View report page

(e) Administrative Staff
In an establishment of this type the Clerical Staff play
a very important role as they are often the first people seen
when patients come to the Centre, and the way in which
they receive them may have considerable effect on the
course of cases in treatment.
2. Area Served
The Centre serves the whole of Havering, but special
arrangements may be made from time to time for children to
attend from adjacent areas of the County of Essex where it
would be impossible for them to attend the appropriate Essex
establishment. Certain children from the London Borough of
Barking who began treatment at Romford or who were referred
before psychiatric sessions were allocated by the Regional Hospital
Board to the Barking Clinic continue to attend until their
treatment is completed.
3. Problems Which Bring Patients to the Centre
For record purposes these problems are divided into six
categories:—
1. Nervous Disorders.
2. Habit Disorders including physical symptoms.
3. Behaviour Disorders.
4. Organic Disorders.
5. Psychotic Behaviour.
6. Educational and Vocational Difficulties.
These categories are fairly wide and some of them cover a
variety of symptoms. For example, Group 1 (Nervous Disorders)
includes fears, depression, excitability; Group 2 includes
bedwetting, feeding difficulties, asthma and other allergic
conditions; Group 3 (Behaviour Disorders) which brings nearly
half the total number of patients to the Centre is the one where
the symptoms are most immediately obvious. It often happens
that when children are referred for symptoms which fall into
one particular category (particularly Group 3), it is discovered
before investigations have gone very far that they have also
symptoms of other kinds. These may have persisted for a very
long time before the emergence of the obvious one which
brought about the referral.
4. Sources of Referral
The recognised procedure is for the actual referral to the
Centre to be a medical one. coming from a School Medical
Officer, family doctor or a consultant at a hospital, but in many
cases these people have been asked to make the referral by
teachers, educational psychologists (working in the School Psychological
Service), probation officers and other social workers,
or parents. Parents may refer their children directly to the
Centre but they are persuaded, if possible, to discuss the matter
with their family doctor first.
38