How To Get And Keep Visitors

 By Zilpha D. Smith

General Secretary, Associated Charities of Boston

Editor’s Note: This is the third entry about Friendly Visitors, an important component of the Charity Organization Movement.  This entry is a presentation delivered by Ms. Smith at the 1887 annual meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. As noted in her biography, Ms. Smith, as a very young woman, had the opportunity to reorganize the index of the Probate Court of Suffolk County, an experience which allowed her to further develop her organizing abilities as well as the capacity to analyze a problem with methodical skill. These traits contributed significantly to her successful career.

I have gathered together in this paper the points which seem to me most important or successful in the relations of our different district conferences in Boston to their visitors; and, if I dwell on little things, it is because I have seen friendly visiting fully successful only where a committee has been patient with details and has recognized their bearing upon the broad lines of our work.

The means used to get visitors may be divided into mechanical and personal. The mechanical means are:- putting brief, pointed appeals in the newspapers, placing placards in the rooms of Christian associations and divinity schools, reading short notices in churches and public meeting anand printing annual reports. A notice read in church will attract more attention if the minister adds a word of his own. A newspaper item asking for a visitor who can speak a certain foreign language almost always brings one or two volunteers; and what better tie between strangers in our land and the friend they find here than a knowledge of their native tongue?

While much may be accomplished by mechanical means, all our conferences agree that personal work is still more effective. Most of our new workers are secured by those already interested. Sometimes it is a help to take to a possible visitor written sketches of a few families, which emphasize their good points as well as their bad ones and tell what a visitor might do.

They who refer families to us can in some cases be secured as visitors; and, as this continues an interest already aroused, it is a natural and helpful arrangement.

Those who are invited to attend the meetings, or asked to help in the clerical work, may in the end become visitors. Either plan brings them under the influence of the Conference, and allows the work they hear about to make its own persuasive impression.

All these methods are worth trying,- the mechanical ones at judicious intervals, the personal in different directions at every opportunity.

Who shall do this personal work? I think the Committee must bear the responsibility of enlisting visitors and keeping them interested. A wise Committee becomes familiar with the condition of the families visited, shows a constant interest in the visitor’s work, gives information and suggestions, urges the visitor to use his ingenuity, and encourages him to keep on, neither deserting his family when discouraged nor deeming himself of no use when they are prosperous. When a Committee does all this, visitors are glad to bring from time to time fresh recruits to a service they have found helpful and inspiring.

Let the Committee, on the other hand, act chiefly as an adviser of its paid agent, and decide what shall be done in the crises which poverty brings, without any long looks ahead to see what preventive measures may be initiated now, or be led away by general schemes to the neglect of individual work, expecting that each visitor will go on for himself after a family has been assigned to him, and the number of visitors will steadily diminish.

One who holds only the position of a visitor can help to convert a committee which fails on the friendly side of the work, if patient, good-tempered, and in earnest in the desire to strengthen the work of the Conference. Written reports which include direct questions as to the problems in hand and which require an answer make the Committee think about the visitor’s work. They become interested in the constantly changing problem of the family, and the experience gained in one case enables them to offer suggestions to other visitors.

Visitors, however, rarely try to improve a committee’s plan or have patience to continue to submit questions, if, in return, they receive no helpful suggestions. So it is to members of committees that we naturally look for a change in methods. One member can accomplish much by patient effort,- by bringing up problems about his own families, by keeping watch of other visitors, and bringing before the Committee questions which these visitors have not asked, because they were too shy or too ignorant of the relations of their work. And, when the right time comes, he will find it easy to introduce a system which shall make sure that no visitor or family is neglected. An earnest member of the Committee who is willing to sow seed through one year is pretty sure to reap a harvest of more visitors and better work the next.

Given a committee very much in earnest, whom do they want for visitors? At first, those who would pretty surely work well together; after that, persons of as varied training and interests as possible,men and women both. Don’t shut the door against the men by calling yourselves “women visitors.” If young women offer, don’t refuse them, but set them to work. At least, let them help at the office, and be sent on special errands to the better sort of dwellings, to the hospitals, etc., till the Committee can judge whether they have the character and courage to fit them for visiting; for it is character, and not age, which decides the question. It is a pity to lose the power of youth. It is only to the young girl that the sad old woman says: “You bring sunshine into my life. You make me think of what I used to be.”

Having got the first visitors, how shall we keep them? Visitors feel the attitude of the Conference and Committee toward them, and are attracted or repelled by it. I have seen visitors’ meetings where the Committee only, and not the visitors, had votes; others where the visitors never saw the directors of the district, although bound by their decisions. I did not wonder that the number of visitors was small.

The true idea, as it seems to me, is that all form one company of workers, who meet to be of service to each other, the Committee being those fitted by experience, leisure, or administrative ability to render the greatest help to other visitors. Their power of leadership will grow out of their helpfulness, and does not inhere in their position.* (*Occasional joint Conferences of District Committees broaden their views. The history of a typical case, with pauses for discussion where a decision was needed, has proved a helpful basis for such meetings.)

It creates sympathy if the members of the Committee are themselves visitors. There are some wise exceptions to this rule; but no amount of desultory work-taking up cases in emergencies, etc.can fit one as well for committee work as continued visiting to one or two families, learning to know them thoroughly and standing by them to the end. If one can add the emergency work, it is better, but by no means omit the continuous visiting.

The visitor should be helped to feel his double responsibility, toward the poor family because it needs his thought and interest, and toward the Conference because he is acting in its behalf.

Another point in keeping visitors is to prevent their getting into difficulties. One of the most dangerous, because it is so subtle, is the giving of relief. The visitor is likely, if he gives aid himself, to be satisfied with that, and lose sight of the real aim of his work. The poor family catches its cue from him,- looks upon him merely as an alms-giver; and very soon he gives up in disgust, and leaves the work, with an opinion of the poor which they do not deserve; he drew out the lower qualities in them. Do not let the visitor give from his own pocket to his own family, but get relief, if really necessary and wise, or show him how to get it, and make sure that it is prompt and adequate, and accomplishes something more than temporary relief from suffering. After several years, when a friendship is fully established, help may perhaps come from the visitor as from a personal friend; but, even then, be cautious.

Sometimes, a visitor will ask approval and help in an unwise plan for his family. When he cannot be convinced that some other method is better, and no serious harm to the family is likely to follow, he may well be allowed to try his own way, with the understanding that it is an experiment to be watched. But there is danger in weak concession to a visitor, simply to keep and encourage him. In undertaking co-operative work, he of course agrees to abide by the decision of the majority; and he will respect the work more, if we are true to our convictions. Indeed, a visitor often realizes that his own nearness to the family sometimes warps his judgment.

The visitor hopes to form a permanent relation; but if, at first, there is some obvious charity work to be done, such as obtaining relief, attention in sickness, getting work, etc., there is danger of his making no tie with the family which will hold when that emergency is passed. The Committee can prevent this by suggesting some simple ways of discovering their tastes,- as by the gift of a flower, the loan of a book, playing games with the children, reading to the old father, an arrangement for some slight pleasure with the visitor, which will let them see that he really cares for them as persons, and not merely as sick or poor. When there is no emergency at first, the Committee can suggest ways of finding the slight excuse which each of the first five or six visits needs. When one must wait a long time before opportunity comes for some most needed action, suggestions of other sorts of work to be done for the family will keep the visitor from growing impatient or down-hearted. It may seem an odd way to help a visitor, but it sometimes works in such a time of waiting,- to persuade him to take another family, where something may be accomplished more quickly. And, in general, it seems wise to give a new visitor two families. The contrast between them helps to keep him interested in both.

Volunteers sometimes lose patience, because other duties prevent their doing all they wish for their poor friends. The committee can help by finding another visitor to aid in an emergency, by asking a gentleman to help a lady in some one part of the work, or vice versa.  But here, again, be careful not to go too far in relieving the visitor’s responsibility for the family, else he loses his interest, and you lose him.

The meetings of visitors, rightly managed, are a great power of education. In these meetings and in talking or writing to visitors, details should not be allowed to hide the principles on which the work rests. The principles should be discussed and the reasons for them given again and again, as new visitors come to the meetings or as new knowledge invites a change of policy.

If visitors report to the agent during the week, the Committee can consider all the cases beforehand, and bring to the Conference those only which are of chief importance for such a meeting, the visitor, of course, being drawn into the discussion. A general opportunity at the beginning and end of the meeting for any visitor to bring up a special case does away with the necessity of calling on each visitor in turn,- a practice which crowds the business and drives away visitors who will not speak before others.

If, as each case is brought up, no matter how well known to constant attendants, some member of the Committee interrupts to say, “This is a widow, struggling with the care of five children, the youngest a cripple,” etc., the problem will be much clearer to all present, and the discussion, therefore, more likely to bring out suggestions. Otherwise, the visitor gives but a divided attention to stories whose full purport he does not comprehend, and is apt to leave as soon as his own problem has been as vaguely discussed.

The Committee should make the visitor feel that, if he is doing his own work with reasonable thoroughness, even for but one or two families, it means that he knows eight or ten individual lives, and many questions will arise in the Conference where his counsel will be of value. Once make the visitor feel that he is really of use to others, and he is pretty sure to keep coming, if he can.

Let the aim be to make the meetings helpful, and they will be interesting. When the attempt is primarily to make them “interesting,” they are apt to degenerate into “entertaining”; and the earnest workers would rather spend their time in visiting.

But committees will ask, “Cannot our paid agent look after the visitors?” An agent alone cannot do much: he can help a great deal. An agent forms a fixed centre for the work, knows the families, – as he has made the first investigation, —is familiar with the policy of the Committee, and at hand for all emergencies and for consultation with the individual visitor about details. He can persuade those who refer families to become visitors, but otherwise he has little opportunity for securing new workers. Once when I asked an agent about this, she answered, ” No: I never got a visitor for our Committee, but I never lost them one.”

If the agent notices in his first visit the little things, especially the good points which the visitor can use in forming an acquaintance, and tries to get an idea of the family as people, and not merely as “a case,” he will be able, even if he never sees the family again, to talk them over with the visitor in a familiar way, which is not possible to any great extent in the Conference meetings. A prompt investigation outside of the home and careful keeping of records make the agent helpful to the visitors. He can show the volunteer clerks, who come for an hour or two a week, the use of the work they do, and inspire in them an interest in visiting. When they become visitors, he must have patience to teach the clerical work to new volunteers. He can discourage the poor people from coming to his office except in emergencies, going to them himself or sending the visitor; thus he makes his relation to them appear more friendly than official, while his office hours are reserved for consultations with the visitors.* (* In one district in Boston during the last year, a “daily committee” of one member of the executive committee and one visitor has met at the office during the office hours (II to i), helping the agent to decide what shall be done in emergencies, talking with the visitors who call, and considering all matters which have come up since the previous day. The more important are put aside, if possible, and marked to come up at the full committee or conference. The assignments to certain days bring the same persons to the office about once a fortnight. The experiment has so far proved successful, insuring prompt action, calling out new powers in visitors, etc. Next season, other conferences may try it; and it remains to be seen whether it will work as well under their conditions.) He can be careful to represent the Committee faithfully to the visitors, and the visitors to the Committee. He can learn from each visitor something that will help him to make suggestions to others. He can study the visitors, and suggest from time to time one who might be added to the Committee. He can propose new methods of work, and especially he can be patient with the visitors’ shortcomings. The results will repay him; for, although there may be more mistakes at first than if he worked alone, he can reach through the visitors a much larger number of people, and exercise a more constant influence over them, and there will be more successes in the end.

In the larger societies there is another paid worker,–the General Secretary,- who can also help on this work of friendly visiting. He has a view of the whole field, and can learn things from one district which will help another.

The General Secretary gets the drift of the work of a Conference from reading the reports of cases as they are sent to the central office; but we all know it is dangerous to judge by that alone. Good work is sometimes poorly reported. I should advise taking one district at a time, and attending all the meetings for a month or more, to learn just what is being done. This is much more fruitful than attending as many meetings at intervals. If he thinks the Conference needs improvement, let him help it along a little, and then watch it without trying to do the work himself. Discriminating praise and suggestions will help far more than criticism which provides no remedy. If he sees a committee content with routine work, he can look for some one among the visitors who always wants to know the why and wherefore, and, when the right time comes, suggest his election on the Committee, in the hope of stirring them to more thought in their work. Whatever the need and however near at hand the remedy may be, he must bide his time, often making his suggestions through others and waiting for the seed to take root. Forcing the matter would only make it worse.

A general secretary, like members of committees, will do better work if he is a volunteer visitor himself. I can testify that it gives a fresh interest to all one’s work. A family that can be visited on the way home does not take too much time, and one need not undertake another till the friendly relation is firmly established and less time is required.

After all, is it worth this trouble to get and keep visitors? I believe it is. Without this personal service, this man to man work, the most generous relief is inadequate, investigation fails to be truly helpful, and co-operation wants the connecting link that shall bring good results out of good intentions. Especially all these things,relief, investigation, co-operation,- excellent as they are, lack the power and even the opportunity of influencing character.

Note:  A profile of Zilpha Drew Smith can be found under the PEOPLE tab at www.socialwelfarehistory.org

Source: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Social Welfare History Archives. Minneapolis, MN: https://www.lib.umn.edu/swha

University of Michigan: http://www.hti.umich.edu/n/ncosw/

How to Cite this Article (APA Format): Smith, Z.D. (1887). How to get and keep visitors. Presentation at the National Conference of Charities and Correction. Retrieved [date accessed] from /?p=9171.