View report page

Occasional creches
The popularity of these three-hour play sessions indicates that
they meet a real social need and are of great benefit to both
mothers and children. In centres where more than one session a
week is available, attendances have had to be rationed so as to
give as many children as possible the chance of attending.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to recruit suitable part-time staff
for these sessions and one of our best helpers left during the year
in order to undertake teacher training at a College of Education.
Day nurseries
The demand for places in day nurseries continues to be very
heavy and it is possible to admit only children with a high priority.
A number of short-term admissions have helped many families
over a period of crisis and prevented the need for children to be
taken into residential care by the Children's Department. A number
of children have been admitted for three hours daily on medical
grounds and they nearly all benefit greatly.
The shortage of staff has not been quite so acute this year
although no nursery has been fully staffed for more than a few
weeks at a time. The three training nurseries have been helped
by the increase in nursery students and we hope to benefit by
having more trained staff available next year.
Measles immunization was offered to all children who had not
had the disease and most of the mothers accepted. This should
help to reduce the incidence of measles in the nurseries and cut
out long periods of quarantine and consequent limitation of
admissions.