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16
mothers of pre-school children are specifically asked
about behaviour disorders so that the school doctor
carrying out the medical examination may be able to assess
the emotional fitness, as well as the physical fitness, of
the child to enter school and can give advice or refer to
the specialist where necessary.
At the other end of the scale there is close liaison
with the Youth Employment Officer and with the County
Welfare Authorities over the employment and subsequent
care of the mentally and emotionally handicapped schoolleaver.
For the care of those unfortunate children who cannot
be accommodated in either the Special Class or the Margaret
Brearley School we are indebted to the Superintendents and
Head Teachers of various residential schools. Lingfield
Hospital School (Epileptics') and Nazeing Park School
(Maladjusted) were both visited during the year and, as
always were most willing to help with specially difficult
cases. Close liaison was maintained with Mrs. Knight,
Superintendent of the Junior Training Centre at Wanstead
which is now accommodating forty of our ineducable children.
I sometimes suspect that this Centre has elastic walls
since, despite the general shortage of accommodation for
retarded children Mrs. Knight has never failed to offer
prompt admission to a child from Walthamstow.
Children so severly defective that they are unsuitable
even for the training centre are visited in their homes by
officers of the County Medical Officer' s Mental Health
staff and by health visitors and for a number of them
advantage has been taken of the Essex County Council's
scheme for short term care for mental defectives. This
permits a defective child to be placed, without charge, in
a suitable home for a period (normally of four weeks') to
allow the parents some respite from the strain of
constantly caring for it where this is seriously affecting
their own health or to tide the family over some period of
special difficulty such as the illness or confinement of
the mother. Dr Hinden of Whipps Cross Hospital and Dr. E.
M. Creak of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond
Street, have also generously admitted defective children
to ease situations of acute difficulty.