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directly suffering from it but also affects their close relatives
and friends and even neighbours. Practical help of some kind
is nearly always needed by people on the department's handicapped
register— aids to daily living, adaptations to their homes, especially
where wheelchairs must be used, special holidays, attendance
at the department's occupation centre, the Faringdon Centre. In
addition, more intensive help is sometimes required to meet
other needs. The social workers are starting to develop a casework
service for those individuals, and their families, who want
an opportunity to work out ways of resolving personal problems
their handicap has created for them, or where family difficulties
have arisen or become much worse because of their handicap. The
emphasis lies, as always, on helping the handicapped person to
become as independent as possible in their usually very dependent
existence, to encourage self-reliance and a sense of purpose
and interest in life where the handicap has seemed to undermine
both confidence and the possibility of much further achievement.
All this is relatively new for local authority community care
work, but a start has been made to give a more comprehensive
and personally-tailored service to each severely handicapped
person in the borough.
Housing for the Disabled
During 1967 the first purpose-built flat for a disabled person
became available from the Housing Department. It was very soon
occupied, and in fact had been constructed with a particular
handicapped person and his family in mind. Since 1965, staff
of the Housing Department, the Borough Architect, and the
Deputy Medical Officer of Health with two of the social workers
from this Department who have expert knowledge of the housing
needs of severely disabled people, have been working in close
consultation on a project launched by the Housing Committee
to provide special accommodation for the disabled. This has
been a happy instance of inter-departmental co-operation, and
the results have been very successful.
Residential Accommodation for the Disabled
It will be seen from Table 42 that by the end of 1967 there
were 10 people from Havering who were being accommodated
by voluntary organisations because they were so severely
physically handicapped they could no longer be looked after at
home, or they had no home and family who could care for them. They
were too young for the Department's old peoples homes; even
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