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CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC.
Dr. W. P. Gurassa, Medical Director, reports as follows: —
"This has been a year of consolidation in which we have not
felt it necessary to introduce any major changes of policy but have
continued to keep in close touch with agencies outside the Clinic.
Since October we have fortunately again been fully staffed.
Dr. Munari who is on an extended visit to this country from the
University of Padua has been able to join our staff as a Psychotherapist
for one day a week and Miss Riesenberg who has come
over from Chile to work in this country for a few years has joined
us more recently also as a Psychotherapist. We are very fortunate
indeed to have such experienced and gifted people with us. We are
most appreciative of the hard work put in by our administrative
colleagues in disentangling the regulations and so obtaining the
necessary labour permits. There is a world shortage of qualified
Psychotherapists, so we feel this is a small brain drain in reverse.
We are in close touch with probation officers and child care
officers. Recently we have invited G.Ps. to the Clinic, and have
discussed with them informal referral of patients. Sometimes parents
who have had no experience of Child Guidance Clinics are very
apprehensive of taking their child to a place they do not know and
can be helped by an explanatory interview so that they can understand
something of what referral involves and can then bring their
child more happily once their own anxieties have diminished. It is
perhaps due to this contact with G.Ps. that we have had an increasing
number of pre-school children referred. We are particularly glad to
see these children and their mothers as their problems are still very
fluid, and early treatment can more readily turn the child's emotional
growth towards health and sound adjustment before the problems
become so set that long and intensive treatment is necessary. We are
concerned too with preventive work, and often an anxious mother of
a young child can be helped to understand her child's needs so that
later problems are averted.
Another problem which takes up considerable staff time is
finding appropriate placements for those children who need to go
away from home. Some of these children are so sick that they need
hospital in-patient treatment, and beds are in very short supply,
particularly for adolescents, and also for the 12 year olds who are
often considered too old for a children's ward and too young for an
adolescent unit. This shortage of hospital beds is a national problem
and is being investigated by the Ministry of Health so we hope the