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on reaching school age, to the Observation Unit where he has
settled and is doing quite well. Admissions to this nursery are
now rather different in type from those at the beginning of its existence,
since workers in various fields are bringing forward children
for whom differential diagnosis is required in respect of handicaps
and these tend to equal the number of children who are placed on
psychiatric recommendation after being referred to the Clinic by
their parents on account of behaviour problems. It seems likely
that some of these more handicapped children will eventually be
more appropriately placed for diagnostic purposes in a unit attached
to Havering Grange School since the nursery facilities are
more suitable for children of average intelligence with nervous or
behaviour problems.
Mead Nursery has been on its maximum number of ten for
most of the year and usually has a small waiting list. The majority
of the children here have emotionally disturbed parents, most of
whom are under some kind of psychiatric supervision, or have
recently been discharged from it. A few who have not actually
been referred for treatment have proved to be quite disturbed
people in their own right. The children of these parents show quite
a range of nervous disorders on entry to the nursery and often tend
to look rather unwell, but in most cases there is gradual improvement
as the tension between children and parents is lessened by
their being apart from each other for some hours of the day.
The Senior Psychologist followed up the progress of all the
children who have been discharged from Parklands Nursery, which
was the first to open, and found that they were all quite well settled
in school and only two children out of a total of twenty-five were
considered to be in need of psychiatric help at the present time.
One of these is a severely handicapped autistic child and the other
a non-communicating child who was so old when discovered that
there was not time for really adequate treatment in the nursery
before he had to enter school. In most of the other cases Headteachers
commented that they felt that the children had derived
great benefit from nursery attendance and would not have settled
so well in school without it.
The Observation Unit at Manor School has been visited a little
more frequently than the nurseries because of its special problems
and also the fact that there was a change of staff in September 1965.
There was some concern about the physical condition of one of
the children, but this has now been satisfactorily investigated by
the Principal School Medical Officer. The two children have become
quite accustomed to each other and the staff and the younger
one is making satisfactory progress in the unit, but one has reservations
about whether day-treatment will eventually prove to be
appropriate on a long-term basis since his mother finds things very
difficult outside school hours and during weekends. The older child
makes less educational progress, but as the responsibility for psychiatric
treatment does not lie with this establishment, the position
cannot be fully investigated here.
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