1/18/16, Visitor found a man sitting at the kitchen table in the evening. Said he lodged in the same house and watched the children evenings while the mother worked.

3/29/16, Petition filed in Juvenile Court. Children neglected. Mother illegitimately pregnant.

While other factors than the mother's night work probably contributed to the deterioration of this family it is clear from the entries in the record that it was the chief cause. If it is necessary and desirable that the mother supplement the income, the consensus of opinion seems to be that sewing, fine laundry, or the care of other dependent children are more desirable than the usual forms of work because these occupations do not demand fixed hours of labor, and can be carried on at home while she is attending to her family's needs.

The question of the contribution of working children to the family income is one that can be summarized briefly. In order to increase the family income, no child should be forced into work prematurely, or under conditions that jeopardize its health or future development. It is equally true that a child should not be permitted to contribute more than a reasonable amount of its wages to the support of the family and should not be made to feel that the family is dependent on its earnings to an undue degree.

After the family resources in property and money, financial help from relatives, and ways in which the mother and children may safely add to the family income are considered, the question of the budget on which the family may be expected to maintain a good family standard must be decided. There is no doubt that continuous and adequate relief can be used as a lever to lift family standards of living, and that it is not money aid in itself but the method of administering it that may do harm. One of the arguments against public assistance is that it lacks the elasticity of private relief and cannot easily be adapted to the changing needs of the family. But this is equally true of the weekly wage of the father, and the average family must plan on a fixed sum. The feeling of security which a fixed monthly or weekly allowance gives to a widow enables her to develop those qualities of foresight and thrift by which she may plan ahead for the winter's coal or the next month's rent.

So much scientific and detailed work has been done on budget planning for assisted families that it is unnecessary to describe it here.

The one basic principle, however, is that the amount granted, if expended with reasonable care, must be adequate to ensure maintenance of health, working efficiency, and a good standard of family life.

It is no exaggeration to say that there is hardly a family applying for assistance in which at least one member does not show signs of malnutrition or disease. In the mothers the strain of child bearing, overwork, worry and enforced neglect of the simplest rules of hygiene have often resulted in chronic functional disorders or in conditions requiring surgical care; varicose veins, gynaecological and digestive disorders, flat feet and cardiac trouble are ailments common to these mothers. Among the children, disorders due to neglect and under-nourishment are prevalent and there is great need for the medical treatment of skin diseases, throat conditions, anemia, eye strain, and other disorders that may result in serious retardation in school and later in industrial efficiency. To meet these health needs the aid of private physicians, hospitals, convalescent homes and sanatoriums must be enlisted.

once.

In outlining a plan for supervision for a fatherless family it is well to decide what changes in the family life should be made at Even if emergency aid only is given for a few days, it is often wise to withhold regular assistance until a child who has been illegally employed is back in school, the man lodger eliminated, and in some cases until a member of the family in urgent need of medical care is actually under treatment. When regular assistance begins, the mother's hours of work should be changed at once to meet the plan for proper home care of the children. Other changes, such as the improvement in the school records of the children, training the mother in budget keeping, and securing dental care for the family, may require months of regular visiting and patient effort.

In this attempt to ensure the progress and welfare of the family it is perhaps unnecessary to say that the advice and help of clergymen, school teachers, former employers and relatives are needed. Other social agencies can often render the special kind of service that is required to hit some particular need. A housing association may be consulted about a sanitary home in a good neighborhood; a visiting nurse called in if there is sickness in the family; a vocational guidance bureau requested to advise the children as they approach working age; the interest of a settlement or commun

ity center enlisted to secure recreation and wider social contacts for the family.

The reading of a considerable number of records of assisted families in several cities that had been under the care of either a public or private agency showed that there are still valuable opportunities in supervision that have hardly been touched. In many cases the influence of the personality and ideals of the dead father is a vital factor in the family life, yet only in isolated instances was there any reference to his plans and ambitions for his children. While many records show an attempt to regulate the hours and working conditions of the mother, there were practically no instances where she was offered the opportunity of training for more highly skilled and better paid work. In view of the fact that she is usually quite young and will often be obliged to contribute to her children's support for many years to come, it would seem a wise economy to consider this possibility of increasing her earning power. While the children are often put in the way of obtaining healthful pleasures and forming helpful friendships, the same need in the life of the mother is not considered. In one agency a special effort was made to encourage the mothers of assisted families to join mothers' clubs, attend night school, and seek some social connection outside the home. A study of one hundred records of this agency showed that at the time the grant was made eighty-five of the one hundred mothers were highly nervous and depressed. After the families had been supervised and aided for a year only fifteen of the eighty-five had failed to become cheerful and self-controlled. Certainly this remarkable change must have been due to some extent to the social contacts the mothers had made.

Assistance and supervision of fatherless families under existing community organization can only be rendered successfully by trained social workers; but in most communities there is not only no developed social consciousness, but no one who knows the technique of social service. It is clear that a full measure of state supervision and state aid is badly needed in all such communities. A social reform measure, introducing an intricate new mechanism, but left to the isolated local community to administer, is doomed to inefficiency. Payment for adequate investigation and supervision in most communities must be made out of state funds, and be under state control if the work is to be successful.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that the only just way to solve the problem of the widow and orphan is to reduce their number by seeking to keep the wage-earner alive. The really preventive remedy here is social insurance. The insurance principle makes premature deaths expensive and so tends to reduce their number. The insurance method is also effective in making it possible for the wage-earner to provide for his own wife and children in case of his death, without leaving them to be cared for by any relief agency, private or public.

The theory and even the practice of the mothers' pension work are more closely identified with public relief than with the preventive measure of insurance. It provides state grants for dependent families, on proof of destitution, for the purpose of enforcing a measure of state guardianship over the health and education of its wards. As has been shown, emphasis is placed on moral considera>tions as well as financial need. Where it has been successfully administered it represents a new and fine piece of public machinery, made effective by its use of the approved methods of private agencies. With the thorough-going social reform that is likely to follow the war, and which is in fact already under way in England, our antiquated poor laws will be done away with. The unemployed, the old, the sick, the invalid, and the widow and orphan as well, may soon be cared for democratically by social, or contributory, insurance. Yet even under such an advanced social organization there will still be a residuum of individuals and families requiring social case treatment. It is to be hoped that out of America's significant new experiment in public charity-the mother's assistance workmay ultimately come a superior piece of public relief machinery replacing the old and discarded outdoor relief, and embodying all the principles of case diagnosis and treatment that have been worked. out so carefully by the private agencies in the past.

DESERTION AND NON-SUPPORT IN FAMILY CASE WORK

By JOANNA, C. COLCORD,

Superintendent, New York Charity Organization Society.

LEGALISTIC CONCEPTION OF DESERTION

An examination of the existing literature on family desertion brings to light surprisingly little regarding the problems it presents to the social case worker. There have been several statistical studies of its occurrence, and innumerable discussions of its treatment from the legal side, but the case worker in search of technical advice and direction browses over a wide field with comparatively small result. This is probably due to the fact that the rise of the domestic relations courts in late years has tended to turn the thoughts of those interested in the problem toward the legal and judicial remedies which are being developed. It may further be due to the fact that workers in the field of adult probation, who constitute the specialized group of case workers most directly interested in family desertion, are still breaking new ground and have not as yet been able to make the contribution to the literature of the case work movement that we may confidently expect to have from them in the course of the next few years.

Whatever the cause or causes, it seems true that desertion is generally written about as a breach of the law, to be dealt with through the correctional agencies of the community. This is not so much an erroneous as a distorted view of the problem. It fails to take into account the loss and wastage in human life, and emphasizes rather the financial burden of dependency which is laid upon society. Both elements of course exist, and must be recognized no less by lawyers and judges than by social workers in any effective program for the treatment and prevention of desertion.

It may as well be admitted that the hopes which social workers entertained at the beginning of the domestic relations courts movement have not been in all respects realized. What the social worker hoped for was an institution which would administer justice based upon the principles of social case work; but while much has been gained, we still fall far short of this. The law still insists upon