View report page

and to ensure that treatment is sought early, the psychiatric social worker will endeavour
to persuade patients to seek psychiatric treatment if they show no inclination to seek it
themselves.
Residential
rehabilitation
courses
The Council has sent mothers with children to the following centres for rehabilitation
courses lasting two months:
The Brentwood Recuperative Centre for Mothers, set up by the community
council for Lancashire at Marples, near Manchester;
Spofforth Hall, near Harrogate, a residential rehabilitation centre established
by the Elizabeth Fry Memorial Trust, under the auspices of the Society of
Friends;
The Mayflower Home, Plymouth, set up by the Salvation Army.
Experience has shown that if a measure of success is to be achieved, the families
selected must be those where the husband may be expected, with help and encouragement,
to give support to his wife on her return home. His willingness to work and
his ability to keep in employment are of outstanding importance, for the husband who
is a casual worker and frequently unemployed figures often in those cases where
improvement in the family situation is not maintained. It has also been observed that
where intolerable housing conditions have given rise to the need for residential training
no permanent good is likely from the training course except where the family can be
rehoused when the mother returns home. It early rehousing cannot be arranged, it
may often be better as an alternative to give the mother and children an ordinary
recuperative holiday with the hope that this will result in a temporary improvement
in their health. In those instances where intolerable housing conditions are not entirely
the cause of the need for residential training, attendance at such courses appears to offer
a chance of success if constant supervision in the home is provided when the mother
returns home, and indeed unless it is possible to provide such supervision much of the
value of the courses will be lost.
Welfare department—special units for homeless families
It would be appropriate here to refer to the successful scheme run by the Council's
welfare department for the rehabilitation of homeless ' problem ' families.
The work of that department differs from that of other departments in that when
families apply for assistance they have already lost or are about to lose their homes.
Families who apply because they expect to be rendered homeless arc first seen by
the admitting officer, who examines the possibility of preventing the break-up of the
families and in a considerable number of cases a solution other than admission to a
welfare establishment is found. In many instances, however, no alternative can be
found and the wife and children have to be admitted to a welfare home for a short
period in order to enable the family to renew their efforts to secure accommodation.
When, as in many cases, they fail to do so, the wife and children are moved to a halfway
house, now designated short-stay accommodation, where they are joined by the husband.
Here they are given any necessary guidance and assistance by the supervisor and remain
until such time as they are able by their own efforts to secure alternative accommodation.
Because it became increasingly apparent that there were a number of homeless
families in large homes who might be termed 'hard-core'—shiftless, irresponsible
people whom no landlord, however considerate, would accept as tenants and whom
no one would want as neighbours, with a reputation for being bad payers and with
children not under proper control—the Welfare Committee in 1953 approved the
setting up of two special units for the rehabilitation of problem families. It was decided
that the number of families at each establishment should be small in order to give the
warden in charge a better opportunity of individual approach. The essential condition
of residence is prompt payment of the weekly charges, and debts outstanding at time
of admission are expected to be repaid by small weekly sums payable to the warden
during their period of residence. The men, who are often work-shy, are encouraged to
158