Using Teen-agers To Supplement Casework Service

Abstract

In a variety of settings, current social work practice reflects the effective use of untrained personnel to help agencies implement their services. These untrained workers are frequently full-time employees who have undergraduate de grees.1 Thus, volunteers who are used usually are mature adults with experience and/or training. However, in Champaign, Illinois, a joint agency project, co-sponsored by a teen-age youth council and a school social work department, conducted an experimental program, using teen-agers to supplement casework service.2 Superficially the pro gram was similar to Big Brother programs known in many communities, but in Champaign it was the teen-ager who served as a Pal to a youngster. This program, however, was developed as part of a pro fessional social work service, and the goals and structure were carefully defined using fundamentals of social work practice. The protection of the client and the maintenance of standards are of great importance in all social work agen cies and, in defining the role of the non professional, the conscious differentiation between organizational and professional is crucial. Organ izational controls are those which are de