NCJ Number
148909
Journal
Social Work Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: (1960) Pages: 27-36
Date Published
1960
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the work of a street-corner social work program, the Special Youth Program of the Greater Boston Council for Youth, established in a low-income area of Boston in 1954, with emphasis on its work with two groups of adolescent females.
Abstract
One of the groups consisted of eight females ages 12-14, with histories of serious behavior problems, who were not accepted by the street-corner crowd. The second group was a larger, fluctuating group of about 75 females ages 14-17. Each of the street-corner social workers was assigned to a specific group or hangout and handled its casework services through established casework agencies in the community. The social worker's roles were to establish identity as a social worker and to meet with groups and individuals. The experience with the program indicated the need for new outreach methods with adolescent females, recognition of the different psychosocial dynamics of males and females, the use of a concentrated generic social work approach to the problem, and flexibility on the part of the social worker. Case examples