D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, and Mark E. Courtney examine the transition to adulthood for youth involved in social service and justice systems during childhood and adolescence. They survey the challenges faced by youth in the mental health system, the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, the criminal justice system, and special…

The number of children with autism served in early intervention or the public school system appears to be growing at an alarming rate. This article provides a basis for understanding this dramatic increase. In addition, the authors present a brief overview of the characteristics of autism, research on early behavioral indicators of infants and…

The People Mobile is a specially outfitted 24 foot motor home equipped with a meeting room, a telephone, and a wealth of useful information; this machine and its staff travel the back roads of Chenango County, New York supplying rural residents with various social services. (JC)

This document presents witness testimonies and prepared statements from the Senate hearing called to consider the reauthorization of ACTION programs. Opening remarks by Senators Orrin G. Hatch and Paula Hawkins discuss ACTION, a federal agency whose purpose is to advocate, promote, and support the voluntary efforts of citizens in solving the…

Weakness in evaluations often can be traced to structural limitations in the positions of evaluation researchers. Conventional human relations techniques often are an insufficient basis for securing strong support for evaluation research. Strategies for increasing evaluation research leverage are reviewed. Alignment of evaluation research with…

This keynote address speaks to problems faced by the elderly, particularly in the areas of finances and social services. The public concerns over the viability of the social security system are briefly examined and confronted. The speaker, U.S. Commissioner on Aging, stresses the need for his peers to become acquainted with, and use, the many…

This Act amends the Older Americans Act of 1965 to establish certain social services programs for Older Americans and to extend the authorization of appropriations contained in such Act, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of age, and for other purposes. The law is dated November 28, 1975. (Author)

The New York State experimental prekindergarten programs are interdisciplinary endeavors whose purpose is to improve the educational opportunities of disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-olds. Because the pupil services they offer are of central importance to these programs, the social worker is an integral member of the prekindergarten staff and has many…

This report is a summary of an 8-week pilot study of the current uses of unobtrusive measures in the various fields of social services. Unobtrusive measures are simply clues, traces, signs, patterns, or records that allow the indirect or inferential evaluation of phenomena. The survey suggests that unobtrusive measures have long been widely used…

A path analysis of data from 30 human service organizations supports the specification of technological routinization in a dependent relationship with the structural variables of participation in decision-making, hierarchy of authority, division of labor, and procedural specifications. (Author/IRT)

Project INISS investigated the information needs of social services staff in the United Kingdom. This paper describes the origins of the project, the methodology employed in the first phase, some findings, and implications for information services in social services. (Author/KP)

Contends that the primary focus of social welfare management should be to optimize effective services to clients. Addresses several dimensions of effectiveness-oriented management practice as well as some of the common problems encountered by administrators who seek to make client outcomes the primary criterion of agency success. (Author)

Older rural Americans remain underserved because most social services are established in urban areas. Even with recent efforts to assess the conditions of the nation's rural elderly, there have been oversights that affect the development of policies intended to provide needed services. These problems and suggestions for constructive changes in…

Examines the redistributional effect of social security (OASI) by tracing payments and benefits over a person's lifetime. Concludes that OASI benefits, which traditionally exceeded the amount contributed for all income categories, will fail to do the same for future generations. (Author/JDH)