A Vocational Guidance Officer’s Reminiscences

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28155, 19 December 1956, Page 2

A Vocational Guidance Officer’s Reminiscences

i As Miss Christobel Robinson, now on the eve of her retirement, looks back over 22 years as a woman vocational guidance officer, she remembers first the touching friendliness of the thousands of girls she has assisted to find suitable occupations. “You see what I mean,” she said yesterday, -indicating an array of Christmas cards on her office desk. Some had come from girls *e had placed in work more than 10 years ago.

Girls turned to her, too, with their troubles. No-one could glean from Miss Robinson anything told her in confidence, but an example of the more simple kind of problem brought to her is this: a girl who had been working for just three days lost her office key. She was almost distraught when she came rushing in to Miss Robinson to seek another kind of guidance. The girl was too afraid to go to work, but Miss Robinson rang her employer, told him of the girl’s distress and suggested to him that the firm would survive even if the kev had been lost irretrivably. Assured that she would not be dismissed for carelessness, the girl went back to work with the wrinkles smoothed from her brow. The key? It was still on the girl’s tallboy when she went home for lunch. This happened many years ago and the girl, now in a highly-paid position; called on Miss Robinson last week to wish her happiness in her retirement.

Funnier incidents have happened, too. There was the young married woman who came in to ask for a housekeeper. “I must have a woman with a three-year-old daughter to keep my own little girl company while I get on with writing my articles on ideal mothercraft, she said. Miss Robinson suggested that the mother herself was the child’s most suitable companion and that the mothercraft articles should be written when the daughter was asleep. ?Too Young for Love”

Then there was the precious sixteen-year-old girl who sang plaintively a popular song of the day, “Too Young for Love,” to one of Miss Robinson’s assistants. “We wished at the time that title of the song really did apply, but a year later the girl was happily married,” she said.

From the day in 1934 when she was appointed as first girls’ vocational guidance officer in Christchurch, Miss Robinson has seen the work expand into a social service as much as an education service, and accepted by the community. Through the difficult days of the depression, when girls could not afford to stay at school and could not find employment; through the trying times of the Second World War, when women over 18 were directed by the Labour Department to essential work; to the 'post-war boom, when young people wanted to go where the pay was highest irrespective of the suitability of the work, Miss Robinson

has sat at her desk quietly advising, understanding and helping those who asked her for help. The war years presented many problems. Girls over 18 had to be “manpowered” to essential work, and the vocational guidance office was the authority appointed to give employers permission to engage female staff undet 18 years. “We tried hard to avoid any action that would have a detrimental effect on a girl’s future, yet we had to do our duty to the State as well as to her,” Miss Robinson said. ‘‘Pickle Factory” Bogey

Those were the days when ‘‘shades of the pickle factory closed about the growing girl,” she said. As a result, it was surprising to see the number of young women who unexpectedly found a vocation for nursing, teaching or the Public Service, which were also classed as essential.

The vocational guidance office was keenly involved in the raising of the school-leaving age. “When making a survey we found children of 13 years who had been working for two years, though the law stated that even if a child had a primary school certificate (known as “proficiency”) he or she must not leave school until 13,” she said. Many, however, left as soon as they passed Standard 6, and some did that at the age of 11. “We interviewed all Standard 6 children within reach and compiled statistics to ascertain what had happened to children who had left school under 14,” she said. “We could see the physical effect of working on these young children and we urged the Government to raise the age of leaving school to 15. It was a great relief to us when this became law.” Educational Changes

Miss Robinson has seen revolutionary changes in post-primary education while she has been in office. One of the most important was the successful effort to break down prejudice against practical courses in high schools, to give pupils an all-round training and to put at their disposal the opportunity to select courses and careers carefully. Along with these changes came a more enlightened attitude to * children who were handicapped physically, mentally, emotionally or by home circumstances. For backward children psychological tests were introduced to find out what they could do best and to protect them from the feeling of being failures. For some years now these tests have been extended. • When Miss Robinson retires this week she will not find time hangs heavily. Now she will be able to spend even more time on long-stand-ing interests such as the Y.W.C.A., her work for crippled and handicapped children, music, gardening, and the Cercle Francaise. First demand on her leisure time early in the New Year will be another welfare service—the establishment of a sheltered workshop for the intellectually handicapped.