Certain limitations to the present work of the visiting housekeeper
appear in the above discussion. These are, the lack of persons with
combined training in case work, home economics, and knowledge of
immigrant backgrounds, the limited number of families with whom
intensive work can be done, especially if the visiting housekeeper
tries to do all the work with the families she visits, the hardship to
the family in the duplication of visitors if the visiting housekeeper
tries to render only specialized services to a larger number of
families.
Attempts have been made to overcome these limitations while still
retaining the visiting housekeeper. In Cleveland the visiting
housekeepers do all the work with the families assigned to them, as
well as instruct the other visitors in the elementary principles of
home economics and give advice on individual families, as occasion
requires. Their work has been materially lightened by the adoption of
a standardized budget prepared under the direction of a well-known
expert in home economics. The superintendent of the Cleveland
organization expressed himself as well satisfied with the work of the
visiting housekeepers. It should be noted that one of the visiting
housekeepers in that city not only is a skilled case worker with good
training in home economics, but also is of foreign-born parentage and
speaks most of the Slavic languages.
In other cities, however, notably New York and Boston, case-work
agencies have given up the employment of the visiting housekeepers.
In New York there is a Home Economics Bureau and in Boston a Dietetic
Bureau. The organization of the two bureaus differs, but the
underlying principle is the same. Both are organizations of home
economics experts, who give advice to the regular case workers both as
to general principles and as to individual problems. They also make
studies from time to time of problems in national groups. As its name
would indicate, the scope of the New York organization is wider. It
takes up problems of clothing and other phases of household management
as well as of food.
The advantages claimed for this plan are that the home economics
experts can devote their time exclusively to their own field. The
visitors are thus enabled to advise the individual families with more
effect than can the specialized worker. The question as to the best
way of rendering to the family under care this combination of services
is by no means yet decided, and it is evident that further experiment
in the various methods is necessary. They are, in fact, not mutually
exclusive, and perhaps combinations of various kinds of the skill of
the home economics expert, of the skilled social worker, and a
generalized helper, may yet be developed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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