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Enfield Society for Mentally Handicapped Children
Throughout the year close contact was maintained between the Council and
the Society, and opportunity was taken at meetings between members and officers
of the Council and the Society to exchange information, particularly in regard to the
development of services through the Ten-Year Plan.
Informatory items were submitted by the Health Department for inclusion in
the Society's monthly bulletin.
Play Centre
The Junior Training School was made available by the Health Committee to
the Enfield Society for Mentally Handicapped Children for use as a play centre for
four weeks, during the month of August, on every Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday. The Society provided the necessary transport and some fourteen voluntary
workers each day supervised the children. The Council provided mid-day meals on
the same basis as during term time. The average daily attendance was 22. Once
again, this project proved to be most useful and several parents were thus provided
with relief from the constant care of their children for a number of hours each day.
I should like, once again, to take this opportunity of acknowledging the valuable
work that the Society has continued to undertake on behalf of handicapped children.
Their generosity, enterprise and co-operation are greatly appreciated.
Adult Training Centre
The Adult Training Centre at Claverings Industrial Estate, run on similar lines
to an ordinary factory, has accommodation for 165 trainees over the age of sixteen
years, who are paid a weekly allowance. The scheme of incentive payments provides
a minimum payment to each trainee in a full week of 10s. and a maximum of 40s.
The number of trainees on roll on 31st December was 150, and there were no
names on the waiting list.
A proportion of places is reserved for trainees from the London Boroughs of
Barnet and Haringey. The centre now also caters for selected mentally ill persons
medically recommended to attend a day occupation centre. At the end of the year
fifteen such persons were in attendance, having been successfully integrated into the
working pattern of the centre.
The majority of trainees are conveyed to and from the centre by hired coaches
but there is also an arrangement of reimbursement of fares since, in appropriate
cases, it is an important feature of the training of the mentally subnormal and the
rehabilitation of the mentally ill to use public transport on their own initiative.
The aim of this purpose-built centre is to train mentally subnormal persons to
become as independent and to lead as full a life as possible. Some trainees are
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