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The next approach is to foster all those factors likely to encourage a sense of community
responsibility. One of these is the presence of the Christian churches, whose members are
motivated by a unique concept of community, and who spell out more clearly than others that they
see their vocation as caring for people.
In knowledge of this, attempts were made during the year to link the statutory services in
a more organised way with the human resources on which the churches can call. The result was
the phenomenal growth of the Social Responsibility Centre, set up by the Council of Churches and
used as a contact point by the borough's social work staff. It was a most exciting feature of the
year and promises great things.
A third stabilising factor is the provision of accommodation flexible enough for people to
feel no pressure to migrate as their circumstances change — accommodation where self help can
flouri sh.
One aspect, but only one, of this is the need for warden flatlets for old people. There has
been progress with these recently in the Council's planning and practice, for which a handful of
old people will have great cause to be grateful, but it remains and will remain for years a blemish
on the borough that so many old people have to uproot themselves at a time of life when the ability
to adapt is beyond them, to enter an expensive and unfamiliar institution, simply because they
could not move earlier to a dwelling of this type. It is not that the Council's programme should be
twice as much. It should be five times as much.
A fourth factor is transport. It is mistaken nowadays to feel that a community can always
be defined on a map. It is vital to improve the mobility of the population — particularly those most
isolated by age or handicap — by all means, but particularly by money for transport of all kinds
for all sorts of need. It is very expensive, but it is also one of the highest priorities of need.
(One does, however, look a little sadly at some costly transport requested to bring special
classes of people together from great distances. People of a specific disability for instance would
rather have as friends people of the same age and interest, whether able bodied, convalescent from
mental illness, or in social or medical need, than all the other people of the same specific disability
in the surrounding ten square miles, brought together by an imperceptive community because they
are considered to be in the same class. The 'ideal village' is perhaps no more real a concept than
the 'noble savage' and all the organisations that do such wonderful work in bringing people together
in this classified way are a veritable life line to them, but life lines ought so often to be reaching
them from nearer at hand.)
The fifth factor I would draw to the Council's attention in its review of priorities is the
need for a sense of community amongst the givers of help. Money spent fostering this promotes
great economies in the time and effort of the front line workers. Grouping social workers — as the
Council is planning with area teams, or Health Visitors, or nurses or, for that matter, family
doctors or Ministers of religion makes for economy and efficiency and it is welcome to see these
trends in parts of Waltham Forest. How much better still when people of all the varied disciplines
form a group identity in the service of an area. The council can do and has done much to foster
this as Handsworth Avenue Health Centre, opened during the year, already does, and as St. James
Street Health Centre, approved during the year, will do, perhaps even more.
It will be seen that much which I have been discussing is in fields already entered by the
Council, but it is not always appreciated that these are top priorities to be considered first and
given due weight as investments for the future. Only then should one turn to the health and social
services in their daily struggle to cope with the present.
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