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It is one of the pleasures associated with the labour of compiling
this report that it gives me the opportunity to recognise their contribution
towards the success of our child welfare services and to
express my warm appreciation of their help.
Child Life Protection. The new arrangements for the
care of all children who are living apart from their parents are
now being set up by the Surrey County Council and they are
appointing a Children's Officer who will be responsible to them
for this work.
Whatever supervisory or administrative arrangements may
be set up, the two greatest difficulties in foster parentage are
suitability and permanency. Of this, by far the greater is to
secure permanency of arrangement. It does not need an expert
child psychologist to appreciate the mental anxiety of the young
child when he is parted from his home—and his foster home is
his home—to be transferred to another foster home. In many
cases, this happens more than once in the first two or three years
of the foster child's life. Our registers reveal that this is by no
means rare, in fact, the occurrence of short-stay fostering of not
more than a year's duration is distressingly frequent.
The tabulated statement below shows that there were 11
foster mothers and 16 foster children under supervision at the
end of the year.
During the year 114 visits were paid to registered homes in
the district, giving an average of 11 visits per home per year. No
children were boarded out in this district under the Public Assistance
or other arrangements of the Surrey County Council during
the vear.
The following are the main facts relating to child life protection
work during the year: —
Registered homes under supervision during the year 18
Registered homes under supervision at the end of year 11
New homes registered during the year 11
Children on register at end of year 16
Children brought on to register during year 11
Children removed out of district during year 4
Visits paid to nurse children 114
Number of children who died during year —
Number of cases where legal proceedings were taken —
Day Nurseries. The transfer of the Manor House Day
Nursery to the Surrey County Council as a nursery school in
1947 reduced the number of nurseries provided and maintained
43