Chapter 4 - A PREVENTIVE SERVICE IN OPERATION

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the preventive service in operation after passing of the Children and Young Persons Act in 1963 (CYP, 1963). The Children's Departments were authorized to operate a preventive service for families with children, which was a voluntary program, from a legal point of view, wherein no one was required as a matter of law to go to these agencies. As the jurisdictional statutes and regulations did not define what people were within or without the purview of the agency, the selection of clients had to be made at the field level by the workers—the Child Care Officers (CCOs). However, the Children's Departments seemed to have no general policy to counter certain practices like if children were involved, they were usually ultimately forced to pay the bills although they would try to negotiate with the utilities to arrange arrearage payments. As other agencies were not required to deal with the Children's Departments, the departments had to bargain and work out cooperative arrangements to carry out a program of preventive services.