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Child Guidance Service
The Borough is served by two Child Guidance Centres — at Lordship Lane, Tottenham, and at
Tetherdown, Muswell Hill. The Centres are staffed as follows:-
Lordship Lane - Dr. Nina Meyer (Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director); Mr. B.N. Hill
(Psychologist); Miss C. Tibbetts (Psychotherapist); Mr. L. Donlin (full-time
Psychiatric Social Worker); and Mrs. A. Unvala (part-time Psychiatric Social
Worker).
Tetherdown — Dr. K. Graf (Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director); Mrs. A. Summerfield
(Psychologist); Mrs. H. Benjamin and Dr. R. Azevedo (Psychotherapists); Mrs.
A. Walker (full-time Psychiatric Social Worker); Mrs. M. Burns and Miss B. Raven
(part-time Psychiatric Social Workers); and Mrs. S. Lucas (part-time Social
Worker).
The Administrative Director of the child guidance and school psychological service is Mr. B.J.
Watkins, Senior Educational Psychologist.
Dr. Nina Meyer reports as follows on the year's work at the Lordship Lane Centre:-
"This year problems of staffing have played a major part in the considerations of the Clinic.
In common with other fields of Social Work, we have found it difficult to fill our posts with fully
qualified personnel. Greater demands on Social Services, because of greater awareness of social
problems, increases in population and inadequacy of training programmes, are the cause. To give as
good a service as possible in these circumstances, is our constant endeavour. With this aim we try
to evolve ways of dealing with problems as they present themselves.
It has long been our practice to see the pre-school child. We now give absolute priority to all
children under five and concentrate our resources in giving help as intensively as possible over a
short period. Results seem to justify this policy — 213 new cases have been referred, we have seen
162 and closed 231. Of the 231 closed. 143 showed improvement, following the help we were able
to give. 54 moved away, left school, or were referred to other agencies, and only 34 were closed
because of no response to our offered appointments.
To assess the time when a case should be closed is a skill we are beginning to learn. This
means assessing when improvement is sufficient for the child's development to evolve normally
without the Clinic's support. We do always, however, give the assurance that we will re-open a case
should the need arise. The number we have had to re-open has been surprisingly few - namely 10 of
the 231 we have closed in the last year.
We have also arranged a programme of conferences, with each meeting aiming to deal with a
special aspect of our work; e.g.. one conference was devoted to a delinquent child with severely
damaged parents; another to a boy withdrawn from boarding school against medical advice - the
problems of his future were gone into with Probation Officer, Headmaster. Housemaster and the Clinic
Team. Another conference was devoted to a child with repeated attempts at suicide; another to a
boy who has persistently refused school. Children with defined syndromes or problems give
experience to us and to our colleagues of differing aspects of our work. By opening the conference
to those concerned with a particular child, we try to make communication more possible, more
effective and more immediate.
By the time this Report appears, we shall have filled our establishment of Psychiatric Social
Workers, for almost the first time, by fully trained Psychiatric Social Workers. In addition to Mrs.
Alison Unvala, who works part-time, we welcome Mr. Logan Donlin, Psychiatric Social Worker,
trained in the United States, and with experience at a teaching hospital in this country. His
appointment is replacing the two part-time appointments. Mrs. Zentler and Mrs. Lucas, who have now
joined other Clinics. The generous support of the Education Department in making this appointment
will, I hope, bear fruit in the diminution of school problems which add to the burdens of teaching
staff.
We look forward also to improvement in communication by additional telephone lines; the one
line for which the team of six sometimes has to queue, has been a handicap in keeping in touch with
our colleagues outside the Clinic.
With these additions, we hope to achieve an even more fruitful service in the prevention of, and
help to, mental illness in the Borough. I feel we are fortunate in working in Tottenham, which has so
many different aspects of people, skills and nationalities to enrich its life."
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