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initiated with School Medical Officers and Health Visitors, with a group
of mothers of young children and with a group of ante-natal mothers.
In one Clinic one of our staff attends regularly to give interviews to
individual mothers seeking advice. All mothers have temporary
problems of maladjustment with their children from time to time, but
we are anxious to know how many fail to clear up without further
assistance and are likely to be referred eventually to the Child Guidance
Clinic, and in which cases later troubles can be avoided by an
earlier approach to the problem.
Arising partly from the work with the Maternity and Child
Welfare Clinics and partly from an increasing contact with General
Practitioners we have had a large number of young children referred
this year, and have had a smaller group of pre-school children in
treatment for several months.
In July the Romford and Dagenham Clinic was opened, and all
those Dagenham children who were on our waiting list were transferred.
However, because a change of Psycho-therapist is deleterious
we have continued to see all those Dagenham children who had already
begun treatment. Dr. Vincenzi gave up his work in this Clinic to
become Consultant at Romford and Dagenham Clinic. Miss Gascoyne.
Educational Psychologist, now divides her time between the
two Clinics. With the opening of the Romford and Dagenham Clinic
the area which we serve has been decreased, and it might have been
expected that the number of children referred to us would also have
declined, but owing t.o an increase in the number of referrals from
the remaining area our waiting list has remained at approximately
the same level.
The increased number of referrals from General Practitioners is
a result of greater contact with local doctors, who have been invited
to attend our Clinic Conferences to discuss the cases they have
referred. Several of them have expressed their appreciation of the
detailed investigation given to cases before any decision is reached and
have said they now understand that the time-lag between referral and
investigation is due to the considerable time devoted to each case
by the Clinic team.
School Medical Officers, Health Visitors, and Head Teachers have
also attended Conferences, and have played a valuable part in pooling
their information with ours. In addition, we have been visited by
Children's Officers, Probation Officers, a Psychiatric Social Worker
from America, a Speech Therapist, Psychological Fellows, Social
Science Students, and many others.
Two visits were made by members of the Staff to Residential
Schools for Maladjusted Children, one to Nazeing Park and another
to Farney Close. We cannot stress too much how great a help such
personal contacts are to us in making recommendations for placement
of individual children.
This year we have again had a display of educational books, to
which Head Teachers were invited; and lectures have been given to
Teachers and the Townswomen's Guild.
In addition to diagnostic investigation and work with children
who need a period of observation and supervision, a large proportion
of the children seen require regular treatment over a period or many
months. About 40 children are seen weeklv for ¾-hour periods of
individual psycho-therapy with a Psychiatrist or Child Psycho-Therapist
while their Mothers are given similar help by the Psychiatric Social
Workers. We have had 2 grouos, one of Juniors, and one of preschool
children. The Mothers of these children are also seen in groups.