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Special Education Sub-Committee reported that there appeared to be no doubt that
the conferences performed an essential function in difficult problem cases, and that they
were arranging for their continuance.
One of the principal aims of the child guidance clinics was to investigate delinquent
children. The experience of the Council in employing the London Child Guidance
Clinic and also Dr. Burt in reporting on children in remand homes was that it did not
work altogether smoothly. There were instances where the psychological and the
medical reports either overlapped or did not harmonise. The Council therefore decided
to employ at the remand home a Medico-Psychologist who could undertake both the
physical and mental examination of the children. This arrangement had, by 1943, been
in operation for about nine years and the general opinion was that it was more satisfactory
than having the two examinations done by different practitioners reporting
independently. By 1943, however, it had come to be recognised by the School Medical
Officer and the Education Officer that the services of the Medico-Psychologist would be
enhanced if he were brought into closer collaboration with experienced teachers who
could undertake the tests of educable capacity and also contribute reports on the
characters and behaviour of the children from the personal observations over a continuous
period of weeks. The employment since 1941 at the Stamford House Remand Home
of an experienced headmaster and the retention of many boys there for longer periods
than usual through lack of vacancies in the approved schools, had fortuitously given the
necessary conditions to try out informally such a collaboration. The results were so
encouraging that they led the Chief Inspector of the Children's Branch of the Home
Office to agree with the Education Officer's view that such work might be developed
at Stamford House in such a way as to constitute it an observation centre as well as a
remand home. In this way it was hoped that valuable assistance could be given to
juvenile court magistrates in deciding how best to deal with their cases.
Before the war, the Special Services Sub-Committee consistently declined recommendations
made by child guidance clinics that certain London children they had been
dealing with (but not necessarily on reference from the school organisation) should be
sent at the Council's expense to voluntary residential schools or homes for maladjusted
children. The Special Services Sub-Committee, however, authorised continuance by
the Council of payment for children who had originally been sent to such schools by
other local authorities before their parents moved to London. During the war, many
hostels had been opened by billeting authorities under the Evacuation Scheme for
'difficult' children, some of them (with the assistance of the Mental Health Emergency
Committee) for children designated 'maladjusted'. There were a few evacuated
London children who had been admitted to voluntary schools for maladjusted children
at the instigation of the local authority of the reception area. In 1941, when considering
a suggestion that provision should be made for residential special schools for maladjusted
children, the General Purposes Sub-Committee felt that the matter required further
examination before an opinion could be expressed in favour of separate special schools,
but were of opinion that in any revision and extension of special schools the opportunity
should be taken for bringing within their scope children needing personal or social
adjustment who had hitherto been committed by juvenile courts to schools for
delinquent or difficult children, which were under the general direction of the Home
Office.
The Council conducted, for most of the war years, a hostel for children in its care
under the Poor Law who did not do well on being transferred from a large children's
home to private billets. This hostel was signally successful in improving behaviour. The
Council also conducted under the evacuation scheme a residential school for about
100 boys from two of its institutions who were considered to be 'unbilletable and the
staff encountered no exceptional difficulties in getting the children, after a short settlingdown
period, to conduct themselves much like ordinary healthy children of their age.
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