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The County Council's Welfare Department has provided two Welfare Visitors
for persons in the Borough who are suffering from substantial and permanent
handicaps other than those already mentioned and they work under the direction
of the Area Welfare Officer. They visit such persons in their own homes with
a view to assisting them to obtain from statutory or voluntary sources (or both)
facilities, appliances, etc., which may benefit them. The help afforded may for
example enable the disabled person to take part in social activities, choral
classes, dancing classes, attend handcraft classes, obtain aneeded holiday, or
by provision of ramps for mechanical chairs, handrails, lifting hoists and the
like, give a previously non-existent measure of mobility to a person who was
chair-bound or house-bound. Where the circumstances require it adaptations to
houses, including the provision of downstairs toilet facilities, may be undertaken.
Advice and guidance regarding personal problems are given, and membership
of a voluntary organisation catering for a particular handicap is facilitated.
A Homework Organiser has been appointed and some handicapped persons who
are unable to obtain employment in open industry but who are suitable for a
certain amount of light work are provided with this on a part-time basis at a
Work Centre or at home.
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 Brentford and Chiswick Group of the Middlesex and Surrey League for the
Hard of Hearing, meets every Friday evening at Chiswick Library and Brentford
Baths annexe alternately. The attendance is 12 - 15 members weekly. There are
social meetings, talks and discussions, outings and visits to other groups in
the County. The Club has elected a Welfare Officer to visit sick and housebound
members.
A Club for the Physically Handicapped is maintained by Chiswick Mission
(a Branch of The Shaftesbury Society). The disablements are various and transport
is arranged by the Rotary Club for those who cannot travel easily. The Club
meets once a month for social purposes, the membership is 20 and the average
attendance 15.
The Multiple Sclerosis Society maintains a Branch, known as the West London
Branch, which has members from this Borough. Social meetings, entertainments,
and the arrangement of, and help with, holidays for members is carried out.
WELFARE - RELIEF OF DISTRESS
Brentford Philanthropic Society and Chiswick Philanthropic Society are
charitable associations which exist to give help to any in need who are as yet
outside of the many statutory provisions for Welfare. A request for help is
followed by a visit from a representative of the Society and gifts of coal, extra
comforts, special foods, or help with payment for holidays are some of the many
provisions which have been made. The Brentford Society also provided in 1959,
a free holiday for 80 old age pensioners and distributed a cash gift of 7/6 to
old folk at Christmas and the Chiswick Society took 81 elderly residents to the
seaside for the day and gave a cash gift of 15/- at Christmas to 170 needy
elderly people.
Residents of the Borough needing any of the County Welfare Services briefly
referred to in this Report should apply to the Area Welfare Officer, Mr. J.F.
Cronk, at the Local County Offices, Great West Road, Brentford.
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