[Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Lincoln City.

  • Lincoln (England). City Council.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Lincoln City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    126/128 (page 124)
    over academic work, problems relating to relationships with peers and adults, and problems in the home background. Many of these children show symp¬ toms of school phobia long before the problem becomes serious, they are basically nervous, anxious children and most of the parents are warmly affectionate and reasonably stable and take very good care of their off¬ spring, and the only mistake is sometimes to overprotect rather than support their children in the face of difficulties. Many of these parents and children respond fairly well to simple measures of support and guidance, but of course, the more serious problems often require a hospital admission before treat¬ ment is properly effected. As this problem may become quite a significant part of our work over the next year or two, I think it bears mentioning that the children also require considerable help in the form of a school environ¬ ment in which anxiety and fear are reduced to a minimum and which very adequate support academically is given. It is also useful if these children can be picked out and are fairly quickly distinguished from the truant, whose school avoidance is often only one among many delinquent symptoms in his behaviour pattern. It is to be hoped that early referral of these problems will be continued. Otherwise the use of the Child Guidance Unit for assessment of problems of maladjustment still continues, and this diagnostic service gives one a little insight into the greater needs of the community at large if the emotional welfare of our children is to be adequately catered for. It is clear for example that the Children’s Department still labour under the grossest pressures, generally stemming from an inadequate number of residential placements for deprived and disturbed children. It is not, I think, appreciated sufficiently often that the Children’s Department are now required to handle quite a large number of quite disturbed children of all ages, and needs adequate facilities and properly trained and adequately paid staff if it is to do the work properly. In particular the older adolescent boy or girl poses a serious manage¬ ment problem if there are not adequate members of staff looking after them. Regarding other facilities, mention has already been made of the tremendous help that has come to the area with the opening of Deighton Close School for maladjusted boys in Lindsey, but it has only served to focus once more the need for similar provision for girls and also the inadequacy of provision for boys showing delinquent symptoms who are at the low secondary modern or high E.S.N. range of intelligence. It is to be hoped that such facilities will be provided in the fairly near future as adequate help given in the early stages can often avert a delinquent trend before the inevitable pattern of offences. Juvenile Court appearance and eventually Approved School order gets in. Regarding staff, the service was considerably enhanced by the appointment of an Assistant Psychologist in September of last year, and it is to be hoped that this new post will continue, but we are still short of adequate time to give to therapy and to individual children, and I think it may be useful to begin considering the possibility of obtaining the services of a play therapist at some future date. Such a therapist, along with adequate social work support, could do much of the routine therapy, an aspect of the service, which as I mentioned earlier, is still extremely weak, with the result that some children are not helped as much as we would have liked and early enough in the day to prevent them being a greater burden to themselves and the community later on. Finally, I would like to comment on the very considerable liaison which has been possible between ourselves and the schools, and as you know, many children are considerably helped in their emotional difficulties when