Operation Help Curbs Child Neglect

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30962, 19 January 1966, Page 2

Operation Help Curbs Child Neglect

[From the "Christian Science Monitor"!

HONOLULU. When family crises arise and police are called to a troubled home in Honolulu, Operation Help goes into action.

State social workers on referral by the police department go to the scene of the disturbance to offer counselling and guidance. Such on-the-spot social assistance has attracted the interest of many other states.

An imaginative project now in its ninth year. Operation Help, seeks to prevent child neglect and juvenile crime.

In Honolulu, the state has the legal authority to move into a family situation “even when they haven’t asked for help and don’t want it,” says Mrs Ping Kyau Minn, Oahu branch chief of the Public Welfare Division. When a child’s welfare is threatened, the police must take the offender from the family. The patrolman then calls Operation Help to take care of neglected or abused children.

Tom Miyashiro, one of the workers, once rescued an 18-month-old baby abandoned by the mother. Another time, he collected five boys under eight whose mother was taken to a mental hospital. No arrangements had been made for the children

Although family disputes and child protection comprise a big part of the programme, it plays another vital role in the community. The social workers co-operate with the police in an intensive effort to curb and prevent juvenile delinquency. Prompt assistance and

counselling services are provided to first-time offenders. In the past, months passed before the cases came to the social workers. They meet with both the youths and

their parents, and in most instances are able to smooth out the troubles.

Public complaints channelled through the police also are dealt with frequently. Most of them are unfounded, but all are investigated. In many cases, neighbours do not approve of the way others in their housing area live. “But we don’t try to superimpose a different set of standards on a family if a child is well adjusted and cared for,” Mrs Minn says. A surprising value of Operation Help is that it has identified many troubled families previously unknown to any social agency. For example, five children, two handicapped, were left alone in a house when it caught fire from a lighted candle. It was discovered that the family’s electricity had been cut off for a week because of nonpayment of bills.

“We have welcomed this programme with open arms,” said Captain Kenneth Cundiff, in charge of the Honolulu Juvenile Crime Prevention Division. He said it had taken away much of routine work formerly done by police officers. It also had reduced the number of child-neglect cases in the courts.