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children, was asked to work with medical officers at infant welfare
clinics, and help them to advise mothers of children under five years
of age.
It is generally understood that the approach of the "doctor" in the
welfare clinic to problems of the mother is direct and authoritative.
The mother brings her problem and the doctor supplies an answer
on the spot. This is not the approach of the psychiatrist. He listens
to the mother and tries to get her to solve her difficulties for herself.
This method may be quite new to the "doctor" trained in preventive
medicine, and be very difficult to apply. It is also very time-consuming,
consequently fewer children are seen and results difficult to gauge.
If we could recognise at an early stage the problem of behaviour
which the children are not going "to grow out of", then we could
concentrate on those parents who are unconsciously making their
children into problems. But it will only be with the help of the skilled
psychiatrist that we can begin to deal with this.
Play Group in Park Lane Day Nursery
As an ancillary to helping the disturbed parent and child, we have
begun a play group at the Park Lane Day Nursery. Seven children
have been referred for behaviour problems.
The person in charge of this small group needs special qualifications
and experience in handling such children and especially the parents.
Daily Guardian Scheme
The number of children minded by the day under this scheme has
fallen slightly during the year. Those minded by this method are
children under school age (whose mothers are working) who do not
qualify for admission to a day nursery and for whom other satisfactory
arrangements for minding cannot be made.
The success of the scheme depends on the satisfactory selection of
women who are prepared to undertake daily minding and keep the
rules, the placing of a child in a home of a type similar to its own and
one that is within reasonable distance of the child's home or the
mother's workplace. The approval before and subsequent supervision
of the child after placing is undertaken by the health visitor for the
district on which the guardian resides.
The number of guardians on the register at the end of 1955 was 114,
of whom 62 were minding 70 children.
The number of individual children minded during the year was 163
and they were in the guardians' care for 19,514 days.
Day Nurseries
Miss J. Pearse, Supervisory Matron of Day Nurseries, resigned from
the service on 31st August, 1955.
The average daily attendance at the three nurseries was 121.8 and the
number of children on the register at the end of the year was 150.
The standards of nursery care are very good indeed, and there has
been very little absence resulting from infectious disease.