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The need to distinguish the voluntary work more clearly from the rest of the activities
of the Social Responsibility Centre and to have a separate bank account has resulted in a
change of name and we are now to be known as the Voluntary Work Centre.
I cannot speak too highly of the help and co-operation we receive from the Health
Visitors, Social Workers and Office staff with whom we are in contact, and I feel sure that
this teamwork will bring about even greater things in the coming year.
MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL - FAMILY SURVEY UNIT
Contributed by Elizabeth Cooper, B.A.
The Unit has concentrated in the last year on two main aspects of research in the
Borough; the development of a family register and the study of children in the first year of
school. The register continues to maintain records of families with children under five
resident in the borough, and a number of families were visited during 1970. This showed the
importance of the register in enabling us to contact children of this age and several studies
are now being planned or carried out which make use of the register in this way. One such
study is an investigation of the effect of housing and other environmental factors on the health
and behaviour of young children; another study using the register is comparing the family
patterns, social networks and child rearing practices of a sample of English and West Indian
mothers living in the borough; in further studies the health, behaviour and development of
children selected from the register is being compared with the behaviour of groups of special
children, such as twins and the handicapped. The assistance of the Department of Health
and Welfare and of the Health Visitors in particular is essential to the maintenance of the
register and we are most grateful for the very considerable co-operation and help we have
received.
In the schools project the first stage has been completed and preliminary reports have
been sent to the head teachers of the schools concerned. Two schools were used, an ordinary
infant school and a school for educationally subnormal children. The data were collected
from four sources: from the teacher's assessment of the child; from a filmed record of the child
in the classroom; from the child's behaviour and performance on a vocabulary test and from
interviews with the mothers at home. The data are in the process of being analysed.
Preliminary results showing differences between the two schools in teachers assessments and
classroom behaviour have led us to concentrate more work in schools for 'special' children
and since September, 1970 we have also been examining the classroom situation within a
school for maladjusted children and a unit for severely disturbed non-communicating children.
We are also looking more closely at the interaction between teacher and child in the classroom
than we did in the first stage. We are experimenting with the use of video tape in
showing teachers themselves in action as well as giving them an opportunity to observe their
children's behaviour from a distance. We are very grateful indeed to the Education Department,
the head teachers concerned and to the class teachers in particular who have given us
such free access to their classrooms and staff meetings.
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