ABSTRACT
Cross-national studies that investigate personal social services for certain groups are quite numerous. Not surprisingly, most of them are concerned with children and the aged, everywhere the two most vulnerable groups in the population. In relation to the field of social welfare, the fundamental importance of assisting in the improvement, extension, and establishment of comprehensive national systems of social services and related programs to strengthen the family, improve levels of living, and provide children with needed care and protection is stressed. Welfare services should include the adaptation of the family to changing social conditions and social demands; hence, measures for strengthening family life should be emphasized with attention directed to preventing emotional as well as physical deprivation. A report about youth advisory services — youth information centers, drop-in centers, hotlines, drug information and counseling centers — in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, and Czechoslovakia was published by Shore in 1976.
