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MARLBOROUGH JUNIOR TRAINING CENTRE
Marlborough Junior Training Centre in Marlborough Park Avenue, Sidcup which opened in
April, was the long awaited new purpose-built centre for 60 mentally handicapped children
including a special care unit for 10 children (see plan).
The outline plan and brief for this centre were prepared in 1967 by the Deputy Medical
Officer of Health. This meant the closure of the 40-place centre at Lamorbey Hall and a net gain
of 10 places and 10 new special care places.
It was not expected that expansion to the new limit of 60 places could be achieved before
September because of the need for a settling-in period and the difficulty in obtaining suitable staff.
In fact by the end of the year 40 children and 5 special care cases were attending the Centre. The
decision of the Government to transfer junior training centres to education departments was an
additional complicating factor in regard to staff because of the differing origins, concepts, status,
terms and conditions of employment of the teaching profession in schools and supervisors in
training centres.
Originally the mentally handicapped were kept occupied partly to relieve the home situation,
hence the term occupation centre. They were then given training and sheltered forms of employment,
hence the term training centre. Now the borderline between training and education was
being crossed and, not surprisingly, created some complications. In one respect however there was
comparatively little difficulty and that was in accepting the change itself because all concerned in
the Department had for long been orientated towards the modern methods of dealing with these
children. The individual courses and the regular in-service training courses for training centre staff
organised in collaboration with neighbouring authorities and hospitals (see below) contributed
greatly to the creation of an enlightened opinion on such matters amongst the staff and consequently
their own approach was forward-looking.
Against a background of staff shortage, the fact that some authorities paid salaries in excess
of the National Joint Council scale was not helpful to those seeking experienced and well recommended
staff to fill the new posts. Eventually the teaching aspect of the work of the centres was
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