View report page

observation register has focused attention on the
importance of developmental examinations.
Phenylketonuria
Health visitors carry out phenistix tests for
phenylketonuria on as many young babies as
possible at the ages of three and six weeks.
No positive reactions were obtained.
Care of the Unsupported Mother and her Child
The work of caring for unsupported mothers by
making arrangements for their welfare during
pregnancy, their place of confinement and
eventually their return to life in the community
and also satisfactory care for their babies, has
continued under the medical social workers whose
office is in Ealing but who undertake this work for
Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow. During the
year the borough accepted financial responsibility
for 17 mothers placed in St. Agnes' Home,
Chiswick, maintained by the Hammersmith
Deanery Association for Moral Welfare Work
and for 60 mothers placed in homes outside the
borough. These mothers are required to pay a
standard charge towards their care subject to
assessment on the Council's scale of charges.
The local branch of the Moral Diocesan Society,
Welcare, also plays an important part in caring
for some of our unsupported mothers.
Day Nurseries
The care of children aged six weeks to five years,
whose mothers need to work in order to support
them or by reason of ill health are unable to
provide them with adequate care, or where home
conditions are such as to present a danger to their
health, is provided for in the three day nurseries in
the borough—Danesbury Road, Feltham,
which undertook the care of 40 children until
31st March 1967 but thereafter became a 50-place
nursery; Portsdown House Day Nursery,
Brentford (32 places) and Nantly House Day
Nursery, Hounslow (54 places). Each nursery also
admitted a number of handicapped children of
pre-school age in order not only to assist the
mother by periodic relief from the strains of caring
for a handicapped child, but also to provide the
children with suitable facilities, care and expert
guidance in order to enable them to reach their
full developmental potential. As in previous years
the nurseries have suffered from periods of
quarantine due to the occurrence of infectious
disease in these susceptible young children, when
no new children could be admitted, but despite
these occurrences the total annual attendances in
the three day nurseries have been higher than
those of last year, and no nursery is at any one
time able to satisfy the needs of children falling
within top priority categories. Of necessity,
therefore, there is a waiting list for each nursery
and a time lag before a child in dire need can be
admitted. Planning has already begun for the
replacement of the Nantly House Day Nursery by
a larger nursery with a specially designed unit for
the more severely handicapped child. The Council
has also in mind the needs arising in other parts
of the borough.
The attendances made by children were as
under:—
Feltham Day Nursery 9,910
Portsdown House Day Nursery 6,510
Nantly House Day Nursery 11,989
During 1967 one of the deputy matrons attended
a two weeks' refresher course at Chiswick
Polytechnic. All students in training passed their
final examinations entitling them to the NNEB
certificate.
The nurseries themselves provide a means for
students of Chiswick Polytechnic who are being
prepared for one or other type of social work
to observe the kind of care and organised activity
that children receive in day nurseries and to
develop their own powers of observation. The
demand for this kind of experience is increasing.
It is gratifying to report that both course tutors
and individual students have written in to thank us
for the facilities afforded and for the insight they
have gained into the needs of young children.
Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act 1948
The following were registered at the end of the
year:—
33