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alphabet. A handcraft class is held fortnightly at the King's Hall Methodist Church,
South Road, Southall.
Close co.operation is maintained between the County Council and Voluntary
Organisations including the Social Club for the Blind, which holds fortnightly meetings
at the Labour Hall, The Broadway, Southall, and the Middlesex Association for the
Blind who maintain a holiday home at Littlehampton, two Residential Homes for the
Blind, and assist individual necessitous blind people.
Blind persons are eligible for the loan of a wireless receiver through the British
Wireless for the Blind Fund, and the County Council has a scheme for assisting blind and
partially.sighted persons with the maintenance of wireless sets.
Other services are provided by the County Council either directly or through a
registered agency and these include facilities for the placement of blind persons in
employment, courses of residential rehabilitation, training courses for mothers with
blind babies, the supply of embossed literature, special equipment and handcraft materials,
assistance in the disposal of handcrafts and assisted holidays for those in need.
In 1960, there were resident in the Borough 103 blind and 15 partially.sighted persons.
Two blind persons were training, and 12 were in full.time employment. Of these one
was in a Workshop for the Blind, and one was working as a Home Worker. Those
employed in Workshops or as Home Workers had their earnings augmented by the County
Council.
The majority of blind persons are not available for, or not capable of, training and
employment owing to age or some other reason.
Welfare of Handicapped Persons other than Blind:
Schemes for the welfare of handicapped persons other than blind and partially.sighted
which are operated by the County Council's Welfare Department under the National
Assistance Act, 1948, provide welfare services for the deaf and dumb and hard of hearing,
and other persons who are substantially and permantently handicapped by disease,
injury, or congenital deformity.
Services to the deaf and dumb and the hard of hearing are provided by appropriate
Voluntary Organisations, to whom the County Council makes grants in aid.
The Borough of Southall forms part of Area 9 which includes also the Boroughs of
Brentford & Chiswick and Heston & Isleworth. Two Welfare Visitors and a Homework
Organiser are included in the staff which has been provided by the County Council's Welfare
Department for carrying out the social services required and who visit those suffering
from substantial and permanent handicaps. They work from the local Area Welfare
Office and the handicapped persons are visited in their own homes with a view to assisting
them to obtain services from statutory or voluntary sources (or both).
The County Council supplies aids and appliances not covered by the National Health
Service, carries out where necessary adaptations to a house to enable a handicapped
person to become more mobile, provides holidays, arranges for the disabled to take part
in social activities, including choral and dancing classes, attend handcraft classes, etc.
A special coach with an hydraulic hoist to lift wheelchair cases was approved during
the year and will be available in 1961. Advice and guidance regarding personal problems
are given and membership of voluntary organisations catering for particular handicaps
is facilitated.
The Home Work Organiser endeavours to procure from Industry appropriate assembly
work and arranges for this to be carried out by handicapped persons where this is considered
to be suitable and of assistance to the individuals concerned.
At 31st December, 1960, 119 residents of the Borough were registered as generally
handicapped.
Residents of the Borough needing any of the County Welfare Services briefly referred
to in this Report should apply to the Area Welfare Officer, at the Local County Offices,
Great West Road, Brentford.
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