View report page

19
by the Industrial Therapy Organisation (Thames) Ltd. Unfortunately Remploy has not had sufficient vacancies
this year to take any of the Centre's patients. This is the only sheltered workshop within the district.
It is hoped that vacancies will occur next year for our patients.
Communication has been maintained by regular visits of all the staff to Shenley Hospital, Wembley
Hospital, and Central Middlesex Hospital, where information about patients attending the Centre is exchanged
with the Consultants, Psychiatric Social Workers and Nursing staff. During the period of staff shortages these
visits were of necessity broken. This led, as mentioned previously, to a drop in the number of patients
referred. A review of patients once a month with Dr. Koffman (Senior Medical Officer for Mental Health)
and Mental Welfare Officers has been developed this year creating closer liaison within the Mental Health
Division.
Extension of evening activities to patients and particularly ex-patients is a practical step that is
intended to be taken in the New Year. There appears to be the need for evening activity other that the
purely social one of the Gateway Club, at which hobbies of a do-it-yourself nature can be developed.
Whilst our main concern at this Centre rightly deals with the rehabilitation of mentally ill persons,
I feel there is a great need to help the chronic patient who will unfortunately be most unlikely ever to return
to normal life within the community. Relatives of such patients carry a heavy burden and help could be
given both by the provision of another kind of Day Centre dealing with the chronic mentally ill.
I would like again to thank the administrative staff of the Health and Welfare Department for their
help and encouragement."
Day Care for the Elderly Mentally Ill.
This Borough is fortunate to have an allocation of 10 places at the Harrow Day Centre for the
elderly mentally ill. Transport difficulties might to some extent exclude its use by an occasional patient living
in the South of this region but so far referrals have come mostly from the Wembley area. At the end of
1966 five Brent patients attended.
Voluntary Services—The Brent Samaritans.
During this year the Steering Committee completed the arrangements for starting a Samaritan Service
in the Borough. The Senior Medical Officer (Mental Health) has played a not inconsiderable role in the
initiation of this scheme. It was proposed that the service would start in January, 1967. A grant to cover
the initial telephone expenses was requested from the Council.
The Samaritans is a voluntary organisation entirely devoted to the prevention of suicide and
befriending people in despair. This is achieved by emergency telephone contact followed up by personal
interviews and visits.
An impressive number of cases, many of whom successfully dealt with, pass through already established
centres, profiting by the experience gained during the last thirteen years at the Church of St.
Stephen, Walbrook (City of London) where the Rev. Chad Varah first initiated the movement.
Many people do not wish to contact "official" bodies or persons, including often their own family
doctor, when in great distress, but will contact a voluntary body, i.e. the Samaritans.
A service of this kind, from the community to its own members, should help substantially in filling
a gap left by the professional services. Helping those in despair and on the point of committing suicide is
something the general public should be encouraged to do. It is to be hoped that the close links already
forged between the Mental Health division and this voluntary body will continue.
COMMUNITY CARE — SUB-NORMAL AND SEVERELY SUB-NORMAL
Supervision in the Home.
Support of the family and the individual has continued as in previous years. This makes it possible
to retain in their own homes persons who otherwise might not be retained in the community. This care
involves special and time-consuming skills and rests with the Mental Health Social Workers. It has very
recently been suggested that work of this kind should be part of every Mental Welfare Officer's case load
and indeed this principle had been adopted by my Mental Health division. I had retained from the former
Middlesex County Council one post (2 part-time offi cers) for a mental health social worker. With the large
load of approximately 500 cases, some of this work had been shared out between the mental welfare officers.
We have now had an opportunity of some two years to observe how this kind of dual role functions. I have
come to the reluctant conclusion that the mental welfare officer finds it difficult to deal with the problems
relating to the sub-normal and severely sub-normal person. Often statutory work interrupts planned visiting;
this results in frustration. Also, as mentioned earlier in this report, lack of expertise is likely to result in
further difficulties. For this reason it would appear that additional Mental Health Social Work staff, dealing
with the community care of sub-normals and in particular of the very young children and educationally subnormal
school leavers, are needed.
The Senior Medical Officer (Mental Health) has explored certain other means in the support of the
family of sub-normal and severely sub-normal children and has started a weekly discussion group for
mothers. The response has varied considerably, some weeks over a dozen, other weeks only 2-3 mothers
attended—overall attendance fluctuating around 6. All these mothers have one thing in common—a mentally
handicapped child. Apart from this they varied enormously as to social class, intelligence, colour, etc.
At first problems were presented on a "if only this or that facility could be given!" basis but gradually the
underlying difficulty of acceptance crystallised. With little prompting of the staff present (Medical Officer
and/or social worker), parents began helping each other and much support was forthcoming in this way, notwithstanding
the heterogeneity of the group. Meetings such as these undoubtedly are of great value. However,
many parents who expressed a desire to attend have not in fact been able to do so because of travelling difficulties
due to the large area covered and also due to the care of the mentally handicapped child himself as
well as his siblings. This applies particularly to the holiday periods where numbers dwindled to nil on occasion.
However, it is hoped that with the availability of the room in Monks Park Clinic children also can
be made welcome and perhaps be looked after by older schoolgirls during the holiday period.