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whose parents have always so taken it, may lead to insubordination later on. A natural reaction from complete subjection is pushed too far by the spirit of his new associates and by the invitations of his enlarged world. From the very beginning, the social worker must keep these future dangers in mind and seek a better adjustment.

Separate interviews with the grown sons and daughters of a household, especially with those who are wage-earners, are often necessary.

A woman of sixty-four had been known to a charitable society for many years, but her six children, of ages ranging from thirty-two to eighteen, had not been consulted about her unexplained habit of writing begging letters continually. A critic of the record writes: "My belief is that, in order to know the real inwardness, each and every son and daughter should be seen away from the home. Practically all the dealings in later years have been with the woman. I observe that the last record of any one of them being seen was made six years ago. Even then it was purely incidental. What manner of people are these sons and daughters now? How do they feel about these constant appeals? What influence are they bringing to bear upon their mother? Do they countenance the habit?"

V. OTHER MEMBERS

Relatives of the husband or of the wife often form a part of the Family Group, whether with a clearly defined share of family responsibility or with none. Sometimes they carry far more than their share of the family burden; sometimes their influence is so disturbing as to disrupt the home-a mischief often wrought by relatives who live elsewhere, but more completely achieved by those under the same roof. Records studied for this book seem to show an undue share of undesirable relatives in widow's families, where there is no man to send them packing.

In one case, a drunken father left the home of his more well-to-do children to live with his widowed daughter and her small brood just as soon as a regular allowance from a social agency had been organized for them. The widow was an easy-going person, for later she married a man that was more of a vagabond than her father even. The givers of the allowance conditioned its continuance, up to the time of the second marriage, upon the father's withdrawal.

In another widow record, the woman's brother was boarding with her. His influence upon the growing boys was found to be bad, and further aid was made conditional upon his leaving.

We must not lose sight of the strong relatives who sometimes as

part of the Family Group, carry more than their share of its burdens; nor of those no longer able to earn who to that extent are a charge, yet who may be holding the group closer together and making a very definite contribution to the family life in their ability to give and to evoke real affection. There can be a natural comradeship between grandparents and the younger grandchildren, for instance, which, where it exists, is an invaluable part of the home environment of a child.

In cases of desertion it is often necessary to consider not only the influence of relatives who are or have been members of the household, but that of any lodgers or boarders who are not kindred. Their relations with the husband or with the wife sometimes help to explain marital differences. In any case, their habits have a direct influence upon the children, and the amount and regularity of their payments are an important item in figuring the budget.

If, in the foregoing discussion of earlier visits to the home, more emphasis seems to have been put upon getting an idea of its background and its trend than upon the separate items of fact needed for the face cards of case records, it must not be inferred that inexact and general impressions are in any wise recommended as substitutes for definiteness and concreteness. But a fact, however exactly stated, has little significance until it has been intelligently related to some other fact or facts, so that skill is shown, not so much in the ability to accumulate a mass of data as in the development of a sort of sixth sense for the significant facts in their true relation to one another. It is believed that a grasp of the idea of the main drift of the family life will keep the mind of the worker from staggering about among a multitude of miscellaneous particulars, will help it to discriminate between the significant and the insignificant, and will lead to a clearer diagnosis.

Another idea that will help is the concept of assets for reconstruction. The power of family cohesion already mentioned is one of the greatest of these. Somewhat different and equally valuable is their capacity for affection. Other assets are capacity for admiration, for further training, for more energetic endeavor, for enjoyment, and for all-round social development. Nothing, however small, that might serve as an asset in the course of treat

ment and help to carry our plans toward a successful issue can possibly be insignificant. Whether this be an affection for a small dog, an ambition to play the accordion, or a lost or mislaid loyalty, the social physician must be able to use, and he must be able to recognize in order to use, such tools as these which lie ready to his hand.

SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER

1. The good results of individual treatment crumble away often because the case worker has remained ignorant of his client's family history, and has been unprepared for the sudden outcropping of tendencies long hidden.

2. Early contacts with members of the Family Group are on a somewhat different plane from those with other sources of information, because the need of their co-operation in treatment is usually greater, and further contacts are more likely to follow.

3. The family has a history of its own apart from the histories of those who compose it. It follows that a conception of the main drift of the family life is very necessary in any attempt to discriminate between the significant and the insignificant in a mass of case work data.

4. Another aid to clear thinking is the habit of classifying families with reference to their power of cohesion. The united family "is able to send its sons and daughters far over the face of the earth without in the least impairing the bond which unites them." In the unstable family "removal into the next street" is enough to sever the bond.

5. This power of cohesion is only one of the assets for reconstruction in family case work. Others are capacity for affection, for admiration, for further training, for more energetic endeavor, for enjoyment, and for social development. Among the children, more especially, the smallest signs of aptitude, ambition, achievement are worth testing and developing. An ability to discover, note, and use the assets for reconstruction marks the true case worker.

6. Among the more frequent causes of estrangement between husband and wife are disparity of age, marriage or remarriage for economic reasons, interference of relatives, and differences in nationality, race, or religion.

7. Social workers often ignore the husband and father and deal exclusively with his wife and children. He should be seen and known. Especially important is this injunction when case workers are asked to aid the families of young, ablebodied men.

8. Desertion and alcoholism, like many other social disabilities, are not so much separate entities as outcroppings of more intimate aspects of the individual's personal and social life. Diagnosis must lay a solid foundation for their treatment, therefore, by pushing beyond such "presenting symptoms" to the complex of causes farther back.

9. On the home's physical side, three important aspects are income and outgo, food habits, and housing. Most difficult of these to gauge are the food habits, which often demand special study because of their direct bearing upon health and spending power.

10. The individualization of the children in the household must include the prompt noting of all variations from the normal in their physical and mental condition.

11. The exact ages of the children-day, month, year of birth-have such vital relation to their adjustment to a number of social laws and institutions that this item of fact should not be omitted.

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CHAPTER VIII

OUTSIDE SOURCES IN GENERAL

EASONS for turning not only to a client's family group for insight and advice but to Outside Sources have been sug

gested earlier. The chief reason for seeking this further help is that, to be constructively useful, we must be able to break through the narrow circle of the client's own view of his situation, and the narrow circle also of our own prepossessions and favorite modes of procedure. We cannot afford to adopt either of these circumscribed boundaries, because none of us lives on a desert island.

Can our client's affairs ever be regarded as ready for social treatment when no Outside Sources have been consulted? Measuring by the standard of concrete result instead of preconceived theory the answer would be in the affirmative. Cases studied for this book show correct diagnoses that were arrived at without any follow-up visits to outside references, but they also show a great preponderance of failures traceable directly to this omission. The worker who uses Outside Sources freely has been so trained by the practice that he can recognize when the nature of the application and of the task undertaken makes consultation of the confidential exchange index1 and of the impersonal public records described in the chapter on Documentary Sources the only follow-up work necessary.

Always essential, though, is the re-examination of records of the individual case, both within the agency applied to and in the agencies revealed by the exchange, where there is one. This re-examination should be made just after the first interview, and whenever later a new name comes to light, such as a name by a previous marriage.

Essential almost always is personal communication with some of those shown by the records or by the client's story to have known him at an earlier time and in quite different ways. Our relations with these Outside Sources collectively and separately will be con1 See p. 303 sq.

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