Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1967-1968 — Page 14

and so forestalling the growth of delinquency and anti-social forces. These services enable young people to develop positively as whole and healthy personalities, to realize their full potential and to invest their abilities in the community of which they have now come to form numerically the major part.

22. The last category of services relate to the execution of orders of the court for detention, probation and guardianship. The courts at all levels are placing more severe burdens on the probation service as they make more and more use of its facilities.

STRUCTURE OF THE DEPARTMENT

23. The Department was divided previously into functional sections each of which was headed by a Principal Social Welfare Officer, normally a professional officer with long experience and often special- ized training in his or her particular field. Each section head was responsible on professional matters to an assistant director who was a professional social worker, and on administrative matters to an assistant director who was a member of the administrative service. As a result of a major reorganization of the Department undertaken in July 1967 the Department was reorganized into a reduced number of divisions, as follows:

(a) Family Services Division (comprising the former Child Welfare,

Women and Girls, Special Welfare and Relief Sections)

(b) Group and Community Work Division

(c) Probation and Corrections Division

(d) Training Unit and

(e) Headquarters Administration

The resulting organization of the Department is shown at Appendix 3. A major object of the reorganization was the establishment of a com- prehensive family service within the Family Services Division. This functions at district level and allows a caseworker in a district office to deal with the overall problems of a client thus obviating the necessity for referral to different offices and caseworkers, and reducing incon- venience to the client.

24. The Family Services Division includes child welfare, public assistance, welfare for the physically and mentally disabled and welfare for women and girls. This Division provides services to families and

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