LOS ANGELES WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 119, 16 November 1937, Page 14

LOS ANGELES WORK

FINE SOCIAL SERVICE

Miss Doris R. Worrell, supervisor of attendance with the Los Angeles Board of Education at Los Angeles, California, sailed by the Maunganui on Saturday for Australia en route for a world trip after a two weeks' stay in New Zealand. Miss Worrell is a graduate nf the School of Social Work of the University of Southern California, and has done various types of social work. She was associated with the Travellers' Aid Society of Lps Angeles for nearly two years, leaving that position to become' a home supervisor in El Retifo, the Lps Angeles County School for delinquent girls of a superior type where propjr home environment and training is given to prepare girls to become useful citizens. The. duties of the supervisor of attendance entail in part the enforcement of the compulsory education law which in California is 8 to 18, supervising the employment of minors and places of employment of all young people under eighteen years of age, the granting of work- and permits, and enforcement of the part-time ■ school law. The members of the department are trained social workers, and work on the theory that some social or physical cause is behind continued school absence and other forms of delinquency. Investiga-. tions.are made and some form of treatment and help to the child and family is recommended to bring about adjustment: ■■ • . The Travellers' Aid Society in Los Angeles does a splendid piece of work. Arranged as a separate organisation, the work is divided into station work and case work. The station workers meet, incoming buses and trains, make contact with those needing information, and make appointments, etc. No person is "sent from one place to another by the Travellers' Aid Society unless an investigation is made as to the cause of the movement and whether or not the person will be met and properly received and cared for at the other end. Other cases of maladjustment in homes come to light through runaways of both old and young, for old people are sometimes unhappy where they are and decide to run away. The case workers make the home contacts and attempt, to rehabilitate family groups sociallyand aid them in making proper social-contacts. - This places the-work above ti^at of relief work. Where financial aid is, necessary, the client is referred to the organised relief agencies. Los Angeles has problems peculiarly cosmopolitan as many foreign immigrants pass through and it is the endeavour-, of the association to see that they are not exploited. This may mean a period of follow-up for several months or only of a few days. Often "movie-struck" girls appear, and have to be returned-to their homes, or other employment found for them.