Abstract
The factors that influence people to come for psychiatric treatment are not well known. This report comes from a long-term prospective study of the 1966–1967 first-grade population of children and families in Woodlawn, a poor, black, urban community on Chicago's South Side. These children, now adolescents, were recently reassessed in a 10-year follow-up and were offered access to a free, broad psychiatric treatment program. Prior and current psychological and social problems did not discriminate those who came for the program from those who did not. However, the black college students who conducted the reassessment sessions were significant in determining which teenagers came for treatment.
