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Short-term care in hospital is offered by:
Queen Mary's Hospital, Carshalton
King's College Hospital
Belgrave Hospital
The impact of hospital admission on normal children is well known; the
recent longitudinal follow-ups (J. Douglas and others) point to severe sequelae
in behaviour and educational difficulties lasting as long as twenty years and
over. One should, therefore, envisage that the impact of hospital admissions
on mentally handicapped children is at least, if not more serious. Until, alternative
provisions are available, we are more than grateful for the tremendous and
vital help offered by the above hospitals.
The quality of care in private residential homes outside Lambeth, where
children are placed, often changes rapidly, depending on movements of members of
staff. On the whole, although there may be no lack of kindness, there is frequently
a serious lack of real knowledge of the needs of mentally handicapped children.
Vacancies in private residential homes are very few and often while awaiting
placement in one of these homes a child may have several short terms of care in
different hospitals, a stay with a foster mother, or at a children's home.
The latest available figures of mentally handicapped children in voluntary
private establishments refer to 1971. The Social Services Directorate has undertaken
to supply the more recent figures soon.
EARLY EDUCATION
Mentally handicapped children are not a defined medical entity but they
all have one big problem in common - learning difficulty. Normal children progress
spontaneously through stages of intellectual maturation; the mentally handicapped
child needs educational intervention for this purpose, and especially an early
educational intervention.
For a young child, the natural teachers are the parents, and the natural
classroom is the child's home. The parents of a handicapped child must be
taught how to be a teacher to the child. The place to teach the parents should
be their home.
The provision for home teaching of parents and their mentally handicapped
children is non-existent. In the past, this Health Department had the services of a home
teacher (Mrs. K. Wigham) but when the education of mentally handicapped children
became the responsibility of the Education Department, the home teacher left the
Department to teach in a school for ESN (severe) pupils.