View report page

91
this work as helpers in the service, and for a limited number to be
actually trained to undertake these tasks in the new department.
In this way it has been possible to reduce the anxiety which is
naturally felt about such work. Tooting Bec Hospital has also
kindly co-operated in providing seminars for social workers from
other disciplines to familiarise themselves with psychiatric illness.
COMMUNITY CARE OF THE MENTALLY ILL
Individual casework with the mentally ill and their families has
continued to be the main activity of the social workers, in addition
to which most of them undertook responsibility for some special
aspect of the service. The referral rate has been very high and it
has been necessary at times to be selective about what work is
taken on and to attempt to be more rigorous in evaluating the effect
of social work help.
Psychiatric social clubs
The Tooting and Putney Clubs have met each week. The Tooting
Club has been very lucky to find excellent new premises in the new
psychiatric wing of St. George's Hospital, Tooting. For a time it
was housed in Springfield Day Hospital, when the old building
at Tooting was demolished, but the new premises are ideal as they
are. in fact, used by the hospital's own social club on other days
of the week. The activities have been lively and the clubs have
continued to provide a very valuable way of keeping in touch with
a number of the department's clients.
Chellow Dene and self-contained flatlets
Chellow Dene is a large Edwardian villa on Putney Hill adapted
for use as a hostel which specialises in rehabilitating psychiatric
patients in the community. There are beds for 21 men and women.
There is a Warden, his Deputy and Assistant, as well as domestic
staff, and the social workers participate a great deal in the life
of the hostel. A senior social worker is responsible, with the Warden,
for interviewing all the applicants who must be recommended by
a psychiatrist. She also runs a weekly group for the residents who
are also in touch with their individual social workers. This, then,
is an enterprise in which the mental health section invests a great
deal, and it is possible for a successful resident to move on from
there to one of the ten flatlets a few streets away (which comprise
an annexe to the hostel), where they can develop a more independent
style of life while still remaining in touch with the hostel
and its staff. In fact, the hostel remains a source of reassurance
and encouragement to many of the ex-residents who remain in the
area after they have settled back into ordinary accommodation.