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on any new problem. Further, when action is required all those interested can be
consulted and if necessary brought together; their knowledge can be pooled and the
next step planned and carried out by the most appropriate organisation. The general
aim has been to reduce the number of workers visiting the family to a minimum, thus
saving the family possible embarrassment and confusion resulting from overlapping
visits, enquiries and advice.
Directory of
services
Each of the health divisions has also produced and distributed in its area a directory
containing particulars of all the statutory and voluntary organisations and workers
who may have responsibilities or interests in the prevention or detection of neglect
and ill-treatment of children. These directories conform to a common pattern and
provide a ready reference to the numerous official and voluntary agencies who may be
concerned, or can help, in any particular situation. A specimen (skeleton) directory is
reproduced as Annex A.
Divisional
co-ordinating
committees
A further and more important step in the direction of co-ordination has been the
establishment in each health division of a divisional co-ordinating committee of the
Council's officers from the health, children's and education departments, and representatives
of other departments and statutory and voluntary bodies as appropriate, to
co-ordinate the case work and to consider what best can be done to help the families
with the most complicated or intractable problems. These divisional co-ordinating
committees meet regularly under the chairmanship of the divisional medical officer.
The vice-chairman is the area children's officer. The divisional treatment organiser, a
social worker in the public health department with close links with the care committee
organisation in the education department, has been appointed secretary to the divisional
co-ordinating committee, and this has had the effect as intended of bringing together
more closely the work of the Council's departments and of ensuring greater co-operation
from the voluntary bodies.
Intermediate
case
conferences
In addition to the divisional co-ordinating committees, and to the regular and
frequent consultations which take place between the field workers, there is in each
health division an arrangement by which the more senior officers meet as required to
consider action in regard to families whose difficulties are or may soon be beyond the
solution of the field workers. These conferences, intermediate between the field worker
consultations and the divisional co-ordinating committees, are held most often in the
public health department, but may be called on the initiative of officers of any of the
Council's departments.
Co-operation
and
co-ordination
The conferences or committees referred to in the foregoing paragraphs represent
focal points at which the converging interests of field workers in problem families
and potential problem families are brought together. (Summarised case histories of
typical families considered by the divisional co-ordinating committees are given as
Annex B.) The committees serve a valuable purpose, not only in regard to their coordinating
function, but also in that they give purpose and direction to practical case
work and provide a means for the systematic review of cases. However, no administrative
arrangement could function satisfactorily unless the officers concerned took
emergency action to deal with problems outside meetings or conferences and this work
goes on continuously in all the Council's departments concerned. No arrangements
can be perfect where human beings are concerned and efficient functioning depends
in the last resort upon the will to co-operate present in the field workers. The means
of co-operation themselves are reviewed at regular intervals to make sure that they
have not become stereotyped and that they remain flexible enough to meet changing
circumstances in the area which they serve, and during pre-service and in-service
training of staff special emphasis is placed on the need for co-operation in the field.
Recent
developments
in
co-operation
and
co-ordination
There has been recently the more general adoption of the plan for health visitors
to work in groups, and this has led to the pooling of ideas, abilities and experience,
not least in the religious and linguistic fields and the transfer of families from workers
not en rapport to those with whom a better relationship might be established. A distribution
of the load of the more difficult families has also been facilitated. In addition,
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