Voluntary Social Services: Their Place in the Modernn Mate
to. A. r. c. uourauion. Metnuen. rrice Recent State legislation for the welfare of the individual and the family unit has brought into sharp relief the longrecognized necessity for considering the relationship between statutory and voluntary agencies in the field of social work. To those readers who look for a clear defining or philosophical discussion of the principles on which future co-operation might be based, this book will Prove a disappointment. It may well be felt that the Nuffield College -Social Reconstruction Survey Committee, who undertook the research for this ” volume of essays “, have failed to focus constructive thinking in this matter at a time when canalization of opinions would have considerable value.
The book contains an immense amount of information, ?f which a large part is historical, and it is impossible ln a short review to pay adequate tribute to the contribution made by the authors of the various chapters to the study of the development and organization of yoluntary social services. The reader would gain the impression, without prior knowledge of the preface, that ‘its chapters are for the most part condensations of larger studies Perhaps there was too much material to be handled with ease and although serious students will welcome the wealth of detail, a certain degree of mental indigestion is likely to be experienced by the casual reader.
Criticism of the arrangement of the book might well be disarmed by the frank admission in Miss Bourdillon’s introductory chapter that ” The variety of presentation may well be a cause of complaint She justifies her method of selection by stating that as the ” most striking feature of the voluntary social services is irreducible variety, an attempt has been made to give a suggestion of this diversity by a corresponding variety in presentation Some readers may feel that even this excellent reason is not sufficiently convincing to overcome the difficulty of making a series of mental leaps from section to section, as, for example, when Miss Bourdillon states that ” In Part III the subject is tackled from a different angle, and the unit in each chapter is geographical rather than functional A chapter on ” Developments in Case-work ” is sandwiched between “Services for the Welfare of the Deaf” and ” Mutual Aid Movements and it seems unnecessary to make such demands on the reader’s power of rapid adjustment.
The editor has approached the problem of describing the social services from two angles: a careful selection such as services for the welfare of children, the deaf and the blind has been made, on the one hand, to show developmental trends and variety of organization and, on the other, certain main principles such as mutual aid and co-ordination have been singled out and services chosen by way of illustration.
The reader may not be clear always about the criteria of choice with such omissions as services for mental and moral welfare, nursery schools and hospitals, and may feel that the emphasis is sometimes on the less wide and challenging problems as, for example, in the section on the welfare of chfldren where some vital issues are ignored. But the task of selection must have been one of great difficulty and the editor states that ” The book will have gained one of its chief objects if it succeeds in demonstrating the need for further study As the Nuffield Survey Committee must have a large amount of material as yet unpublished, perhaps it is justifiable to hope that further studies, especially of selected industrial I areas, may be made available.
The book is an important work for every student of the Social Services, but the selection and arrangement of material is disappointing. M.I.
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