The study begins with a look at the sociological foundations underlying the Department of Family Services and the social institutions of law and marriage and the family. In order to present the working operation of the agency there are chapters dealing with custody and visitation and marriage and family counseling. This work is defined, and the methods involved are explained and illustrated. An historical overview of the agency with regard to personal, policy and orientation is presented.

Because of the relative uniqueness of the runaway experience as it now exists, minimal current research information is available. It was our feeling that knowledge about runaways, their families, and the social agencies which serve them is essential if significant prevention and treatment for the problem were to be implemented by the community. The purpose and scope of this exploratory research was essentially two-fold; to contribute descriptive information about runaway youth and their families to the community, and to evaluate the current populations of two agencies which service them. An underlying goal throughout the research was to utilize the data collected to identify trends in runaway behavior, increase the potential for predictability, and provide some real insight into prevention techniques. Our informal hypothesis was that there is a significant difference in specific variables between runaway and non-runaway populations. We were interested in developing a typology of runaways, identifying those factors which increase a child's probability that he/she will run away. Finally, we wanted to know if different agencies tend to serve a particular kind of runaway who has specific characteristics. These constituted the major goals for this research practicum. Since most law enforcement and social service energy is spent at the point of crisis, this research sought to identify trends in the scope of the problem which would aid preventative services for runaways. Hopefully, the impact of this practicum will influence crucial issues in terms of family dynamics, treatment intervention, community resources, and delinquency prevention. The results of this study will be distributed to the participating agencies and other interested segments of the community. Probably more detailed hypothesis testing will be needed; however, this study forms a base of information for future research. Better assessment of meeting the problem by evaluating all existing services should be a continuing focus for the social service community.

This evaluation of the Multnomah County Community Action Agency (MCCAA) Latch Key Child Care Program was undertaken at the request of the Multnomah County Planning and Evaluation Department. Latch Key is one of three day care programs classified as "developmental programs for youth" for which Multnomah County is the fiscal agent. The other two are Littles, a full-day pre-school day care program, and Head Start, an educational and developmental program for pre-school children. Littles and Latch Key comprise what is known as Programs for Children, a comprehensive child care program which serves children of low-income working parents who live in the East County area east of 82nd Avenue, plus the Arleta, Errol Heights and Lents Districts which lie within the Portland city limits. With the exception of Mt. Hood Community College, which operates a small day care program, Programs for Children provides the only publicly-supported child care services in the above area, which was designated as a "poverty" area by the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1970. This report will evaluate the Programs for Children administration and Latch Key centers only.

It has been the practice of the Public Guardian and Conservator (PG and C*) of Multnomah County to collect fees for service to elderly wards on an annual basis usually at the time of the annual accounting. The purpose of this study is to determine the profitability of deferring the assessment and collection of fees until the termination of conservatorship. The assumption is that such a policy would provide an immediate benefit to the ward who would enjoy more spendable income while he is alive and at the same time the Public Guardian and Conservator could still collect his fee, although at a later date. This argument is predicated on the assumption that at the termination of conservatorship, the ward is financially solvent and the estate is able to defray the cost of services. By examining the records of past wards, the study should be able to predict the feasibility of a policy that would assess and collect conservatorship fees at the time of termination.

This study investigates the hydrologic effects of urbanization in two Portland, Oregon streams through a comparison of three hydrologic metrics. Hydrologic metrics used in this study are the mean annual runoff ratio (Qa), mean seasonal runoff ratio (Qw and Qd), and the fraction of time that streamflow exceeds the mean streamflow during the year (TQmean). Additionally, the relative change in streamflow in response to storm events was examined for two watersheds. For this investigation urban development is represented by two urbanization metrics: percent impervious and road density. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate the relationship between the hydrologic metrics and the amount of urban development in each watershed. The effect of watershed size was also investigated using nested watersheds, with watershed size ranging from 6 km2 to 138km 2. The results indicate that annual and seasonal runoff ratios have difficulty capturing the dynamic hydrologic behavior in urban watersheds. TQmean was useful at capturing the flashy behavior of the Upper Fanno watershed, however it did not perform as well in Kelley watershed possibly due to the influence of impermeable soils and steep slopes. Unexpected values for hydrologic metrics in Lower Johnson, Sycamore and Kelley watersheds could be the result water collection systems that appear to route surface water outside of their watersheds as well as permeable soils. Storm event analysis was effective at characterizing the behavior for the selected watersheds, indicating that shorter time scales may best capture the dynamic behavior of urban watersheds.