Chap. 26. An ACT to amend and re-enact section 11 of an act entitled
“An act to continue the board of charities and corrections under the name
of State Board of Public Welfare; to provide for the composition and
maintenance of said board; to prescribe its powers, duties and compensation;
to provide how the officers, assistants and employees of the board may be
appointed and compensated; to authorize the board to create a children’s
bureau; to provide how county and city boards of public welfare must
or may be appointed, with certain exceptions, and to prescribe the powers
and duties of such local boards; to authorize such local boards to appoint
local superintendents of public welfare, and to prescribe the powers, duties
and compensation of such superintendents if and when appointed; also to
repeal sections 1888 to 1902, inclusive, of the Code of Virginia,” approved
February 27, 1922, so as to provide for the payment by the State of certain
allowances to the State Board of Public Welfare for the maintenance of
children in receiving or detention homes operated by the board. [H B 12]

Approved January 14, 1937

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That section
eleven of an act entitled “An act to continue the board of charities
and corrections under the name of State Board of Public Welfare;
to provide for the composition and maintenance of said board; to
prescribe its powers, duties and compensation; to provide how the
officers, assistants and employees of the board may be appointed and
compensated; to authorize the board to create a children’s bureau ;
to provide how county and city boards of public welfare must or may
be appointed, with certain exceptions, and to prescribe the powers
and duties of such local boards; to authorize such local boards to
appoint local superintendents of public welfare, and to prescribe the
powers, duties and compensation of such superintendents if and
when appointed; also to repeal sections eighteen hundred and eighty-
eight to nineteen hundred and two, inclusive, of the Code of Virginia,”
approved February twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two,
be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 11. The board is hereby authorized and empowered to
create a children’s bureau, and if such bureau be created, the Com-
missioner of Public Welfare may, subject to the approval of the board,
appoint a director of the bureau and such assistants as may be necessary.
The children’s bureau, subject to the control of the board, shall have
general supervision of the interests and welfare of the mentally de-
fective, dependent, delinquent and neglected children of Virginia ;
shall investigate conditions bearing upon this subject, and shall from
time to time recommend to the board of public welfare and to public
and private agencies measures, curative and remedial, and preventive
or constructive for the improvement of conditions and the better safe-
guarding the welfare of the children of the State. The board is hereby
authorized and empowered to receive mentally defective, delinquent,
dependent and neglected children committed to it by courts or justices,
and all children declared by any court or justice to be delinquent and
not suitable for probation shall be committed to the State Board of
Public Welfare, which board is authorized to establish one or more
receiving homes for the care, supervision and study of mentally de-
fective, delinquent, dependent or neglected children thus committed
to it, or to make arrangements with satisfactory persons, institutions,
or agencies, or with cities maintaining places of detention for children,
for the temporary care of its wards. The board is further authorized
to make a careful physical and mental examination of every such
child, to investigate in detail the personal and family history of the
child and its environment, and to place children in approved family
homes, in suitable licensed institutions all within the State of Virginia,
unless by written consent of its parent or guardian with suitable licensed
agencies, or in State institutions. Children committed to State institu-
tions dealing exclusively with children by the board shall take precedence
as to admission over all others and shall in all cases be received into
the said State institution as soon as possible. Children placed in
family homes or institutions may be transferred for reasons deemed
sufficient by the board.

For the maintenance of children detained in a receiving or de-
tention home operated by the board, there shall be paid by the State
to the board out of the appropriation for criminal expenses, the same
fees or allowances as are provided by law for keeping and supporting
prisoners in jail.