Evening star., 1954-04-30
Larger Staffs
Urged 10 Trim
Relief Rolls
Tentative Decisions
Reached by UcS
Group After Study

The community may save
money in the long run if it pro-
vides welfare agencies with
enough staff to help families get
off relief rolls and to keep their
children out of costly institu-
tions.
That is one of the tentative
conclusions reached by the new
United Community Services
Committee on Child Dependency
after a 5-month study of the
services-and lack of them-for
the Districts children and the
factors creating family break.
down.
w. Thacher Winslow. the
committee chairman, reported
on the committees work to date
at the annual meeting of the
UCS Family and Child Welfare
Section yesterday. He empha-
sized that the committees final
conclusions will not be reached
until next year but he raised
these points:
Financial Need Cited.
Financial need lies at the bot
tom Of many cases of child
neglect. An estimated 10000
children of unemployable un-
employed are in families not
eligible for unemployment COM
pensation or Aid to Dependent
Children.
The low amount of Aid to De-
pendent Children grants may
encourage parent or child to
robbery.
The Welfare Departments poll
icy of giving no aid to an un-
employed breadwinner but of
providing aid to dependent chill
dren if the breadwinner deserts
may actually encourage men to
desert their families"
If the public welfare staff were
large enough to give individual
time. to mothers, employable
mothers might now be taken Off
relief rolls. But the public as
sistance staff is now overloaded
to the point where each case
worker has l44 cases, as COM
pared with an average of so
cases in private agencies.
There are vacancies in some
day-care centerS. This may be
because the centers are poorly
located. cost too much, or be-
cause the mothers don't know
about them. 1t is suspected that
a large number of children Of
working mothers are receiving
inadequate or irresponsible day
care from neighbors. friends or
relatives.
Many children have no after
school supervision because their
mothers work, and this lack Of
care is closely linked with juve-
nile delinquency. There might
be a more co-ordinated approach
among the schools, settlement
houses and the Recreation De-
partment to cope with this
problem.
More extensive use of home
maker aides to go into homes in
emergencies is needed, because
this service holds families to-
gether in time of emergency and
saves the expense of putting chill
dren in institutions.
Schools are severely handi-
capped in dealing with family
problems because of large classes,
excessive paperwork required Of
elementary school principals and
the lack Of counselling and
guidance service in the elemen-
tary schools.
Enforcement Called Weak.
The laws requiring fathers to
support their children appear to
be adequate but "the breakdown
seems to occur in enforcement"
Further study is needed to fig
ure means of getting the We'll
fare Department, Police Deport-
ment. marShal's Office and Juve-
nile Court to- work better to-
gether in forcing fathers to as
sumo their share of financial
responsibility for their children.
The committee is disturbed by
the present trend of private
agencies in diverting funds and
staff from their normal prevent-
i've services to meet relief emer-
gencies arising from unemploy-
nent.
The committee during the
coming year wants to find out
whether the financial need prob
lem is one to be met simply by
spending more money or whether
it is more a problem of better
organization of community re-
sources.
At the annual meeting, Mrs.
David l.. Bazelon was elected
chairman of the Family and
Child Welfare Section to sue
ceed Russell w. Schneider.
Alexander B. Hawes was elected