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This is not the time and place to dwell at length on the phenomenon of the student protest; let me just say that, I, for one, have been deeply impressed by our young students' sincerity of purpose, their commitment to action and their skill in ferreting out the inefficiency of present methods, and in developing not only new strategies but also new and vital allegiances with groups which until then had merely been objects of concern.

Let me remind you that a year ago, at AAMD's Annual Conference in Boston, Whitney Young -11- admonished us that too long had we been interested in methodology and techniques rather than in social impact. He emphasized that the leaders in the movement to eradicate chronic injustice and poverty in this country should be those people who have benefited most from the American System, and ended by quoting the Greek philosopher who said "We shall achieve justice in Athens when those who are not wronged are more indignant than those who are."

Our students are, indeed, indignant about the social neglect and injustice they see in the ghetto and other poverty areas, and are ready to push their protest even at the risk of such sacrifice as arrest and jail.

Leonard Duhl -2- addressing the Boston meeting following Whitney Young's challenging speech, said "The confrontation of the poor and of the Negro -and may I add, of the mentally retarded- in all our institutions has revealed that all bureaucracies, whether in health or education -and may I add, welfare- are inadequate because all too often the people within them are too preoccupied with the preservation of their own institutions and too little concerned with the problems they have to face.

Our young students have shown considerable acumen in identifying these organizational and bureaucratic roadblocks which interfere with appropriate and effective action response to stressful situations.

In the April 1969 issue of the journal Social Work David Weinman and Adrienne James -10- say in an article entitled "The Advocacy Challenge to Schools of Social Work" that there is need to broaden the advocacy will of social work, and that "a critical index of the integrity of the school of social work will increasingly be found in its willingness to engage in a re-examination of the relationship between its teaching and the action imperatives of its field work agencies." In facing this challenge, they say "the school finds its place in the crisis of higher education today in the confrontation between knowledge and social injustice."

The article goes on to explore the stance a school of social work should consider when e.g. students in field work placement are confronted with evidence of gross violation of a person's civil rights, gross injury inflicted on his body or gross neglect of his physical or emotional needs, and makes particular reference to placements in mental institutions.

Our young social work students are not content with merely stating that the new orientation in social work must stress clients' rights as much as clients' needs, they feel the obligation to give active support to, and work hand in hand with Mothers on Welfare and the Welfare Rights Movement, organizations which have caused much stress, puzzlement and fear in older workers and administrators.

And thus I return to the draft statement of the revised Standards for Social Service Departments in Institutions for the Retarded. Again stressing that I previously would doubtlessly have been willing to endorse this draft, with the insights I have gained from our young students I find this document wanting because it obviously is more oriented to the maintenance of our establishments than to protection of the rights of individuals, and because it suggests that the retarded person be helped to learn the roles that will enable him to relate constructively to the formal and informal system within the residential facility, even though Robert Edgarton's -4- study, The Cloak of Competence, Stigma in the Lives of the Mentally Retarded, proves so compellingly how destructive this complaint role playing is to the individual.

I find the document wanting because it suggests that the social service department helps the family to develop trust in the residential facility and helps the family to engage in a counselling relationship which they can explore and communicate troubled feelings and actions in relationship to the retardate and the residential facility, but fails to recognize that there may be no sound basis for developing trust in an institution and that parents may rightfully resent being pushed into a casework-counselling relationship when they try to air grievances and concern about their child's treatment (or lack of it). .

I find the document wanting because it speaks only of needs, not of rights, and because of its lack of recognition of the advocacy role social service must assume on behalf of the retarded person and his family rather than a mere "liaison" role as is suggested. I find the document wanting because it not only fails to recognize the advocacy role of the social worker but fails to take any cognizance of the existence of associations for the mentally retarded which on their part have played a far-reaching advocacy role, granted that this has been done in some localities with less effectiveness than in others.