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There are other things also-musical appreciation groups, craft classes, archery
classes, current affairs discussions, and so on-all helping our disabled people
to belong to the mainstream of life.
As is the case with the Children's Service, so the traditional welfare
services face a challenging situation. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons
Bill of 1970, placing far reaching duties on local authorities in the care of
disabled, and those parts of the Health Service and Public Health Act of 1968
which come into force in 1970, placing a duty upon local authorities actively
to promote the welfare of old people in the borough, again poses the need for
additional recruitment of welfare officers to implement the new duties.
CONCLUSION
For so long, social work has struggled under the yoke of being a profession of
many disciplines, this or that sort of officer, or the other brand of social
worker, all tending to present to the public at large a picture of a fragmented
service, incapable of cohesive effort and lacking in all-embracing leadership;
unable to deploy the available resources in a realistic way, and utterly
diffident in encouraging all social workers towards an awareness of each
others problems and of the one-ness of the effort we are all making. Happily,
in the Social Services Division in Sutton, we have taken some steps, albeit
falteringly at times, towards the departmental structure advocated by the
report of the Seebohm Committee and legislated by the Local Authority and
Social Services Act of 1970.
We are making progress.
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