Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

many years. If there is any other taint in the family, such as alcoholism or epilepsy, this or tuberculosis, according to the present opinion of doctors, might be a contributing cause of mental disorder. Some uncle or aunt may show the taint, even if her immediate forebears do not.

I fear that I am asking a great deal of you, but the information may be of the greatest value to us. This girl is certainly not normal, and I know I don't need to say to you how almost hopeless it is to try to get such a girl-plus a baby-established respectably. For the sake of the child, and of future children that ought not to be born, we want to do everything we can towards having this mother committed. We shall ourselves, of course, get the information from Clayton and Beaufort.

7. What Facts relating to the Correspondent's Occupation, Education, etc., Should Modify the Approach by Letter? Where a correspondent is personally known to us, we have a definite advantage in our choice of method of approach, but often our only guides are a few stray facts as to his occupation, his educational advantages, and his alleged relation to the client about whom we write. We fall back upon these slender clues because we lack an intermediary whose point of view is known, whose discretion can be trusted, and whose face-to-face intercourse with the witness can overcome our own handicaps.

Letters to business men should be as brief as is possible without sacrificing definiteness and clearness. Letters to former employers of a client should give his name in full accurately, and state definite dates and the exact kind of information sought, while at the same time explaining the reason for the inquiry in such a way as to create no unreasonable prejudice. Where the client's service has been of a personal kind, involving direct daily contacts with the correspondent, the letter can safely be more personal.

Inquiries of physicians have been considered in the chapter on Medical Sources. It may be repeated here, however, that no letter asking for a medical diagnosis should attempt to give one, that the relation of medical diagnosis to the social treatment of which the letter of inquiry is a part should be made clear, and that family history and the specific circumstances, acts, etc., that might have a bearing upon medical diagnosis should be stated. To say that we think our client is mentally deranged is futile; to state the observations that have created this impression is a possible help.

A worker in a public agency for the blind whose work is state wide takes for granted, in writing to priests about their parishioners,

that they have a deep interest in the things she is trying to accomplish. In her experience, the interest already exists or is very easily aroused, and her letters usually convey a recognition of this fact. The following is a characteristic beginning:

"You probably will be glad to know that, learning of a child in your parish who has inflammation of the eyes, I went to see her and found the family willing to let the child come to the city and attend the Eye Hospital." And this is a characteristic letter ending: "Remember me should you hear of one who is blind or in danger of becoming so. I should like not only to do what I can to help them, but, in doing for your parishioners, to be able to serve you."

This same worker, in addressing the parents of a client, always puts the names of both on the outside of the envelope as well as on the enclosure, doing this in order to make both parents feel an equal responsibility for answering her inquiries and for carrying out her suggestions.

A case worker in a children's agency once said, after looking over a group of letters addressed by workers in another agency to a wayward girl, that they were so dignifiedly and elegantly expressed as to make her hesitate to show her own. She was accustomed, when writing to uneducated people personally known to her, to address them in simple and familiar language, some of it almost childish. It may be questioned whether letters of inquiry to simple folk are always intelligible to them. Short words and sentences, and an ability to see both the form and the content of the letter through the eyes of the receiver would bring better results. Even the form of the letter-its typewriter script on official letter paper -may put a barrier between its writer and the least businesslike of his correspondents; a letter written by hand on unofficial paper sometimes makes a better beginning.

Sometimes, on the other hand, a formal rather than a familiar tone is justified by the nature of the contents. This is true in the following to a father from a child-protective agency:

"A complaint has come to this office that you are not properly providing for the support of your wife and minor child, that most of your time you are idle, that your wife is obliged to go out to work leaving your child in the care of your mother. I called at your home yesterday to talk this matter over with you, found the house empty and the door unlocked. The outside appearance was very disorderly and dirty. I would like to hear your side of the story and would be glad to have you call at this office Saturday morning at 10 o'clock." The recipient did not come, but

went to work the next day and, a month later, was found to be still working steadily and doing better in every way.

In all of the foregoing, emphasis has been put upon letters to those who are not themselves engaged in social work. When we are writing to social agencies, our statements must be full enough to enable them to co-operate intelligently. If we are writing about a family, the names and ages of all its members, the wife's maiden name, and the husband's full name (even though deceased) should be given. In asking to have an employer visited, do not omit to mention the approximate dates of employment, the kind of work done, and, if a large firm, the department in which the worker was employed, his work number, and the name of his foreman. When marriages, births, or deaths are to be verified, always give the dates. Dates should be given also for the period of residence when institutional connections are to be looked up or former addresses are to be visited. When addresses are given us it is an easy matter, before asking an out-of-town agency to visit, to discover whether the addresses are at all possible by consulting the nearest file of out-of-town city directories, or the nearest set of street guides for other cities.

"When I have a name given me without the street address," writes a family case worker, "and I want to ask another society to investigate for me, I have been able to give the exact address by consulting the directory of that city, so I do not often ask for investigations at addresses that do not exist. Recently I had a client who said that his brother-in-law had a restaurant in Los Angeles, and he gave the street address. Instead of writing to a Los Angeles social agency and waiting two weeks for their reply, I went into our board of trade rooms and consulted the directory. I could not find either the brother-in-law's name or that of the street. When my client found that I could not accept all of his first story, he told me the true one." 1

The time of social case workers in other cities is quite as valuable as our own. More care in calling upon them for service, a clearer realization of the uses to be made of that service, and a better statement of our own case would greatly enhance the value of information received from these sources.

III. LETTERS OF REPLY TO INQUIRIES

The quality of a letter of inquiry has much to do with the fullness and satisfactoriness of the reply. For this reason more space 1 For use of directories see also Chapter XIII, Documentary Sources.

has been given to this first half of letter writing. The second half, which we must consider only in so far as it relates to the replies of social case workers-to the letters, that is, in which they send information already at hand and those others in which they send information secured especially for the inquirer-need not detain us long. The worst failings of such letters of report are traceable to failings in the investigations themselves, but some few are due to faults of the social diagnostician as correspondent.

In the first place, his letters, like those of other modern correspondents, often contain internal evidence that they have been written in reply to inquiries that have not been read, or, if read, have not been fully apprehended. It follows, in the second place then, that his reply fails to cover all the points raised. When it is impossible to cover them he could at least indicate the items not supplied and the reasons for the omission. This precaution would save the annoyance of further inquiries, further replies, apologies, etc., with all their avoidable delays. In the third place, he gives too often only the inferences drawn from information gathered, whereas the information itself, with its source or sources and some evaluation of the witnesses quoted, is needed. The inferences are useful too, but they should be recognized and stated as such, thus giving the inquirer a chance to use his own judgment. Statements such as, "I am informed," "I understand," without saying by or from whom, leave the mind confused and unsatisfied. What is said elsewhere2 about the use of general terms in case records applies to letters also.

Letters of report to correspondents in the same city are easily followed by directer communication, which supplements or corrects their deficiencies. There is something so tangible about a letter, however, that an error may survive the correction and make trouble a good deal later.

1 "My dear old grandfather. . . taught me never to attempt to answer a letter without placing it before me and reviewing it scrupulously, paragraph by paragraph. Hundreds of times have I devoutly blessed his memory for that lesson in the common-sense of correspondence."-Anonymous Contributor in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1913, pp. 856-7.

2 See p. 349.

IV. SOME TECHNICAL DETAILS

The foregoing sentence might seem to contain an argument for destroying letters as soon as their immediate purpose had been served. In one family agency a business men's committee recommended that all correspondence about any given case be destroyed as soon as the case was "closed"—this being the agency's technical term for the discontinuance of treatment. Medical men would have seen by analogy the folly of this, but business men could not, and the attempt to carry out the decision caused endless trouble. It is important in case work to keep all letters received and copies of all letters sent that have any bearing upon case diagnosis and treatment. The originals of letters written by a client who, at the time of writing or later, suffers from some form of mental disease are sometimes important items in the diagnosis of the disease. This is also true in the diagnosis of mental defect, but there are equally important inferences to be drawn from the letters of the normal, such as their fitness for certain work, their degree of education, etc. It is often found wise to preserve copies of letters not addressed to the case worker but shown by the client as having an important bearing upon his affairs. One child-protective agency is accustomed to have such letters copied at its office while the client waits.

Letters of inquiry or report should not be forwarded by the client's own hand. One letter so sent to a hospital contains the following sentence: "No doubt you will notice at once upon talking with her that she is not mentally normal." Apart from the danger of suggesting a diagnosis, it was a mistake, of course, to send this by a client. The report should have gone by mail, and only a short, unsealed note of introduction, referring to the letter, should have gone by hand.

Letters addressed "to whom it may concern" should not be written at all. The worthlessness of such letters has already been referred to (p. 177). Circular letters of inquiry are often used with good results in cases involving the discovery of the whereabouts of runaway boys or of adults who are mentally disturbed. These forms should indicate that duplicates are being sent to a number of places. They should contain a careful description of the person sought and suggestions as to the kind of story that he is likely to tell.

« ForrigeFortsæt »