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supervising children's care in day nurseries The standard of
care is reasonably good although standards vary a little. All
are supervised by health visitors. The mother has every opportune
ity of being assisted to find a guardian suited to her own and her
child's needs Mothers rarely remove their children from the
care of a guardian after placing them unless they do so to remain
at home and care for their own children or remove from the Area.
It is: our experience, however, that mothers usually place their
children in the care of a daily guardian as a second best arrangement,
preferring either daily minding by a relative or day nursery
as the first choice. The periods for which children are minded
by daily guardians tend to be shorter than by other means
Day Nurseries
The average daily attendance at the three nurseries in the
Area has risen from 111.4 to 121.1 There were 232 applications
in respect of 284 children of which 32 (42 children) had to be
refused. The number of children on the register at the end of
the year totalled 164.
Of all the reasons for admission the chief single one for
providing the majority of places was that the child was wholly
maintained by its separated or unmarried mother. The second
major reason for admitting a child was on account of unsatisfactory
home conditions and the third, illness, usually mental illness or
near mental breakdown of the mother. Whatever the reasons for
the breakdown of the mother s health, the day nursery provides
relief from anxiety connected with the care of her child at a time
when she is in most need of relief. The mother's confidence in
the quality of child care provided by the Local Authority's day
nursery service can be used as an instrument to prevent further
deterioration of her health and in some cases the child's care.
It is also a means of maintaining the continuity of home and
parental care rather than separation from them at a time when
there is exceptional strain on the family stability.
A number of children who have been accepted during the year
would probably have been accommodated in residential nurseries or
with foster-parents at a much greater cost to the community if a
day nursery was not available to them.
Each day nursery has received a few children who were referred
by hospitals or clinics for special observation associated with a
physical handicap or a behaviour problem. Some of these have