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Child Guidance Service
The Borough is served by two Child Guidance Centres - at Lordship Lane, Tottenham, and at
Tetherdown, Hornsey. The Lordship Lane Centre is attended by two consultants - Dr. Nina Meyer, who
acts as Medical Director, and Dr. Jack Waldman. At the Tetherdown Centre, the consultant psychiatrist
and Medical Director is Dr. K.A. Graf.
Miss Gwen Kidgell is the Senior Educational Psychologist with overall responsibility for the
administration of the child guidance and school psychological service. The staff of the service also
includes three educational psychologists, two psychotherapists, four psychiatric social workers, and
four clerical assistants who between them work equivalent hours to three full-time officers. It is hoped
to increase the clerical establishment to five in the future.
Dr. Nina Meyer reports as follows on the work at Lordship Lane Centre:-
"The work of the Clinic continues to expand. The number of referrals for the Child Guidance
Clinic is now in the region of 130 per year which, allowing for annual leave, means three referrals per
week. Unfortunately, owing to the illness of Dr. Nina Meyer, the waiting lists have extended, and work
is now mainly concerned with priority cases of urgent need. Some children present with incipient
schizophrenia; others with symptoms suggestive of organic illness; school refusal and gross behaviour
disorders, where children become a danger to themselves or others, are a frequent pattern in children we
are now seeing. Recently the Regional Hospital Board asked for a list of adolescents for whom inpatient
treatment might be helpful. We found that of our adolescents, 80% were such cases.
TheClinicfor the under-fives continues to grow, with a total number of 145 referrals since the clinic
started in August 1961. Although these children need a great deal of care, the response is most rewarding,
since many have an above average potential for healthy development, although reacting to difficulties in
their environment with symptoms of grave disturbance. Help now can be crucial for their future wellbeing,
but we need more facilities. Nursery schools, where attendance mornings or afternoons can hehp
the child to emancipate from a too close mother/child relationship, and initiate him into healthy social
andgroupactivity. Phobias, difficulties with eating and sleeping, breakdown in toilet training, physical
disability, emotional and even intellectual retardation, respond to simple therapeutic measures. We are
getting an increasing number of referrals from outside agents, such as paediatric departments and hospitals,
general practitioners, and frequently mothers themselves. For this age group, an increase in psychiatric
time is a primary need".
Dr. K.A. Graf reports as follows on the work at Tetherdown Clinic:-
"This is my fourth report since seconded by North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board to
services as consultant psychiatrist in the area, but my first as Medical Director of newly-named Tetherdown
Child Guidance Centre of the London Borough of Haringey. The child psychiatrist holds clinical
responsibility, being mainly concerned with diagnosis and treatment of the young clients, while he also
maintains as a specialist in the health service contact with his medical colleagues in the school health
service, general practice and hospitals, acting frequently as a co-ordinating officer between the many
agencies interested in children's welfare. The time he has at his disposal during his two sessions is
limited, but the weekly evening session has been found particularly useful for those children and parents
who would miss work or school when attending during the day. The psychiatrist managed to see 108
individual cases (including 34 reviews) during the year and has given 2-3 children more regular
psychotherapeutic help, while all the other children from our ever increasing diagnostic and treatment
waiting lists, are seen after assessment, if regarded suitable for regular therapy, by Mrs. Benjamin.
The majority of referrals have come through the educational psychologists from head teachers,
with the co-operation of the parents who, themselves, referred some children. Next in frequency were
referrals from school medical officers, and other cases reached us from general practitioners, hospital
doctors, child care, probation and school welfare officers. The majority of cases could be described as
behaviour problems related to environmental factors, including parental problems. School phobia, a
child's neurotic disability to attend school was again quite frequent and always most difficult to deal
with, while we had a variety of personality problems and neurotic disorders of more or less serious
nature. Psychoses of childhood, including autistic children, were fortunately relatively few, but their
disposal and management created each time a big problem because of the scarcity of places available
nationally for their treatment. Equally, have we remained handicapped by the difficulty of getting places
for maladjusted pupils into boarding schools, there being so much competition from ail over the country
for the few available places that head masters can select the most promising cases, while children who
have shortcomings in personality and intelligence or are less likely to respond favourably, yet would
require residential treatment all the more to rehabilitate them to society, cannot be found places and
frequently deteriorate. The increasing immigrant population form special problems which are often not
really within the scope of the child guidance service, although we are approached by frustrated teachers
who notice the disturbing influence or unhappiness of a child.
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