[Report 1967] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.

  • Cumberland (England). County Council.
Date:
1967
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1967] / School Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    when the best initial moves are agreed upon, progress in this field will inevitably be slow because of financial consideration but a start would be welcome. Mr. Haigh writes: “On commencing work in the southern area 1 found, of course, a well-established Child Guidance Service which com- pares favourably with any I had seen elsewhere during my training. The Service has in general an informal, flexible and efficient organisation; over the years it has obviously acquired a valuable status and familiarity in the community, and to a fair extent the common prejudice against psychological and psychiatric services has faded. The num- ber of parents who fail without good reason to attend seems impressively low. Perhaps the only disappointing features have been the small number of pre-school children seen and the scarcity of referrals by general practitioners. The adequacy of the service is difficult to assess, but the pro- liferation of new Clinics (e.g. in Cleator Moor and Egremont) would very probably result in a rapid increase in referrals. At present, however, time forbids. “Over my relatively short period of working in the area some fairly clear patterns of problems have emerged, and it is often possible to predict with fair accuracy the degree of success the Clinic team is likely to achieve with any particular child. There is cultural impoverishment in the area which makes itself evident in a variety of symptoms. Enuresis, by far the commonest presenting symptom among the Clinic’s clientele, is frequently found to be the result not of severe emotional disturbance but of poor conditions and training in the home, combined with, relatively slight but prolonged stress. Fortunately enuresis is one problem which, if not always wholly overcome, is usually markedly improved after a child’s attendance at the Clinic. Indeed, where an environmental adjustment is needed our hope of success is greatest: at its simplest level this may take the form of advice to parents or the securing of material help through the appropriate agencies. Parental inadequacy is, however, made apparent also in many other ways, notably in the low level of verbal comprehension and fluency evident in so many children seen both at the Clinic and in the schools. The quality of verbal responses to projective personality tests, for example, appears poor in this area (although this is a subjective observation) compared with that of children from similar homes but in larger cities. West Cumberland, in fact, has many of the problems of a large urban centre without all its more advan- tageous characteristics.