Children who can never go to school : some suggestions on home training.

  • MIND (Mental health association)
Date:
September 1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Children who can never go to school : some suggestions on home training. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (6) (7) (8) in one of the Regional Hospital Board’s Institutions. In these, maintenance, treatment and training are free, but owing to the acute shortage of accommodation, you may have to wait a very long time before a vacancy can be offered. For admission to an Institution, certain legal formalities, (including two medical certificates) under the Mental Deficiency Acts are necessary and about these, the Medical Officer of Health or the Mental Health Worker will give you full particulars. Parents are sometimes worried by being told that to place a child in an Institution means a complete and permanent separation from him. This is a fallacy, for not only is there provision for visiting and taking children out for walks, etc., but application may be made at any time to the Medical Superintendent for a patient to be discharged, and unless there is some very strong reason against it, from the point of view of the child’s well-being, such a request is never refused. There is, moreover, provision for allowing patients home for a holiday (“on Licence’’), and every progressive Medical Superintendent is aware of the impor- tance of maintaining as strong a link as possible between the child and his family. A few enterprising Institutions have recently formed Parents’ Associations whose members are taking a keen interest in the patients’ welfare, and this example is likely to be followed by many others.* You should also realise that in the School Department of an Institution, a child receives excellent training and teach- ing, and that varied facilities for a full and interesting life are provided. Although the great majority of mentally defective children who are cared for away from their own homes, are in Institutions as National Health Service patients, there are a few small Homes providing the necessary care and training and approved for this purpose by the Board of Control (the Government Department whose duty it is to watch over the interests of defectives). For admission to most of these, no legal formalities are necessary, but the fees are necessarily high (not less than 34 guineas a week) and except in special circumstances, they must be paid privately. In this type of Home a great deal of individual attention can, of course, be given toa child, but on the other hand his parents may be asked to remove him if he becomes too difficult or when he reaches a certain age limit, and then new arrangements have to be made.
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