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PERSONAL HEALTH
Domiciliary Service
Mental Subnormality
The number of subnormal persons in community care at 31st December was
311. The mental welfare officers paid 885 visits, and 51 office interviews
were carried out.
The Council's adviser in subnormality, Dr. W. Livingston, continued to hold
a monthly out-patient clinic for the purpose of assessment and review of
mentally subnormal patients in the community, the cases being presented by
the mental welfare officers. By the end of the year, 33 patients had been
seen by the consultant.
Junior Training Schools
These schools are provided for children who, under Section 57 of the
Education Act 1944 are found to be suffering from a disability of mind of
such a nature or to such an extent as to make them unsuitable for education
at a school provided by the local education authority.
At the Enfield Junior Training School there is provision for 144 children of
both sexes, including a small nursery group and a special care unit. All the
children in the special care unit have dual handicaps such as spasticity or
other physical defects as well as subnormality.
The school normally accepts children up to sixteen years of age, but a
number of persons over the age of sixteen years continue in attendance
and special provision is made for them. The majority of those reaching
sixteen years of age transfer to the Adult Training Centre.
The vacancies created by the withdrawal of 42 children living in the London
Borough of Haringey enabled the school to admit a number of children
between the ages of two and four years.
Routine medical and dental inspections, speech therapy and physiotherapy
are provided through the school health service. The number on roll at the
end of the year was 86, plus 27 in the special care unit.
There was a good attendance of parents at the Open Day at the school on
Wednesday afternoon, 24th June. The children gave displays of school
activity, and examples of cookery undertaken by the older children were
on exhibition. Guests included the Deputy Mayoress, the Vice-Chairman
of the Social Services Committee, the Assistant General Secretary of the
National Association for Mental Health, as well as executive members of the
Enfield Society for Mentally Handicapped Children. A successful Sports
Day was held on 16th July.
Transfer of
Responsibility
The Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1970 made provision for discontinuing
the classification of handicapped children as unsuitable for
education at school.
The operative date will be the 1st April, 1971, when the Education Committee
will take over Enfield Junior Training School as a school for educationally
subnormal pupils.
Enfield Society for
Mentally Handicapped
Children
Throughout the year close contact was continued 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 changes in the educational provision for children. The Junior
Training School was made available to the Society for use as a play centre
for four weeks, during the month of August, on every Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday. Once again, this project proved to be most useful and
parents were thus provided with relief from the constant care of their
children for a number of hours each day.
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