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93
Mrs. D. (widow). Five children 2 to 8 years of age. Income,
widow's pension, National Assistance benefit and family allowinces.
Mrs. D. is disabled. Standard of living very low and
children most unruly. 50 hours assistance from special home help
over some ten weeks. On mother's admission to hospital, arrangenents
made for resident care by a relative, with continued
attendance of home help.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with preventive work,
the demands on the home help service over the winter months were
so heavy that time and staff could not be spared to the extent
required. However, it has been an experiment, which shows that
much can be achieved by this method and the Council authorised
the work to continue.
Families in Welfare Services Accommodation:-
It was the policy of the Council to admit homeless families
to accommodation provided under National Assistance Act powers
and to allow them to remain indefinitely. Inevitably, the Welfare
Services homes have acquired a number of "problem" families.
The recognition of the risks to health and developing characters
of children in such an environment and the virtual impossibility
of effective rehabilitation of families living in these conditions,
led the Council to insist on the stricter observance of
the purely temporary nature of this accommodation.
To assist parents with young children already in Welfare
Services accommodation to re-establish their own homes, one
health visitor was in October given the duty of co-ordinating
this work. Families thus returned to the general community are
closely followed up by the special and the district health
visitors and where necessary, assisted by the special home helps.
I am indebted to the health visitor concerned, for the following
account of her work:-
"(a) Successful cases
It is true to say that many families in Receiving Homes
are anxious to help themselves, but are unable to do so,
due to poor mental and physical capabilities. They lack the
necessary background or initiative to make the primary move.
In these cases, it is necessary to give some material help
to establish pride of possession, and then to give the
family the necessary advice on general household management.
Immaturity plays a large part in the inadequacy of
family life, the younger mothers never having had the