Children’s Home Society of Florida, Home Investigation Report Form, 1910s

No child should be placed in a home which has not first been visited by a trained worker. The fact that an applicant stands high in the community, and that there is no question as to his motives in taking a child, does not relieve an institution or society from the responsibility of seeing the home. How the best intentioned people may subject children to serious dangers through sheer ignorance of the ways of the world, and how a preliminary visit to the home may remove risks, is illustrated by an instance which recently came to the writer’s notice.

A young colored girl had been placed as a nurse maid with an eminently respectable family. The preliminary investigation had been omitted because of the unquestioned character and standing of the man and his wife, who were prosperous, conscientious and sympathetic college-bred people. When the visitor called at the home some months later, she found that the girl had been given a room in a part of the house entirely separated from that occupied by the family, and that the only other person who slept in this wing was a young white man who worked on the place. The possible danger of such an arrangement had not occurred to the family, who immediately remedied the situation when it was pointed out to them.

Most of the regular child-placing agencies have a printed form upon which the visitors report the results of their investigations of foster forms. Form 22 is used by the Florida Children’s Home Society. It is similar in most respects to those in general use among child-placing societies. . . .

Many organizations, as a matter of courtesy, write to applicants whose homes have been investigated, telling them whether or not a child is available to them. Form letters are often used for this purpose.

* * *

Children's Home Society of Florida

Report on Home personally investigated ............... Date ...............


Home of ............... Residence ................ Phone ...............

 

THE FAMILY

1. How does it stand as to honesty, morality, and trustworthiness?

2. How does it grade in education? ............... In Intelligence? ...............

3. Are they kind hearted and sympathetic?

4. Do they seem generous and liberal in spirit?

5. Does any member of the family use intoxicants?

6. Did you learn of any bad personal faults or habits?

7. Are they frugal and industrious?

8. What is their income? ............... Its source? ...............

9. Habits of church going ............... Are they active in church work? ...............

10. Did you interview husband? ............... Temperament ...............

11. Did you interview wife? ............... Temperament ...............

12. Husband’s purpose in taking child?

13. Wife’s purpose in taking child?

14. Are there children in the Home? ............... How many? ............... Ages? ...............

 

THE HOME

1. Describe their property ............... Approximate value ...............

2. Is the home cleanly? ............... Neat? ............... Convenient? ...............

3. Have they books? ............... Papers? ............... Musical instruments? ............... Pictures? ...............

4. What of the furnishings? ............... Cultured? ...............

5. What of the neighborhood?

6. Will they give the child reasonable school, church and social privileges?

7. Describe the children in Home ............... Lodging place? ...............

8. If a Society ward is now in the home, give name

9. Date of placement

10. General remarks

11. What is your recommendation?


Signed

 

 

Source:Georgia G. Ralph, Elements of Record Keeping for Child-Helping Organizations (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1915), 77, 84, 85.

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