An urgent shortage of professionally trained personnel for social agencies is a chronic problem in North America. To meet this situation the Social Welfare Branch of the Department of Health and Welfare in British Columbia began, in 1943, a programme of in-service training designed to build an efficient staff and at the same time to encourage all workers to attain professional status.
This book is based on the author's fifteen years of experience with this highly successful programme. It provides a practical outline of the methods and content of a programme for teaching non-professional workers within the social organization, and analyses thoroughly the problems and questions which arise. Throughout it reflects an awareness of the ethical nature of the work and services of the social agency and the importance of its ideals.
Although this is a record of a particular experience, it is also a handbook for all other social agencies wishing to alleviate the desperate shortage of professional social workers by training their personnel on the job. The aims, methods, limitations, and actual content for an in-service training programme are given in such a way that they may be adapted, with modification, for application within social welfare organizations in a wide range of settings. The harassed agency executive and social work educator will welcome the combination of directly applicable details and guiding principles which is provided here.
MARTHA MOSCROP taught school for twelve years before her interest in social work encouraged her to earn a Diploma in Social Service Work from the University of British Columbia. After three years of casework with the Vancouver Family Welfare Bureau she became the field director of social services for the British Columbia Security Commission, the organization which effected the move of the Japanese population to the interior of the Province during the war years. Since 1943 she has held the position of Training Supervisor in the Social Welfore Branch, Department of Health and Welfare of the Province of British Columbia. Miss Moscrop has become well known for her active contributions to many welfare organization committees within and without her Province. In addition she was ten years the editor of British Columbia's Welfare, and has had articles published by the Canadian Welfare Council, Canadian Association of Social Workers, Canadian Mental Health Association, Encyclopaedia Canadians, the American Public Welfare Association, and the Council on Social Work Education.
