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in stimulating and encouraging group activities and discussion. The first such class in
London was set up in health division 9 (Battersea and Wandsworth) in September,
1954. It ran for an experimental period of one year, and was reconstituted in October,
1956. Other classes were started in health division 7 (Camberwell and Lewisham) in
May, 1955, in health division 1 (in North Kensington) in October, 1955, and (in
Hammersmith) in May, 1956. The class in division 7 is run by the local health authority
staff under the leadership of a health visitor, but the remaining classes are sponsored
by the London Council of Social Service (through the Family Welfare Association
in the case of the division 9 class) and a voluntary committee plans and guides the
activities of the class, selects the group leader and arranges for financial support. A
typical voluntary committee consists of the divisional medical officer, a senior health
visitor, a member of the divisional health committee, representatives of the school
care committee organisation, a housing welfare officer, and a representative of the
London Council of Social Service in an advisory capacity. All the classes are given
the free use of accommodation at a local maternity and child welfare centre, and the
Council makes a contribution at the rate of £1 a session (£50 a year) towards the cost
of the leader's fee. Other expenses are met from voluntary sources and grants have
been received in one instance from a Mayor's Fund and in another from the Sunday
Cinema Fund. The activities of the classes include cooking, budgeting, household
management, needlework, making and mending clothes, first aid and aids to better
health. Attendances at each class have ranged from 2 to 15, with an average attendance
for all the classes of 4 or 5. Whilst spectacular results are not to be expected and progress
will generally be found to be slow, experience has shown that the classes have a contribution
to make. The expenditure involved is small, having regard to the potentialities
of the scheme, and would be more than justified even if the result were only that the
break-up of one family was avoided.
Family
service units
A more intensive approach to the problem families than has already been described
is made by the Family Service Units. These units, set up during the war, were known
as Pacifist Service Units and their concern was the care of unbilletable bombed-out
families on Merseyside. Since the war they have taken over work with problem families
with the object of teaching and encouraging such families to cope with their difficulties.
They achieve this by gaining the confidence of the families and offering them friendship
and practical help. The units do not wait for families to approach them for help but
instead go into the home and offer their services on referral from statutory and voluntary
agencies. These would include the public health, children's, education and housing
departments, hospital almoners, probation officers, the National Assistance Board,
and voluntary organisations such as the Invalid Children's Aid Association and the
Family Welfare Association. The first London unit started work in Kensington and
Paddington in 1948, and other units were set up in Islington and Stepney in 1954.
All three units are grant-aided by the Council, the grants being paid jointly under
section 28 (3) of the National Health Service Act, 1946, and section 46 (2) of the Children
Act, 1948. The total amount of grant paid to each unit during the financial year 1956/57,
and the average number of families being assisted were as follows :
Kensington and Paddington unit—,£2,000—76 families.
Islington unit—£1,250—27 families.
Stepney unit—£1,750—40 families.
Other
psychiatric
services
It is sometimes advisable to arrange for psychiatric advice to be given to parents
in problem families and arrangements have been made for the psychiatric social workers
employed in the Council's mental health service to provide, with the knowledge and
consent of the general practitioner concerned, care and after-care for patients who are
not for the time being in need of psychiatric treatment for nervous or mental disorders.
Patients are visited in their own homes or are interviewed privately in the psychiatric
social worker's office, and such help as is possible is given to enable them to cope with
their problems in an effort to prevent serious breakdown or relapse. Where necessary,
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