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keep them in touch with available social services. They give instruction in Braille and
Moon systems of embossed type, and in handcrafts. Deaf-Blind persons also receive the
services of a special Home Teacher for the Deaf-Blind. 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 which
assists individual necessitous blind people and maintains a holiday home at Littlehampton,
two holiday caravans at Lancing, and two Residential Homes for the Blind.
The Southall Blind Club has a membership of 32 with an average age of 70 + and
transport to Club meetings is carried out by members of Southall Round Table and Inner
Wheel. The Club is social and in 1961 also ran two coach outings and a Christmas party.
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.
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 permanently 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 which 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 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.
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 is available for use for social activities
etc. 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 at a Work Centre or
in their own homes where this is considered to be suitable and of assistance to the individuals
concerned.
At 31st December, 1961, 112 residents of the Borough were registered as generally
handicapped.
Alterations to houses to make them more suitable for handicapped persons were made
in two houses:—
House: Rail by bath provided.
Old Persons' Bungalow: Rail at back door, and front and rear steps made more
shallow.
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