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Synopsis of an address given by
Dr. Helen E. Mair
at the Conference of Home Help Organisers on
27th September, 1958
In September, Dr. Mair gave an address to the Conference of Home Help Organisers
on, "Aids to the Disabled." This covered the field of the handicapped in such an
excellent way and created such widespread interest that I give below a synopsis of the
talk which was printed in The Journal of the Institute of Home Help Organisers.
"Local authorities have been responsible for the handicapped for only 10 years—
too short a time, it might be thought, to justify a critical appraisal of their achievements.
But the National Assistance Act, 1948 did not create a new service for the welfare of
people who have been deprived by deformity, disease or disablement of the full use of
their faculties, it marks only a turning point in the long process by which the community
has come to accept this responsibility— and the service as we know it can only be judged
in the context of what has gone before. It is important to understand how the strength
of the voluntary interest in this field delayed national action, and also how its weaknesses
made national action necessary.
Historically, since before the days of the Poor Law the parish and town authorities
have had permissive powers to help the handicapped or "impotent poor" by providing
houses and work for "the aged, decayed or impotent." Until the present century,
however, this was regarded primarily as a matter for charity. The social conscience
expressed itself in support for independent, voluntary associations of every kind for the
relief of the poor and the aid of the sick and maimed, and the State was content to leave
the field to them. Following the pattern in all social welfare, the voluntary bodies paved
the way for legislation by showing the need and dealing with the problems they met as far
as their resources and knowledge allowed. But because they were independent the
standard of their service inevitably varied, while their tendency to concentrate on particular
disabilities isolated the people they helped from the rest of the community and
induced in them a sense of dependence.
The National Assistance Act, 1948 empowered local authorities to set up Welfare
Committees to help all physically handicapped people on the same basis as they had been
helping the blind and deaf for 20 years or more. Now, another 10 years have passed and
the picture in England is like a Tachiste painting— a few bold strokes across a hazy
background. Some authorities have taken over most of the functions of the voluntary
societies and have well organised schemes of service for the welfare of the handicapped
in their areas. Others still shed their responsibility with a decreasing shower of pennies
to the voluntary Association for the Welfare of the Physically Handicapped, the Spastic
Association and many other organisations as one can think of diseases.
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