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16
CHILD GUIDANCE SERVICE
I am grateful to Dr. G. Crosse, Consultant Psychiatrist,
South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board,for the
following report:—
For more than a decade the vigour of the service has been cramped by
the weight of an ever lengthening waiting list, the ill effects of which are
felt by the community and by the staff who are constantly harrassed by the
urgent appeals and demands of the patients yet to be seen. The year under
review has been noteworthy for a renewed attack on the back log of cases
and it is pleasing to report that there has been a substantial reduction in
the waiting time for consultation at the clinic. The whole operation has
been consistently supported by the sustained drive of all members of the
staff though it should be recognised that the brunt of the pressures has been
felt mainly by our team of social workers who have been responsible for the
initial work-up of all cases. It should also be seen that the cold statistics
of the clinic does not truly reflect the work expended on those problems
which have an abortive outcome in the sense that a fair number of cases fail
to reach full clinic attendance.
The sustained pressures on the day unit of the clinic has also exercised
the ingenuity of the unit staff and Charge Nurse Allen has been constrained
to test out the comparative values of different therapeutic situations, andthe
main emphasis now is the intensive treatment of small groups. It should be
remembered that children attending the day unit are severely deprived and
disturbed and they make enormous emotional demands on individual members
of the staff. The concept of psychiatric illness in childhood tends to be overshadowed
by the prevalence of adult mental disorder in the community, and it
would be easy to overlook the fact that mentally disturbed children too need
nursing care. It is to be hoped that the next year will see a full nursing complement
of one charge nurse and two staff nurses in the day unit to deal with
acute casualties referred to the clinic. Their needs and care are of a kind far
removed from that provided under remedial education, and a day unit as such
cannot be equated with a remedial class.
It is sad to report that Staff Nurse J. Furnish will be leaving the day
unit for family reasons. Her devotion to the children under her care has been
an inspiration to us all. The physical environment of the clinic, not an unimportant
factor in the treatment of patients, has been greatly improved by a
complete redecoration of the interior and the extension of the car park has
made clinic life a little easier. There have been a few staff changes.
Mrs. V. Jackson has been appointed to the post of social worker vacated by
Mrs. E.M. Gee. Mrs. S. Morley has replaced Miss Boggis as assistant secretary,
and Mrs. A. Smith succeeds Mrs. V. Tindle as teacher to the day unit.
The use of pocket memos for dictation purposes by the social worker has
helped to streamline our secretarial service and nearly all clinical data is
now typed on our case sheets.