A Study of Nine Cases Discharged by the Catholic Home Bureau to the Catholic Guardian Society From January 1947 to January 1950, With Emphasis on Adjustment During After Care
Abstract
Placement of a child away from his own family, if even the remnants of a family remains, is carefully weighed. If after considerable study it is found to be necessary, then the decision as to group placement or foster family care should wait upon the evaluation by the social worker, psychologist and psychiatrist of the particular needs of the individual child. No longer can an agency conscientiously assign a child arbitrarily to institutional or foster family care. It must be determined which foster home or what institution or boarding school will best meet the needs of the child at the time placement is contemplated. Having decided his needs, the treatment begins. It should continue as a joint enterprise of the agency making the placement, the professional staff who recommended it, and the foster parents or personnel who carry it out. To achieve this essential continuity in the care of each individual child implies a correlation and coordination of existing community resources as well as the establishment of facilities not yet available. The child whose situation has provoked social interference is always vulnerable—his personality has been crippled by absent, inadequate or distorted family relationships, his security has been shattered by some domestic tragedy, or he carries a burden of guilt and anxiety which no love and acceptance have mitigated. The child's relationships during placement represent his life-line from whatever social or emotional chaos he came from to his future community adjustment. It is the aim therefore of the Catholic Guardian Society to continue to help and guide the child after he is discharged from placement, in order that he does not have to face too abruptly and alone, a similar situation from which he came.
Subject Area
Individual & family studies|Health care management|Social work
Recommended Citation
Horan, Kathryn Marie, "A Study of Nine Cases Discharged by the Catholic Home Bureau to the Catholic Guardian Society From January 1947 to January 1950, With Emphasis on Adjustment During After Care" (1951). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30509566.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30509566
