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64
Barlow's Gift.—The special committee administering this trust has
again made the annual allocation equally between maternity and child
welfare, the tuberculosis handicrafts Committee and the Westminster
Nursing Committee.
The total income amounts to £37 and so far as maternity and child
welfare is concerned the share is spent on necessary articles which cannot
properly be provided by the rates. As regards the handicraft class it
is used for providing materials.
Homes for Unmarried Mothers, etc.—The Council made a grant
of £100 to the Home of St. John the Baptist at Tulse Hill. This
home was formerly in the City, and cases from Westminster are eligible
for admission, the minimum period of residence being eight months.
During 1935 eight Westminster women were admitted to the home.
This home serves a most useful purpose. The women generally admitted
on the recommendation of the rescue worker are maintained at least three
months before confinement and are retained from 9 to 12 months after.
During this period they are trained for domestic or other useful occupation.
Supply of Milk.—Fresh or dried milk is supplied free or at half-price
in certain cases recommended by the medical officers of the maternity and
child-welfare centres. Grants are made only in cases where the income of
the family, after deductions have been made in respect of rent and other
outgoings, is within the limits laid down in a scale of income prepared by
the Minister of Health. Applications are dealt with at the meetings of the
Maternity and Child Welfare Sub-Committee, which take place once a
month at one or other of the Council's centres. Grants are made for a
period of one calendar month and are reconsidered at each subsequent
meeting of the Committee.*
Preparations of dried milk amounting to 3,602 pounds were distributed
during the year. The amount expended by the Council for fresh milk
as extra nourishment for mothers and infants amounted to £633 9s. 4d.
Home Helps.—Provision was made in three cases for the services of
home helps at a cost of £15 2s., in one case over an extended period.
There is no panel of home helps. It is found more satisfactory for the
woman requiring this service to make her own free choice of the individual
* The number of recipients has increased from 150 in 1930 to 350 in 1935. This
does not imply, and indeed there is no evidence of, increasing poverty or ill-health in
the district. It means that the type of family most in need of the maternity and child
welfare service is taking greater advantage of it.