Series 5: Brooklyn welfare and health councils, 1944-1957, bulk

These files include general information and correspondence regarding the overall coordination of local neighborhood councils by BCSP, as well as chronicling the debate about the administrative hierarchy of the various welfare and health councils in New York City and in Brooklyn. Also included here are publications from other cities on the concept of neighborhood councils, and reports and statistics on Brooklyn and its welfare and health needs, including "Brooklyn Neighborhoods," by Herbert J. Ballon, containing detailed neighborhood-by-neighborhood assessments [no date, probably mid-1940s], and "Composition and Resources of Brooklyn," by Amy E. Krueger [1931], giving a summary of Brooklyn's "resources and of its composition that may be helpful to social workers."

The Brownsville-Canarsie-East New York Coordinating Board was an administrative body formed to oversee the activities of the local health councils in these areas. Initially a unified body, it was later decentralized to allow greater autonomy in each separate neighborhood. The files in this subseries include correspondence regarding meetings of the Board, minutes, summaries of activities of the councils in Brownsville, Canarsie and East New York, and lists of members.

BCSP did many neighborhood studies to assess health and welfare needs in varying parts of Brooklyn. To address these needs, BCSP acted as an advisor and a force in the creation of several neighborhood health and welfare councils in Brooklyn, including the Brownsville Health and Welfare Council, Canarsie Health Council, East New York Health Council, and the Fort Greene-Farragut Coordinating Committee (The files for Fort Greene were left in subseries 3.3, Programs: Group Work and Recreation, where they were found). BCSP also served as a consultant to Bedford-Stuyvesant Neighborhood Council, and the Eastern Parkway-Crown Heights Intergroup Council. These neighborhood councils were instrumental in setting up local day care centers, recreation centers, senior centers, and nursery schools. These files, which contain correspondence, reports, committee records, minutes, bylaws, surveys, pamphlets, and related material, document BCSP's participation in bringing health and welfare services to communities on a neighborhood level. Services in more than thirty Brooklyn neighborhoods are covered.

Files for the councils directly affiliated with BCSP (Brownsville, Canarsie, East New York) are substantial, and include documentation on efforts to establish programs such as blood banks; classes on diabetes, nutrition, obesity, home nursing, and other topics; protection and establishment of neighborhood services including fire protection, sewers, and clean-ups; and local health and mental health clinics. The group on Bedford-Stuyvesant documents the Bedford-Stuyvesant Area Project on Juvenile Delinquency, the work of the Citizens Committee for a Municipal Hospital, the Maria Lawton Center for Older People, and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Community Center.