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The effect of this is that for much of the period under review case loads
have been constant at about the 60 mark for each officer,. Periodic meetings
with a consultant psychiatrist from the Child Guidance Clinic at St. Helier
Hospital have continued, and have proved to be of great value both to residential
care staff and to field staff. As with all the other social work
disciplines in the Division, considerable use has been made of courses run
by the London Boroughs Training Committee and the Home Office Central Training
Council,care being taken that courses attended were of particular value to the
officer in his field of work. But a significant development in training was
the setting-up by four neighbouring London boroughs of an intensive training
scheme for houseparents, based at Ewell Technical College and The Grove,
Carshalton. This authority played an active part in the organisation of these
courses.
The Working Girls Hostel 'Silverdale' was opened during the year. This
was formerly a hostel for district nurses and was easily adapted for 8 working
girls in care, either of this or other local authorities. This hostel meets a
real need as a preventive measure enabling the Children's Service to give the
girls a period of care and training in the locality of the borough and in a
supportive environment.
The greatest challenge awaits the Children's Service with the placing
on the statute book of the Children and Young Persons Act of 1969. This places
further responsibilities on local authority services and will inevitably require
the recruitment of a further number of child care officers to accept the additional
referrals of children under supervision from the courts and other Agencies. It is
confidently expected that with the return from training courses upon which they are
currently engaged, professionally qualified child care officers of the Department
will be in a position to pick up this responsibility as arising; this, however,
is only one aspect and the department is well aware of the tasks to be faced.
THE WELFARE SERVICES
I would like to say how pleased I am to report the increasing use made during
the period under review of our group of old people's homes for shorter term care.
In this way, relatives of old people often hard pressed in the demanding routine
(however lovingly given) of caring for elderly relatives, are relieved by their
admission to one of our old people's homes whilst the family takes a break.
During the period under review some 60 old people had 'holidays' with us for short
periods, whilst relatives besported themselves elsewhere to the benefit of all.
We look forward to the opening of Bawtree House in Worcester Road, in early
1970, further to increase the number of places available to us to care for old
people.
It is worthwhile noting that in the year ended December 1968, of the 185
admissions during the year, 58 were between the ages of 70 and 80, 76 were
between the ages of $0 and 90, and 18 were between the ages of 90 and 100; the
year 1970 tells a similar story. And the work of our Mulgrave Road centre for
the physically disabled goes from strength to strength. All the daily A-5 places
are now taken up and there is a waiting list. In all, the centre serves about
120 disabled people, and whilst it can be argued that at a maximum of per day
the centre is not really meeting the total need of the borough, it is, nevertheless,
much valued by those fortunate enough to attend there. It seems that no task is
too difficult or complex for this happy band, and whilst it is true that remuneration
is not the only object of the work centre, our disabled people do receive
a little money reward for taking part in the industrial outwork schemes.
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