View report page

CHILD WELFARE CENTRES
Activities
The introductory remarks on the reorientation of functions indicate the lines on which
the consultative work in the centres is being developed. The child welfare centre continues of
course to play its traditional role as the place at which mothers of young children seek advice and
guidance, where immunisations and vaccinations are carried out and where welfare foods can be
obtained.
Two health visitors were attached to general practices full-time and one part-time. The
fact that the number is still small is not due to lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Health Department;
on the contrary, all general practitioners were circularised and encouraged to ask for attachment
schemes.
There are likely to be several reasons why this offer has not yet been more widely taken
up - among these the large percentage of single-doctor practices (over 70 per cent.) and in many
cases, especially in the central areas, the restricted consulting room space. However, co-operation
is not solely dependent on full attachment schemes and our health visitors are encouraged to
establish and maintain live links with general practitioners. These are also promoted by the use of
the child welfare centres as depots for antigens; in this way when the doctor collects his vaccines
he is almost bound to meet one or several health visitors with whom he discusses families and
problems of mutual interest.
Health education is promoted through personal interviews and also in the course of group
discussions and talks by health visitors and others (see also section on Health Education, page 60).
The child welfare centre is a base for a group of health visitors who work in the locality and is
the place of contact between them and general practitioners, hospitals and other medical and medical
social agencies.
Health visitors
In the child welfare service the health visitor retains her key role as a source of information
for the support of families with young children. Her scope comprises the family as a whole and
all its members. She is included in this section because most of her work relates to the mother and
her young child, all the more as in Camden her skills are supplemented by those of the geriatric
visitors in respect of the services for the aged. The health visitor, too, is available for consultation
with school doctors and head teachers, although she does not usually attend medical inspections
in the schools; she also works closely in the field, with child care officers of the Children's Department,
and by arranging for the day care of children either within the child's own family, by
neighbours, in day nurseries, or by child-minders - the latter services often being supplemented by
home helps - she plays an active role in preventing children being taken into care.
STATISTICS
Number of centres 13
Number of attendances at centres 56,396
Total number of children attending child welfare sessions 8,522
Live births in Camden in 1965 who attended child welfare centres 3,009
Number of toddler sessions 251
Total attendances 3,082
41