Norman A. Polansky

Child Neglect in a Rural Community

Reid, neglect is the single most important problem for children who are served by private and public agencies, 2 and attempts to study it are like attempts to seize the ineluctable. This article is a report of a pilot study of ten mothers who were interviewed as part of a program of research into the issues of child neglect, The study aim was to achieve some intensive contact with a group of women from the population of interest in order to familiarize both investigator and staff with the concrete realities of the womens lives, to test some possible research instruments, and to add to the store of theory and hypotheses for further testing. The study was conducted in rural Southern Appalachia, a region in which childcaring is culturally accepted as almost entirely a maternal function. The study team had become intrigued with the number of women who, despite conditions of isolation and poverty, did a superb job of child-rearing, while others provoked the concern of the community because of their neglect. In contrast to the sociological approaches currently popular, the central interest of this

Book Review: An Experiment in Mental Patient Rehabilitation: Evaluating a Social Agency ProgramAn Experiment in Mental Patient Rehabilitation: Evaluating a Social Agency Program:MeyerHenry J. and BorgattaEdgar F.114 pp., 1959. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, or Social Casework.

the situa tion in schools of social work around the world will have their interest sharpened in doing whatever can appropriately be done to assist our sister institutions, now struggling in their early stages of development. In the space available here I should like to concentrate on the contribution this book has to make to American social work educators and practitioners. I want to mention, first, two rather new areas discussed in this book from which we may learn from the experience of other countries. The first is discussed in Chapter IV, which deals with community development and social work. Such community development (not community organization in the American sense) is focused upon helping communities to change and develop in ways they themselves desire and with material aid of which they are willing to make effective use. This has been largely a rural development although its basic goals are not different from those found in some of our area projects in urban settings. The description of the goals of these programs and of the delicate skill required to keep them actually democratically controlled can teach us-or perhaps revive in us-a great deal about the essential values in the social work approach. I hope that this chapter will be read by all social workers who deal with communities and their problems. The second new, and to this reviewer very revealing, aspect dealt with is found in Chapter VI on the nonprofessional training of auxiliary workers. One of the unsolved and largely untackled questions of our profession is how it might supplement the fully trained worker. The term used here-not to be confused with voluntary worker-defines an auxiliary worker as one who is trained to carryon less skilled functions under supervision or to relieve trained workers by carrying minor administrative duties. The plans for the training of such auxiliaries, as described in this chapter, have a clarity and determination about them that make me feel it is time we took the matter in hand. It is true that our scarcity is not so great; but any realistic appraisal of the future supply of social workers relative to demand would lead, I believe, to the conclusion that we have held off too long from systematic study of such auxiliary jobs and of the training possible for them. When one discovers that in some countries such auxiliary workers are illiterate, it may make ones hair stand on end. However, such an effect may be one way of opening the mind! One is tempted to go on pointing out spots in this book that should be read by particular audiences. The historical retrospect, for instance, will be a godsend to teachers of courses in the history of social work, the more so because it is international throughout and should prove very readable to students. Social Casework