The social case-work agency is faced, then, with several quite
different and quite difficult problems in equipment. There is first
the question of overcoming the language difficulty. The use of the
foreign-speaking trained visitor would probably be regarded as the
best way of doing this. The supply is so inadequate that the choice
has been generally between a person speaking the language and a person
knowing something of methods of case work. And unless the visitor is a
fairly competent case worker she would probably better be used as an
interpreter and not be given responsibility or allowed to make
decisions.
The use of an interpreter gives rise to many difficulties.[73] Because
these difficulties are so universal and so important to the full use
of the opportunities lying before the case-work agency, an attempt was
made to obtain information as to the practice and as to the desires of
a number of case workers. Case-work agencies, the district
superintendents and visiting housekeepers in the United Charities, the
Jewish Aid, the Juvenile Court in Chicago, relief societies in other
cities, and the Red Cross chapters throughout the country, were
consulted.
Six of the ten districts of the United Charities had foreign-speaking
visitors. There were 14 in all--3 Italian, 8 Polish, 2 Bohemian, and 1
Hungarian. Nine of these speak other languages besides their own. All
the Jewish Aid Society visitors speak Yiddish. The Funds to Parents'
Department of the Juvenile Court has no foreign-born workers, but the
Probation Department has 3--Polish, Italian, and Bohemian.
The five Red Cross chapters answering the questionnaire--New York,
Brooklyn, Rochester, Buffalo, and Philadelphia--all employ
foreign-speaking visitors--11 Italian, 8 Polish, 8 Yiddish, and 2
Russian.
Sixty-one of the members of the American Association for Family
Welfare Work replied to questions about their methods of work and the
devices they had found successful. Twenty-eight of these were not
doing work with foreign born or were not doing work along the line
indicated. The other 33 described their work and their difficulties,
and made suggestions.
Twenty-two of the thirty-three agencies did not make use of the
foreign-language visitor, although Fall River in the case of the
French, and Topeka in the case of the Mexicans, overcame the language
barrier by the fact that their secretaries spoke the language of their
largest foreign-born group. Three others did not have foreign-born
visitors on their staff, but reported that they had foreign-born
volunteers. It is interesting to note that among the 22 cities without
foreign-language visitors there are 9 cities with over 100,000
inhabitants, and all but 2 of them have large immigrant populations.
The other 13 cities on the list are all places of less than 100,000
inhabitants, and it is probable that the case-work agencies in most of
them do not have more than one worker.
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