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15
CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC
I am grateful to Dr. G. Crosse, Consultant Psychiatrist,
South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, forthe
following report:-
A steady rise in the demand for child guidance facilities over the past
two years set against the reality of static resources has continued to immobilize
the waiting time for new appointments at a level of fourteen weeks. All
permutations of clinic practice and method have failed to make any impression
on this new wave of referrals, and nothing less than an expansion of manpower
will resolve this stubborn back-log of cases. The growing concern of local
organizations, consumer and administrative, at the continuing existence of a
child guidance waiting list has led to administrative initiatives for an increase
in the medical establishment and the matter now rests in the hands ofthe
Regional Hospital Board. In the appeal for such reinforcements emphasis was
laid on the developing social services in the borough and how this will uncover
a long felt latent demand for consultative facilities at the clinic.
The hierarchy of needs which have had to be met by the clinic staff reached
new heights in the year under review, and much time and thought has been spent
on forward planning ofthe premises which will house both the School Psychological
and Child Guidance Services. There have been other considerations such
as those related to the advent of the Seebohm recommendations and the development
of Area Health Boards.
From a purely internal domestic point of view it should be recorded that
our rationalization of the borough into four geographical areas each supported
by a clinic social worker as an ongoing commitment has facilitated a more
effective and coherent contribution to the borough service as a whole. At a time
when there is a great deal of shift and change caused by the reorganization of
the social and health services it should be underlined that the aura of permanence
which surrounds our team of four social workers - Miss M.S. Gradwell,
Mrs. P.E. Ollerenshaw, Mrs. V.H. Jackson and Mrs. B. Bark - has enabled the
clinic to cultivate a stable division and distribution of duties and to discharge
its responsibilities to the other systems of care in the borough.
The Wednesday pre-school therapeutic group in which the children take
part in activities on the day unit while their mothers are seen as a group by
Dr. S.M. Ring and Mrs. V.H. Jackson continues to prosper, and this invaluable
preventative exercise could be extended if our medical establishment were to
be increased.
It is some measure of present day social pressures that the Sir Cyril Burt
School, opened in September 1971 forthe education of maladjusted children in
the borough, is now oversubscribed, and children ascertained for special
education often have to wait several months for a placement. Together with
children who have been suspended from school as well as the truants and
school refusals, they form a large growing uneasy collection of children who
weigh heavily on all educational systems inthe borough. They form a mixed bag