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The Health Department is well equipped to assist by having its own Mother and Baby Home within
the Borough. Recourse may also be had to a number of beds in a Mother and Baby Home run by the London
Borough of Barnet. The Council also accepts financial responsibility for eight beds in the Beacon Lodge
Home within the Borough run by the London Diocesan Council for Moral Welfare, which especially caters
for the very young expectant mother.
Frequently patients shrink from accepting the excellent facilities offered. The social worker then
renders much service in assisting the patient to cope with the problem through her own, or her family's,
resources. The social worker and other officers of the Department fully co-operate with the excellent
facilities offered by voluntary societies operating in this field within this Borough and thus the very
best service is offered. Help commences in early pregnancy and continues until the post-natal period
is over. Where adoption is requested, application is made to the appropriate adoption agency by the
social worker, the mother being guided and advised until the adoption is legalised. Applications are
only made to established, registered adoption agencies.
The trend of the work would appear to be somewhat altering. Where in the past patients have
tended to think only in terms of admission to Mother and Baby Homes, it is now found that their families
are more understanding and are doing more and more towards keeping the patient in their own homes until
the birth of the child. Where the child cannot be accepted into the home environment, and the mother
aoes not wish to enter a Mother and Baby Home, being anxious to resume her normal way of life, the
social worker assists in obtaining the services of a foster mother for the child pending adoption.
Where the mother wishes to keep her child,, the social worker assists in the mother's endeavour
towards this end, enlisting the help and co-operation of other sections of the Department, occasionally
working in conjunction with the Children's Department, etc. At all times the co-operation of the voluntary
societies, organised to assist the unsupported mother towards keeping her child, is enlisted and valuable
help given.
Other ways in which unsupported mothers are helped are: by the placing of a number of ipatients
in working girls' hostels in early pregnancy; by occasionally placing the girls in private households; by
obtaining residential nursery care for the baby; by placing the mother in touch with probation officers
re obtaining Court consent to marriage where desirable and/or obtaining Maintenance Orders; and last,
but not least, by the social worker being available to discuss any problem arising ante- or post-natally.
To give some support to my comments, I give below statistical details emerging from the work
undertaken by this section.
Total number of Cases referred in 1966
Cases cancelled before interview 15
Cases taken 198
Referred by
Medical Social Workers 49
Health Visitors 5
General Practitioners 5
Statutory Social Workers 2
Voluntary Social Workers 57
National Council for Unmarried
Mother and Child 24
Citizens Advice Bureau 1
Probation Officer 4
Children's Department 6
Education Department 1
British Adoption Project 1
Putative Fathers 1
Self 42
198
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