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105
in children and of the possibilities and limitations of child guidance. Educational
work of this sort, and more so perhaps with parents, is experimental. Practical
experience is necessary before assessing any influence it may have towards increasing
the early referral of patients amenable to child guidance, and the possibility of
helping to prevent psychiatric disturbance in children."
The area from which the unit receives patients has been deliberately limited so
that early treatment can be given, and so that time will be available to allow of
other work than the treatment of children ; that is of preventive psychiatric work in
the community and the conduct of medico-social work. It is almost axiomatic that
it is impossible to provide all the facilities needed to treat established maladjustment,
so that it becomes more important to develop methods of prevention which must mean
the modification of attitudes in the community around the child, in the family as
well as in the school. It is in this way that the philosophy and thought underlying
the practice of child guidance will have its greatest effect. We are too inclined
perhaps to think only of modern psychology in relation to the care of " difficult "
children whereas already it has had immeasurable effects on educational thought and
practice.
Battersea
Child
Guidance
Unit
The redecoration of premises was completed in November, 1951. The number of
sessions was doubled in October, 1951, the psychiatrist's being increased to four a
week, the educational psychologist's to four a week, the psychiatric social worker's to
eight a week and clerical to eight a week.
The number of new cases seen increased slightly during the year compared with
1950. There was a considerable increase in treatment during the latter half of the
year and there was a treatment waiting list at the end of the year.
Useful contacts have been made during the year with probation officers, children's
department welfare officers, health visitors and others. A series of informal meetings
with voluntary care committee workers was held during the year. Direct contact
with many head teachers is growing through the work and visits of the educational
psychologist. Direct contact has also been established with a number of practitioners
in the area.
Earl's Court
Child
Guidance
Unit
Work in the past year has progressed well, and the new premises are very satisfactory.
There are two psychiatrists (four sessions a week), two therapists (five
sessions a week), two educational psychologists (three sessions a week), a full-time
psychiatric social worker and secretary at the unit.
The demand for treatment exceeds the supply (shown by the waiting list of
thirty-one).
A day special class for maladjusted children is taken on the ground floor of the
building. Some of the unit patients attend the class.
The general impression during the year is that broken homes and instability of
care in the first five years of childhood produce most of the unit's problems, and the
present overcrowding frequently accentuates them.
Most of the child guidance care of London children falls on the units administered other units,
by the teaching and other hospitals (approximately twenty). The problem case
conference in each of the nine divisions cont inues to perform its important role of liaison
between the school health service and the child guidance units.
The two child guidance clinics for the pre-school child, to which reference was
made in my Annual Report for 1950, have been continued. At these clinics psychiatrists,
who are provided and paid by the regional hospital board, see children, and
their parents, referred from local child welfare centres because of behaviour disorders.
During the year, a course of lectures in mental health was arranged for health visitors
as part of their training in the selection of children who would be likely to benefit by
reference to a psychiatrist.