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Child Guidance Service
Dr. J. Vincenzi, Consultant Psychiatrist, has submitted the
following report on the work of the Romford Child Guidance Clinic
during the year:—
In the past year there was a slight increase of referrals. There
were 312 cases in 1963 and 299 cases in 1962. Of this number 144
were from Romford, 91 from Dagenham and 77 from South
Division. We estimate that we are having half the cases from South
Division, the other half going to Grays, which means that we are
catering for a school population of between 55,000 and 60,000.
Staff
Psychiutric Sessions
Since September there have been eight weekly consultant
sessions and five Senior Hospital Medical Officer sessions. Dr.
Swift, who has taken over Boyles Court, does do some of the
Boyles Court referrals. Dr. Berstock started as locum psychiatrist
in September.
Follow up
It is now possible to make an attempt at review of the follow-up
which was done in 1962 for children referred in 1959.
124 cases were followed up but in 17 of these the family had
moved md it was not possible to trace them.
Of the remaining 106 cases, 46 under eleven years of age out
of 73 were felt by the parents or the referring body to have benefited
by Clinic attendance, of the 33 over eleven, 24 were felt to have
benefited by Clinic attendance. This suggests that older children
tended to do better than younger children, which is against usual
experience.
The Psychiatric Social Worker, who followed up the 124 cases
felt that in only 9 cases were the parents openly rejecting of the child
which suggests that although we had not in every case "improved"
the child, we had helped the parent to accept the problem as it
was.
Nursery for Pre-School Maladjusted Children
Purklands Nursery. There are now nine children and I think
this experiment has justified this, although every case there has not
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