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The work of the clinic frequently led to close co-operation with the Children's
Department and the Probation Service and in some instances the clinic staff has supported
quite disturbed young people until appointments have been arranged for them
to see a psychiatrist. Facilities for the treatment of psychiatrically ill adolescents are
very limited and concern for this situation continues.
Discussions with other agencies about cases and with colleagues from other boroughs,
who wanted to know more about the clinic as they feel a need for similar
facilities to be provided in their own area, took up a considerable amount of time, much
of it outside clinic hours.
The secretary left at the end of the year, having nursed the clinic through its
administrative beginnings and her help was greatly appreciated.
Care of Unsupported Mothers and Their Babies
Miss H. Oliver, Social Welfare Worker, comments:—
As long ago as 1943, the Ministry of Health empowered local authorities, if they
so wished, to employ specialist social workers to work in the field of unsupported
mothers.
The need for this work by health departments was again underlined in the
National Health Service Act, 1946 under Section 22 which made the care of mothers
and young children the responsibility of the health departments. Now that this great
pioneering social work is to be passed to the new Social Services Department, this will
therefore be the last report to be given by the Health Department.
Within the limits of the service the work may be said to have been an unqualified
success, the illegitimate infant mortality rate, although still higher than among those
legitimately born, is lower than at any time, and this is part of the test of that success.
The point was made in the annual report for 1966 and long before Seebohm that
"in the wider field one would wish to see the activities of local authorities extended on
behalf of the unsupported mother and beyond the scope of the National Health Service
Act. The point at which a mother decides to keep her child is the point at which she
is most vulnerable and in need of help. The responsibility for solving her dilemma
must surely rest with the statutory welfare departments if she has no home to which
she can go."
This is the field in which the new Social Services Department will be called upon
to act.