Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1936-05-21
GIRLS ON PAROLE
NEED SPECIAL AID
Finding Homes and Jobs
Is Major Task at Train
ing School.

II you had been sentenced to a
correctional institution in your teens
what would you do when released?
This Is the problem confronting
delinquent young women when the
doors Of the National Training School
| for Girls are locked behind them. &C
cording to Miss Jean Bromley. parole
worker.
There should be one employe
doing nothing but finding jobs and
homes for paroled girls" Miss Brom-
ley said today.
Miss Bromley's job is looking out
for 104 paroled girls at the present
time, a number far too large for one
parole worker, she says. She makes
an effort to supply suitable employ
ment or to find foster homes for the
girls when they have no parents OF
their own in the District, but she is
unable to do the best that might be
done for all Of them because Of the
multiplicity Of her duties.
Leave School in Quandary.
Kept at the school for from one to
five years during adolescence. the
girls depart wondering how to earn
enough to feed themselves. Miss
Bromley hopes the proposed 100000
appropriation will be passed by Con.
gress so that home and job finding
worker may be added to the staff.
At the present time the overworked
staE members feel they are sending
infants out into the world to fend for
themselves.
MY work among paroled girls
proves how badly they adjust them
selves to freedom" Miss Bromley
says. They are uneducated. They
can do only the toughest domestic
labor. No wonder the passing years
bring so many Of them to the Deco
guam Work House. The stigma of
having been confined in correctional
institution alone is tremendous
handicap to them on the labor mar
ket."
Seek to Hide Records.
Paroled girls who do find jobs live
in horror that fellow workers will
discover their training school record
and ostracize them socially, which
they always do. Often such tragedies
cause a girl to break her parole by
leaving the city, Miss Bromley says,
an act which brings her once more
under jurisdiction of the law and
back to the training school.
People taking training school girls
into their homes as domestics are apt
to regard them with a mixture of
sanctimoniousness and suspicion, it
is said, making it difficult for girls
with a record to adjust themselves to
normal living. staff workers call this
attitude. absurd" pointing out that
many children in sheltered homes
have stolen or been sexually delin-
quent at some period of their youth
1t is the policy of the National
Committee of the Girl Scouts to deny
charters to training schools all over
the United States, Miss Bromley says,
whereas the Boy Scouts have many
enthusiastic troops at correctional in
stitutions. In Washington the Y. w.
C. A. has been helpful in finding jobs
for training school girls. but the en-
ployment section could do more for
them if the school appropriations
permitted specialized training, it is
said.
No Discrimination in School.
Within the school itself there is
no discrimination. The training pro-
gram is planned in anticipation of
an increased appropriation, TO benefit
all girls. their natural interests being
the first consideration. Colored and
white girls live in separate quarters
because it is a regulation on the
statues of the institution and is the
accepted social policy Of this section
Of the country. The girls are more
comfortable conforming to the usual
social practices Of the communities
in which they live, it is found.
Girls OF both colors would benefit
more from being wards of the District
if a home and job finding worker at
the training school removed their
fears about the future.