[Report 1936] / Medical Officer of Health, Dundee City.

  • Dundee City Council
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1936] / Medical Officer of Health, Dundee City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Child Guidance Clinic. Dr Kidd retires in August of this year. He has been engaged in looking after the health of school children since the inception of the school medical services scheme in this country. 1 think it may be said that no one in Scotland has more experience and more understanding of the aims and objects of the particular service in which he has been engaged. His success is not only based on skill and experience, but also on enthusiasm and understanding of the outlook of children. He knew how to handle them and got the best out of them. A man of many interests, he is not likely to be idle although he is giving up official work, and I have no doubt that his advice and help will always be available to the Department when required. Perhaps this is the most suitable place to welcome the estab- lishment at the Training College of a Child Guidance Clinic for the city. This is essentially an educational movement, but it has undoubtedly a medical implication. The Director of Education submitted an excellent report on the subject in March of this year, and reference to his report is recommended to anyone who is interested in the movement. The general aim and purpose of a Child Guidance Clinic is set forth in a brochure on the subject issued by the Child Guidance Council:— “ Such a Clinic is an attempt to bring together the various resources of the community on behalf of children who are in distress because of unsatisfied inner needs or who are at war with their surroundings. Such children often show peculiar character traits, undesirable behaviour and a general inability to fulfil the demands made upon them either at home or at school. “ The essence of child guidance is that behaviour is studied as nearly as possible without prejudice, in the hope of discovering the causes which produce the difficulty. An effort is then made to eradicate or to abate these causes rather than to control the behaviour by precept or by the imposition of authority. A clinic should, through its services to selected children, interest doctors, teachers, social workers and parents in the value of this objective approach to the problems of child be- haviour—and should in this way contribute to the prevention of many personality and behaviour disorders, and to a con- sideration of the needs of groups of children which are not met at present.
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