Note 860 — Chapter VII

Here, it need hardly be said, lies the sphere for the "Guilds of Help" and "Councils of Social Welfare" which are springing up in so many towns of Great Britain, and which the proposals of the Majority Report would destroy. The "human element," so essential to all effective preventive action, can, in our judgment, be raised to a higher effectiveness, not only by its intimate association with the different departments of the public authority responsible for actually preventing the occurrence of destitution in the city, but also, at any rate in the large towns, by an improved voluntary organisation in each locality on a federal basis. Such an organisation might usefully include, in a federal union for mutual assistance, any local Health Societies, Children's Care or Apprenticeship Associations; Fresh Air Funds or Country Holiday Societies; the local charitable almshouses, hospitals, infirmaries, or convalescent homes; such orphanages, industrial schools, and such institutions for the physically or mentally defective as are available; the charitable agencies connected with the various Churches; any systematic visitors or workers among the poor; and, in fact, all the benevolent agencies in the locality concerned with those in need or in distress. A voluntary federal organisation, such as is here suggested, has already proved to be of great use, in one city after another, in (a) enlisting and allocating to specific services new recruits for personal work; (b) helping to organise, for each branch of the work of the Town or County Council its own necessary fringe of volunteer workers; (c) placing in touch with these workers and with the public officials and committees all the available voluntary institutions dealing with particular kinds of cases; (d) making representations to the Town or County Council on any point in the public service in which improvements can be effected; and (e) initiating the provision of whatever additional institutional accommodation is found to be required.