Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare. Massachusetts
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' ^ N6. 17 alic Document =^=feF=^ h of jWai^atftugetts ^ tcfie Commontoealft ANNUAL REPORT OF THE :^,., DEPARTMENT Public Welfare FOR THE 1925 Year ending November 30, AND F«ANCB ON ADMINISTRATION AP^OVED B. TH.^ COMMISSIONroMMlSSlOK O, THIS DoCMEKT :^ p^UCATXON Order 4830 ^X { 2M 4-'26 ERRATA Annual Report, Private Charitable Corporations, 1925 Page 60. In the last paragraph the figure given for total property is incorrect. It should be $178,856,405.48. Page 110. The total of column one, Total Property Reported, is incorrect. It should be $178,856,405.48. Jt^ >r^{, » Department of Public Welfare. To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives: The Sixth Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare, covering the year from December 1, 1924. to November 30, 1925, is herewith respectful!}- pre- sented. RICHARD K. CONAXT, Commissioner of Public Welfare. 37 State House, Boston. FRESEXT MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY BOARD OF THE DEPART- MENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE. Date of Original Appointment Name Residence Term expires December 1, 1919 Abraham C. Ratshesky Boston . December 1, 1928 December 1, 1919 Jeffrey R. Brackett Boston . December 1, 1928 December 1, 1919 George Crompton Worcester December 1, 1927 December 1, 1919 George H. McCiean . Springfield December 1, 1927 December 1, 1919 Mrs. Ada Eliot Sheffield Cambridge December 1, 1926 December 1, 1919 Mrs. Mary P. H. Sherburne Brookline December 1, 1926 DIVISIONS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE. Division of aid and Relief Frank W. Goodhue, Director Miss Flora E. Burton, Super^'isor of Social Service Mrs. Elizabeth F. Moloney, Supervisor of Mothers' Aid Edward F, Morgan, Supervisor of Settlements Division of Child Guardianship *James E. Fee, Director **^Iiss Winifred A. Keneran, Assistant Director J. Arthur Colburn, Assistant Director Division of Jl^v^enile Training Charles ^I. Davenport, Director Robert J. Watson, Executive Secretary Miss Almeda F. Cree, Superintendent, Girls' Parole Branch John J. Smith, Superintendent, Boys' Parole Brancti Subdivision of Private Incorporated Charities Miss Caroline J. Cook, Supervisor of Incorporated Charities Miss Florence G. Dickson, Superv'isor of Incorporated Charities Miss Alice M. Mclntire, Supervisor of Incorporated Charities Subdivision of Housing and Town Planning Edward T. Hartman, Visitor to City and Town Planning Boards Miss Miriam I. Ross, Secretarj^ INSTITUTIONS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF "THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE. State Infirmary, Tewksbury. John H. Nichols, M.D., Superintendent. Massachusetts Hospital School, Canton. John E. Fish, AI.D., Superintendent. LjTnan School for Boys. Westborough. Charles A. Keeler, Superintendent. Industrial School for Boys, Shirley. George P. Campbell, Superintendent. State Industrial School for Girls, Lancaster. Miss Catharine M. Campbell, Superintendent. * Deceased May 1, 1926. ** Appointed Director August 1, 1926. — 2 P.D. 17 Part I. Report of the Commissioner of Public Welfare. In the report for 1923 we emphasized the unselfish and devoted service which is given by the Department Visitors. Their work, however, could not be as successful as it is without the service to the pubHc welfare which is given by private individu- als. It is of the work of these individuals that we wish here to make note. In the Division of Aid and Relief where some 50,000 persons are given aid each year, the visitor's success is dependent upon his ability to make the recipient of the aid able to help himself. The one who is helped owes the duty to use the assist- ance wisely and to use it in a way which will help him to help himself. This is a| most important principle in the administration of Mothers' Aid and the other forms of aid given through this Division. We have a certain number of families who fail to appreciate their own obligation to serve the public welfare. They look upon the particular form of aid which they are receiving as a fine chance to get something for nothing or as their due from society. They are not the individuals whose private service is of assistance. As far as we can learn of such an attitude and can change it or stop the aid, we do so. The individuals who do give assist- ance, even though they are at the same time receiving aid, are those families and they outnumber the others — who strive to make the most of every cent received and who understand that the aid imposes upon them an obligation to use it to help themselves to reach a standard where further aid will be unnecessary. They pull themselves up by means of it. It does not pauperize them. It is their due because they do something constructive for themselves with it. Sometimes when a family is receiving aid, the relatives fail to appreciate their owTi obligation to serve the public welfare. They regard relief laws and state assistance as designed especially to relieve them of the burden of caring for their relatives. They have been entirely untouched by the gospel of service. They are willing only to be served. The relatives who are of assistance to the public welfare — and there are many thousands of them —are those who make as much effort as they can to keep their relatives from needing the assistance of the public. They are the normal families of the state. The great increase which has been made in public welfare work offers them no inducement to fail in their owti duty. Public assistance today is more adequate than it ever has been. When public authorities give in a way to remove the burden from relatives and friends, they give badly. When public authorities give in a way to stimulate the help of relatives and friends, they give wisely. In the Division of Child Guardianship where 5,000 children are "placed in foster homes " we are too apt to forget just what that means. We have come to use the expression almost as casuall}'' as "placed in an institution." We had better stop each time we say "placed" and say "found foster mothers and given homes," and when that becomes a mechanical phrase as we apply it to hundreds of cases, we had better change it to "supplied with a new chance for life through the generosity of women who were found willing to take them into their own families," and so on, always trying to state the real situation which usually is that the individual foster mother is gi\'ing a service more important than any other piece of social service involved in the proceeding. Some exceptions exist, of course, such as instances where the foster mother takes a child just to get a worker. When such a situation is prevented or corrected, it emphasizes the usual rule,—that the good woman who has taken the child does it from the instinct of motherly service and although not rich in money she is an important public benefactor, giving something better than money, giving herself to the public welfare. In the Division of Juvenile Training, in the three State Training Schools—Lyman School for Boys, Westborough; Industrial School for Boys, Shirley; Industrial School for Girls, Lancaster—there are a thousand children who have been commit- ted b}^ the courts as serious juvenile offenders. Three thousand more children are placed on parole from these Schools either in their own homes or in foster homes under the superv^ision of parole visitors. Each child has a court record and a possibly serious character weakness. The individual children must be appealed to very strongly in the Training Schools in order to make them reaUze their own . : : — Pt. I. 3 share in this process of being helped. More than half of them are made to realize it and they are the ones who contribute their share to the public welfare by living honest and useful lives on parole and thereafter. The parents usually cooperate for when they go to the Training Schools on visiting days they caimot fail to see that their children are well cared for and happy. The burden of these parents has always been heavy, whether due to their own limitations or to the character of the children, and they have a contribution of service to the public welfare to make when the children return to them. The relatives and friends share this burden when they help to employ the children or to surround them with improving influ- ences. Those employers who make some sacrifice to attend to the special needs of the delinquent boys or girls, to see that they are helped to help themselves, stand out as public benefactors in contrast to those who seek to employ state wards merely for their own gain. At the State Infirmary at Tewksbury over five thousand persons a year receive the free service of a good general hospital. Those patients who do their part for the public welfare are of service in the work of the institution, helping, according to their physical ability, at various tasks—farm work, making their own beds, making brooms, shoes, mattresses, and a variety of things for institution use, or helping their own cure by small work like knitting, sewing and handicrafts. For the most part they have contented and helpful stays at the Infirmary. In contrast are those loafers who drift to the Infirmarj'' in the winter rather than take a disagree- able job. Those persons are prejdng upon the public welfare and we strive to keep them from doing so. At the Massachusetts Hospital School at Canton, 290 crippled children are taught to help themselves. These children have too often been so coddled or made to feel so sensitive about their handicaps that they have to be taught to become self-reliant. As a result of the wise training and their association with companions who have similar handicaps they change into happy and helpful wT>rkers.