the children in the community.

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2. To coordinate the activities of existing agencies, preventing duplication. 3. To promote personal acquaintance and esprit de corps among executives of the various agencies.

Since these early beginnings eight years ago the work of the council has developed until its membership now includes the following: The assistant superintendent of schools, who is also the director of the bureau of research and guidance; the chief of police; the director of the city health department; the superintendent of social service in the city health center; the visiting teacher; the executive secretary of the welfare society; the policewoman; and the director of playgrounds. Five publicly supported departments are thus represented-the police department, the health department, the welfare society, the department of playgrounds and recreation, and the school department. Members of the council meet in weekly sessions and consider problem cases that have come to the attention of one or another of the agencies represented. All the information concerning a given child which is in the possession of any one agency is placed at the disposal of every other. Typical cases which come up for discussion are those involving educational maladjustment, behavior difficulties, social indigency, and physical inadequacy. So also the child with special ability or talent may become an object of attention, particularly through the enlistment of the aid of some public-spirited citizen or organization to help in the development of his capacity. Assignments for follow-up are made by the chairman of the council. With skillful executive leadership and with the unity of purpose which marks its program, a consistent policy of cooperative effort is followed by all its members.

1 Virgil E. Dickson. The Berkeley Coordinating Council. Mental Hygiene, 13: 514-519, July, 1929.

From the files of the council have been gleaned the following abbreviated records of specific cases, illustrating the principle of coordination which is at work:

1. The welfare society presents a family which has been receiving support for several years. The problem is getting rapidly worse. There are 13 childrensome married, with other children coming on. Other relatives bring a total of more than 20 persons in the house most of the time. Sometimes 3 or 4 out of the 20 are working at low wages. Sometimes no one is working. All of the 13 children who have grown to adolescence have been in delinquency and crime. The older ones are either in prison or being sought for crime. The health department reports that most of the family have an infectious disease. The filth and living conditions are so horrible that the younger children have no choice for developing into anything but delinquency and crime. The schools have truancy and disciplinary trouble with all the children. The police have many records. The recreation department reports trouble on the playground. Thus all five departments have something to contribute to the picture. All reports are combined. After careful consideration the council makes a plea to the juvenile court judge that he break up the home to the extent of declaring five of the younger children wards of the court to be assigned to the welfare society for probation and placement in homes. This was done, and at least some check placed upon the destructive influences operating upon those young lives.

2. Another case of truancy from school. Broken home-mother unable to control the boy. Temporarily placed in an institution with good results. Returned to the home. Soon started in trouble again. Booked in police department for stealing and other offenses. Treated by health department for disease. With lack of home supervision, boy had no ability to meet the ordinary social requirement of the community for more than a few days without some breach of conduct. The total history showed that nothing short of specific placement and probation or an institution could protect the boy and society.

3. The schools called attention to a family of five children, all definitely feebleminded. The father of low mentality-the mother, low grade feeble-minded. Children were limited only by the calendar and biology. The council collected a complete history, presented it to the judge with recommendation that the mother be committed to the institution for feeble-minded long enough to be sterilized. This was done, and society has been saved the burden of additional dependents from that source.

4. The history of a serious problem child reveals that the parents need instruction. The school counseling service gives it. The child needs medical attention; the health department gives it. There is need of food and clothing; the welfare society responds. Any one of the workers going into the home may need the moral support of the law. A policeman in uniform merely goes along. The uniform does the work without the necessity of words. The combined efforts of the group bring about constructive changes both in the home and in the behavior of the child.

In addition to specific case work, the council also conducts investigations of civic conditions and sets up policies. A spot map of juvenile crime in the city has been made and contributing causes studied. A list has been prepared giving the names and addresses of all the feeble-minded, all the insane, and all the epileptics in the city. It has on record the location of all recreational and amusement centers, all pool halls, moving-picture theaters, clubs, churches, etc. Such

material is helpful in the study of those forces that tend to promote or to destroy the welfare of youth in the city.

In May, 1932, the chairman of the council wrote as follows: 2

The council is voluntary. It has no official authority. It does not vote, except once a year to elect a chairman, nor does it have the power to authorize or to require any department to do anything. The chief of each department goes forth from any meeting fully responsible for his own department and free to do as he thinks best. But if he has presented a problem in the council he has had the judgment and the free discussion of the chiefs of all the other departments. He knows what they think, and he knows in what way they will be able to cooperate. They in turn are familiar with his problems and often are told what he intends to do. I can not overemphasize the fact that our coordinating council is a deliberating and counseling group. Our purpose is to become mutually con

*INCLUDING ADMINISTRATIVE AND TEACHING STAFF FOR THE ENTIRE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

FIGURE 1

scious of the problems and policies peculiar to each department and of those that may be common to two or more of the departments. We deliberate, we cooperate, we educate one another, we become acquainted. We are wise enough not to try to dictate. If our coordinating council were made a requirement by the city charter and we were forced to vote on interdepartmental policies, we would break up in a row, and would need the rest of the police department, in addition to the chief, to settle our differences. As we are now organized, there has not been a serious conflict among the five departments represented during the eight years.

So great has been the impression made by the organization of the Berkeley Coordinating Council upon those interested in social welfare that it became the basis of a recommendation made by the Cali

Excerpt from an address given by Virgil E. Dickson before the California Council of Social Work.