Education and Social Welfare

Abstract

sour concern with achieving better co-ordination of the efforts of the educational and social welfare agencies of the community is grounded on the premise that these two types of agencies must work closely together if the children and youth of the community are to be well served. This would seem an obvious premise scarcely worth reiterating if it were not for the observable fact that such co-ordination of effort is nearly nonexistent in many of our American communities and approaches the ideal in none of them.Co-ordination of the efforts of educational and social welfare agencies in meeting the needs of children and youth has two aspects. One is the relationship of the educational agencies of a community to the existing social welfare agencies as they collaborate in meeting the problems of individual children or groups of children and youth and work together toward improving the effectiveness of both the educational and social welfare services of the community. The second is the utilization of social-welfare-trained personnel within the schools themselves. This second aspect is commonly referred to as the development of school social work and results from an expanding concept of the purpose and function of the educational agency rather than a new concept of social welfare.