Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare
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Public Document No. 17 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF Public Welfare FOR THE Year ending November 30, 1927 Publication of this Document approved by the Commi88ion on Admimhi 2M. 5-'28. Order 2207. T^-,' u m J f Cfte Commontoealrt) of illas(£facf)UfiJett£^. I DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE. To the Honorable Senate and House of Representaiives: The Eighth Annual Report of the Department of PubUc Welfare, covering the year from December 1, 1926, to November 30, 1927, is herewith respectfully ! presented. RICHARD K. COXAXT, Commissioner of Public Welfare. 37 State House, Boston. Present Members of the Advisory Board of the Department of Public Welfare. Date of Original Appointment Name Residence Term Expires December 10, 1919 A. C. Ratshesky .... Boston . December 10, 1928 December 10, 1919 Jeffrey R. Brackett .... Boston . December 10. 1928 December 10, 1919 George Crompton .... Worcester . December 10, 1930 December 10, 1919 George H. McClean . Springfield . December 10, 1930 December 10, 1919 Mrs. Ada Eliot Sheffield . Cambridge . December 10, 1929 December 10, 1919 Mrs. Mary P. H. Sherburne . Brookline . December 10, 1929 Divisions of the Department of Public Welfare. Division of Aid and Relief: Frank W. Goodhue, Director. Miss Flora E. Burton, Supervisor of Social Service, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Moloney, Supervisor of Mothers' Aid. Edward F. Morgan, Supervisor of Settlements. Division of Child Guardianship: Miss Winifred A. Keneran, Director. Division of Juvenile Training: Charles M. Davenport, Director. Robert J. Watson, Executive Secretary. Miss Almeda F. Cree, Superintendent, Girls' Parole Branch. John J. Smith, Superintendent, Boys' Parole Branch. Subdivision of Private Incorporated Charities: Miss Caroline J. Cook, Supervisor of Incorporated Charities. Miss Florence G. Dickson, Supervisor of Incorporated Charities. Miss Alice M. Mclntire, Supervisor of Incorporated Charities. Subdivision of Housing and Town Planning: Edward T. Hartman, Visitor to City and To^\'n Planning Boards. Institutions under the Supervision of the Department of Public Welfare. State Infirmary, Tewksbury. John H. Nichols, M.D., Sui)erintendent. Massachusetts Ho.spital School, Canton. John E. Fish, M.I)., Su|)erintendent. Lyman School for Boys, Westborough. Charles A. Kcelor, Sui)orintendont. Industrial School for Boys, Shirley. George P. Campbell, Superintendent. State Industrial School for Girls, Lancaster. Miss Catharine M. Campbell, Superintendent. 2 P.D. 17. Part I. REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC WELFARE. In its three divisions and five institutions the department cares every year for more than seventy thousand persons. This year's special accomplishments include the establishment of a training course, the beginnings of a movement for a uniform settlement law, the elimina- tion from the statutes of the old words ''Overseers of the Poor" and "Almshouse", and steps toward the elimination of the word "Pauper". The need for a research department is emphasized. At the State Infirmary an occupational therapy de- partment has been established, social service for men has been extended, and use is being made of the new cancer hospital at Pondville. At the Massachusetts Hospital School a new schoolhouse has been built. In the Division of Juvenile Training psj'chiatric service has been extended. Nine planning boards have been established and eleven places have adopted zoning schemes. We have established this year a training course to give to our visitors, to local departments and to volunteers, a broader knowledge of the work of the depart- ment. Forty-five lectures were given by twenty-five members of the staff, all specialists, and examinations were given on each group of lectures. Nine of the forty students were from local boards and seventeen were from the department itself. The volunteer workers did field work with the department as a part of the course. In April the Commissioner called a conference of representatives of the state welfare departments of the New England states and New York to discuss the send- ing of dependent persons from one state to another and to discuss the settlement laws which govern the question which city, town or state is responsible for the care of a dependent person who moves between states. The variations in law and in practice between the various states and particularly between the New England states in this matter are extreme. In Massachusetts five years' residence in a city or town without aid gives a legal settlement and a settlement is lost by five years' absence from the city or town of settlement. New Hampshire requires the pay- ment of seven poll taxes and the settlement is lost by the failure in any year to keep up these taxes. In Massachusetts the state assumes responsibility for the care of those dependent persons who are without legal settlement in a city or town. Few other states assume such a responsibility. Cities and towns frequently send dependent families from one state to another, without the approval of any state department, in ways which cause serious injustice to the families and result in a lack of harmony between the state authorities or between the city and state authorities. The conference recommended to the Commissioners on Uniform Laws that a uniform settlement law be drafted. The conference also agreed that dependent persons should not be sent from one state to another without notifying the authorities at the place of destination and that state welfare departments should exercise more responsibihty over the action of cities and towns in sending dependent persons to another state. This year legislation has been secured which changes in the three hundred and fifty-five Massachusetts cities and towns the name of the local board which administers mothers' aid, outdoor relief and institutional care from the archaic name "Overseers of the Poor" to the modern phrase "Board of Public Welfare". A similar change in designation of the one hundred and twenty-five local institu- tions from "Almshouses" to "Infirmaries", accomplished this j^ear, will, we hope, play its part in our effort to secure in these institutions good nursing care and in- firmary wards. We beheve that well administered relief and good infirmary care together make a better solution of the problem of old age dependency than so- called old age pensions. Large corporations today employ men whose sole duties are to find better ways of doing the work of the organization. Research is coming to be recognized as essential to good management. By this we mean full time operative research departments as distinguished from the student thesis variety of research which Pt. I. 3 is largely educational and incidentally helpful to management. The Department of Public Welfare with more than one tliousand employees is an organization large enough to demand such a research department. This is the one state in the country in which complete statistics of persons aided by cities and towns and the cost of such aid have been kept over a sufficient period of years to furnish facts in regard to the results of policies and their future development. An ex- ample of the kind of facts which we have secured is that in 1907 2.3% of the population of the state was in receipt of relief, in 1917 2.6% and in 1927 2.8%. The figures for 1917 and 1927 include persons in receipt of mothers' aid. Thus it appears that the rate of dependency in Massachusetts has not materially in- creased in the last twenty years. While the precentages over such a long period of years show little variation, there is a large variation from year to year which, when analyzed, is found to be caused by more or less serious periods of unem- ployment, usually occurring in the winter months. The following table shows that when the unemployment factor is eliminated the remaining burden of de- pendenc}^ is substantialh^ constant and that the control of the unemployment factor is an essential next step in the prevention of dependency. The cases tabu- lated here are a fair sample of the entire number of 115,000 persons aided annually by cities and towns. They are the cases of persons living in all sections of the Commonwealth for the expense of which the Division of Aid and Relief of this department reimburses the cities and to\\Tis. Division of Aid and Relief — Temporary Aid and Causes of Aid. Total Number Number caused by Other Year of Cases Unemployment Causes 1921 6,536 3.527 3,009 1922 4.485 1.890 2,595 1923 3.018 829 2,189 1924 4,473 2.097 2,376 1925 4.410 1,869 2,541 1926 3.925 1,492 2,i33 1927 4,617 1,981 2.636 Throughout the report the statistical tables which we are now able to prepare give the merest indication of the amount of valuable research which a slightly larger appropriation for this purpose might enable us to use for the discovery of preventive measures and for improving the existing methods of administration. During the year occupational therapy has been established at the State In- firmary. While as yet only one worker has been authorized, she Iras demonstrated with a group of from sixty to seventy-five men in a well equipped shop and with bedside occupations that occupational therapy is of great value in the treatment of the many chronic diseases which are found at this our largest state institution. The Infirmary, a general hospital for twenty-five hundred patients, presents an exceptionally interesting field for the development of occupational therapy. The phj^sicians prescribe the form of work which will be of assistance in the cure of the specific disease either by training the muscles which need training or by improving the mental condition of the patient. At the Infirmary social service for men has been extended during tlie year by the addition of a second woman visitor.