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The Daily Guardian Scheme
This scheme was continued as in previous years for working mothers
unable to make satisfactory arrangements for the daily minding of their
children and not eligible for admission to the County Council's day
nurseries in the Area.
This system has worked exceedingly well for a number of years. The
few rules associated with it have only been imposed to safeguard the
interests of the children. The number of individual children minded
during the year was 72 and they were in the guardians' care for a total
of 18,788 days. The cost of the scheme last year was £939 which is a
fraction of the cost of supervising children's care in day nurseries. The
standard of care is reasonably good although standards vary a little.
All are supervised by health visitors. The mother has every opportunity
of being assisted to find a guardian suited to her own and her child's
needs. Mothers rarely remove their children from the care of a guardian
after placing them unless they do so to remain at home and care for
their own children or remove from the Area. It is our experience, however,
that mothers usually place their children in the care of a daily
guardian as a second best arrangement, preferring either daily minding
by a relative or day nursery as the first choice. The periods for which
children are minded by daily guardians tend to be shorter than by other
means.
Day Nurseries
The average daily attendance at the three nurseries in the Area has
risen from 111.4 to 121.7. There were 232 applications in respect of 284
children of which 32 (42 children) had to be refused. The number of
children on the register at the end of the year totalled 164.
Of all the reasons for admission the chief single one for providing
the majority of places was that the child was wholly maintained by its
separated or unmarried mother. The second major reason for admitting
a child was on account of unsatisfactory home conditions, and the third,
illness, usually mental illness or near mental breakdown of the mother.
Whatever the reasons for the breakdown of the mother's health, the day
nursery provides relief from anxiety connected with the care of her child
at a time when she is in most need of relief. The mother's confidence
in the quality of child care provided by the Local Authority's day nursery
service can be used as an instrument to prevent further deterioration of
her health and in some cases the child's care.
It is also a means of maintaining the continuity of home and parental
care rather than separation from them at a time when there is exceptional
strain on the family stability.
A number of children who have been accepted during the year would
probably have been accommodated in residential nurseries or with
foster-parents at a much greater cost to the community if a day nursery
was not available to them.
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