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daily guardians and to mothers using the scheme. The number of
guardians and children involved in the scheme increased very slightly
during the year.
Though the Daily Guardian Scheme is outside the sphere of the
Nurseries and Child Minders Act 1948, it is our opinion that the Act
should apply to all persons receiving children under the age of five years
for the purpose of daily minding. There is no doubt that there is a
proportion of daily minders who operate outside the purview of the Act
and the Daily Guardian Scheme, who because they are aged or for other
reasons are incapable of providing proper care for young children.
The number of guardians on the register at the end of the year was 119
of whom 63 were minding 71 children. The number of individual children
minded during the year was 131 and they were in the guardians' care
for 15,246 days.
Day Nurseries
There are three day nurseries in the Area with a total of 168 places.
The average attendance during the year was 111.4 per day and the number
of children on the register at the end of the year totalled 143.
The number of applications for day nursery admission during the
year was 239 of which 42 were refused. All appeals against the decisions
made in accordance with the County Council's regulations are heard
by the Day Nurseries Panel appointed by the Area Health Committee
for this purpose. Appeals against financial assessment of the charges
made for admission are also considered by a similar panel.
The health and general care of day nursery children is very good
indeed.
Four student nursery nurses entered for examination of the Nursery
Nurses' Examination Board and were successful in obtaining the Board's
Certificate.
Two of the day nurseries are recognised by the Ministry of Health as
training nurseries for the 0-5 age group and one for the 0-2 age group.
The latter will be passed for the whole age range as soon as a warden is
appointed for the toddlers group. We anticipate that we shall be able
to send a member of the present staff for the special course of training
early next year which will qualify her for the post.
All children admitted to the nurseries are received from families where
there are special difficulties, some of a temporary and others of a more
permanent nature. Generally speaking mothers regard the local
authority's day nurseries as a safer place for daily minding than any
other method of minding outside their own homes and the standard of
care and the improvement in the conditions of the children admitted to
nurseries does much to endorse this view. Day nursery matrons are to
be commended not only on the standard of the nurseries in their charge
but also for their interest and handling of the mother's problems which
are unfolded to them.
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