NASW Foundation National Programs

NASW Social Work Pioneers^®

Abraham Novick

Abraham "Abe" Novick was Superintendent of the Hudson School for Girls, New York, for many years and then became Superintendent of the Berkshire School for Boys, a private facility in NewYork.

Novick was a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work. He was very active in the National Association of Training Schools and Juvenile Agencies as well as the American Orthopsychiatric Association. He presented a number of papers at the annual meetings of both organizations as well as organized workshops and other sessions of a criminal justice nature. He was particularly instrumental in having such sessions at the annual meetings of Orthopsychiatric. At one time Dr. Ed Greenwood saw to it that there were sessions of this nature and later Abe Novick also did so. Since Abe's death there has been nothing on criminal justice at their annual meetings to speak of.

The reason Novick was a pioneer in social work was that he was largely responsible for introducing the issues and concepts of the distinction between institutional programs for juvenile boys and those for juvenile girls. It was his feeling that historically programs for juvenile girls were patterned after those for juvenile boys. Most of his papers at both Ortho and NATS & JA developed this subject; one example is "The Make Believe Family" which he delivered in the 1950's at a NATS & JA annual meeting. They were then meeting with the National Conference on Social Work and later changed to meeting with the American Correctional Association. Novick also served as a consultant to the Division of Juvenile Delinquency, the Children's Bureau, and HEW.

In his writing concerning the female juvenile delinquent and during the development of the publication, "Standards for Juvenile Delinquency Institutions", Novick was very instrumental in the content concerning the female juvenile delinquent being reflective of the current thinking of the field.