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securing suitable holiday homes or families in which children can be boarded out
is clearly becoming an essential feature of preventive and ameliorative social hygiene.
The largest of the clinics is the London child guidance clinic established at
Tudor Lodge, Canonbury-place, under the auspices of the Child Guidance Council,
but financed by, and owing its existence to, the Commonwealth Fund of America, a
fund established in 1918 by Mrs. Stephen V. Harkness, "for the welfare of mankind."
One of the early enterprises of this fund was the study of maladjusted and delinquent
children and the provision of courses of training for qualified social workers desirous
of entering this field of activity. Since 1924 the activities of this fund have been
referred to in the annual reports as a result of a visit of one of the senior medical
officers to America in that year when he saw the work of the Children's Courts in
various parts of Canada and the United States. Somewhat later, Mrs. St. Loe
Strachey interested the trustees in the possibility of extending this branch of their
work to Great Britain. After visits from the officers of the fund a Child Guidance
Council was established and the fund financed various persons in the Council's service
and otherwise to make visits and report on the work of child guidance in the United
States. Following on this, the Child Guidance Council received an offer for
financing the establishment of a clinic and for its maintenance for a period of
years.
The London County Council on 22nd May, 1928, decided to accept the offer
of the Child Guidance Council for the establishment of a child guidance clinic in
London as an experiment for three years, subject to the conditions (i) that no charge
shall be made to the Council for three years for the attendance of school children
at the clinic ; (ii) that the Council shall receive a report on each child referred to the
clinic and at the end of each year a full report on the work of the clinic generally;
(iii) that visits to the clinic by the Council's medical staff shall be allowed at any time;
and (iv) that the arrangements are without prejudice to any decisions the Council
may reach after the lapse of the three years' experimental period.
The clinic has been fully equipped and staffed by psychiatrists, psychologists
and social workers and acts in the closest connection with the school medical service.
Each case is considered for acceptance by the medical director who decides whether
to offer complete or partial service, i.e., whether a full investigation in all fields is
required, or if an adjustment might be attempted in the first place based on a psychological
or social service investigation. The activities of the clinic are based upon
team work and each full case is considered at the case conference from the physical,
mental and social angles, a scheme of treatment drawn up and carried through either
by the social worker or in co-operation with any agency which may have referred the
child. Full social work is a marked feature of this clinic which is more amply staffed
than others owing to its present freedom from financial anxiety with its consequent
restrictions. Attendances of school children are specially recorded as a result of the
recognition of the clinic which enables investigations to be carried on without the loss
of the school attendance mark. The psychologists have given special attention to
problems of educational disability, and the investigation of aptitudes and the devising
of special modes of approach forms a prominent feature in the treatment of the group
of cases which can be called more especially scholastic problems. Owing to the
recency of its inception reports are not as yet available on a full year's working, for
the clinic year is intended to be coincident with the calendar year, the few earlier
months being regarded as a period of preparation.
The clinic at Canonbury commenced to receive cases from the schools in the
autumn, 1929. In the first instance it was decided that the area from which cases
should be drawn should be limited to the districts of St. Pancras and Islington.
Subsequently, as the activities of the clinic became more widely known, cases from
other districts have been referred for treatment. Up to the summer holidays, 1930,
a total of 156 Council cases had been referred to the clinic. Of these, 82 were boys and
74 girls. The ages of the children referred, the source of reference and the reasons for