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The Centre now has contracts for work with seven different firms,
and prospects of maintaining continuity of work are improving. Some contractors
supply additional machinery and apparatus, and this creates a realistic working
atmosphere.
Other aspects of rehabilitation work undertaken at the centre include
the educational (shopping; going to the bank; learning to deal with money;
reading; writing) and the domestic (preparing the dining room, laying out
lunches; washing-up; making tea for the morning and afternoon breaks). Two
group meetings, attended by mental health social workers, are held every
Monday to further the social rehabilitation. A social club, at which there are
painting and cookery classes and various games for those attending the centre,
meets every Wednesday immediately after work.
During the centre's first few months, 17 people were admitted and
one was discharged. They ranged in age from 16 to 60 years, but the largest
age group was of those in their early 50's. During 1968, 47 people were referred
to the centre, and 33 were discharged from it. Of the latter, 5 men and 3 women
were found employment, and 3 men were transferred to other centres. 7 patients
were readmitted to hospital, and 15 others were discharged for various reasons.
At 31st December 1968, there were 27 people (15 men and 12 women) on the
register.
(c) Psychiatric Social Club
The Camden Thursday Club, for people who have had or are vulnerable
to breakdowns and are therefore in need of support, continues to flourish. It
has an average weekly attendance of 20 to 30 people within a fairly young age
group largely up to the mid-40's. Thei activities include painting, musical
appreciation, free expression, dancing, [???]minton, acting and discussion as
well as outings to other clubs. A magazine (the 'Thursday Wot') has been
produced in conjunction with the Lynden Centre. The club welcomes members
of the Council, general practitioners and professional staff at its annual Spring
Open Night, when they are able to join in the club evening and see a display
of patients' paintings and other work. For the 1968 occasion, the club put on
a performance of "The Rose Garden", a musical version of "Beauty and the
Beast" written by one of the members. The resulting enthusiam of the cast
and the club as a whole led to visits being made to Friern Hospital, to the
Willesden Tuesday Club and to clubs in Tooting and St. Olave's (Bermondsey)
Day Hospitals. The Willesden Tuesday Club had been visited before, and
since the play was put on more regular social interchanges of individuals and
of the whole group have taken place. Thus the Club has come to be fairly
competent and outward-turned during its third year. It has been the subject of a
five-minute radio talk in "Woman's Hour".
THE MENTALLY SUBNORMAL
27.3.1 At the end of 1967,328 mentally handicapped children and adults were receiving
community care, a rise of 9 per cent, on 1966. The 1968 figure was 327, of whom 118
were under 16 years old.
27.3.2 Special units are provided for the under-5's, 9 places being available at the
Coram's Garden Day Nursery and another 9 at the new Konstam Centre, which opened in
March 1968 and took in the children formerly cared for in the nursery run by the Camden
Society for Mentally Handicapped Children in Lindfield Gardens. 41 Camden children
were attending junior training schools and special care units attached to junior training
schools at 31st December 1968, compared with 37 a year previously. Whilst in 1967
40 men and women had to be placed with other authorities' and other organisations
training centres, there was a welcome reduction of this figure to 7 in 1968, at the end
of which year 52 were attending the council's own Fitzroy Industrial Centre. Suitable
trainees from all training centres were again able to go on a two-week holiday to St.
Mary's Bay, Dymchurch, organized by the London Borough of Hammersmith, and 14 from
Camden participated each year.
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