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127
Though only opened in October it was apparent by the end of the year that the
demand in the area of the Woodberry Down unit was going to be larger than had
been expected and that more sessions from the psychiatrist and from a psycho-therapist
will be required if the needs of the local community are to be met.
The two clinics at Harrow Road and at John Street which are run in association
with the local infant welfare centres continued (see page 52).
Maladjusted
children
There are 15 day classes for maladjusted children in addition to any remedial teaching
in child guidance clinics. As an experiment some maladjusted educationally sub-normal
children attend these classes.
There are five boarding schools for 147 maladjusted children. In addition, 362
children were at the end of the year in 93 schools and homes run by other local authorities
or by voluntary bodies. The experiment of attaching a psychiatric social worker to
Bredinghurst School was so successful that it was agreed to attach part-time workers
to each of the other four schools to enable skilled case work to be continued with the
families against the time of the child's return. Though the families present even greater
problems than most of those coming to child guidance units (otherwise the child would
not have been recommended for admission to a boarding school), yet these social
workers do enable many of the children to return home more quickly than would
otherwise have been possible. Psychiatrists visit each of these schools frequently, with the
exception of Buckshaw House, where the Dorset County Council has arranged for
their consultant psychiatrist to visit regularly. The valuable work of a lay psychotherapist
at Bredinghurst School has continued and has been increased to eight sessions
per week.
Other types
of residential
establishments
Two additional part-time psychiatrists were appointed in September to visit regularly
the residential establishments where such visits were thought desirable. The object of
this is not to undertake the treatment of individual children presenting emotional or
behaviour problems, which is properly the duty of the hospital authority, but to advise
the members of the staff on psychological aspects of the problems of child care and to
see individual children to decide whether psychological treatment is needed and to
arrange for it to be obtained. It is perhaps by this kind of training that preventive
psychiatry will exert its greatest effect. At Ardale Approved School a psychiatrist from
a local hospital visits each week.
Reception
home
A whole-time psychiatric social worker is employed at the Council's reception
home and a psychiatrist visits weekly to help in deciding on the most suitable placing
for each child.
Remand
homes
The Maudsley Hospital has assumed responsibility for the psychiatric examinations
in the two remand homes of children appearing before juvenile courts. Some difficulty
has been experienced in obtaining reports on children who have for one reason or another
been placed in remand homes outside London. A part-time psychiatric social worker
has been appointed to Cumberlow Lodge, the home for girls, in addition to the wholetime
psychiatric social worker at the home for boys. She also visits Wood Vale where
are placed a number of children who have not committed offences, but who are to be
brought before the court as being in need of care or protection. The part-time psychiatrist
here is employed bv the South-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.
Summary
The plan of child psychiatry and its development for London schools is now
becoming clearer. The local authority and the hospital authority can work together
in providing treatment facilities, for early treatment and prevention are inseparable.
The training of ' lay ' staff in the care of children, particularly in residential ' homes '
is properly preventive medicine and true health education and the continual demand for
therapy must not be allowed to obscure the need for prevention. The need for cooperation
in the detection and prevention of psychological problems between the health
and educational services is axiomatic and it is interesting to see how each year greater
interest is taken in the problems of the younger child. In the spring a series of lectures
and discussions, with psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatric social workers were
J