Little Aid For Children Emotionally Disturbed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31727, 10 July 1968, Page 7

Little Aid For Children Emotionally Disturbed

The community catered for practically every other child in the uprooted category, but help for the emotionally disturbed was “pitifully negligible” in comparison to the extent of the problem, the manager of the Salvation Army Boys’ Home at Temuka (Captain K. Hayes) told a seminar of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Association of Social Workers, ip Timaru at the week-end.

He said the last Child Welfare Division report showed that in the Dominion there were 66 homes operated by private agencies, caring for 1533 children. There were 4056 children who were wards of the State and of these 19171 were in foster homes, 641 were in employment and 1661 were disturbed enough to be! placed In psychiatric hospitals. “Refugees of Society” The children who came into his can at Temuka wen the “victims of circumstances of other persons”—namely parents. Such childnn, said Captain Hayes, wen displaced persons, nfugees of society. Unfortunately, institutional-

isation had many times been used as a threat to childnn. For too long now there had been an erroneous attitude appearing that if a child showed behaviour problems the best thing to do was to put him in a home, Captain Hayes continued. “Irreparable Damage” The first tenet of a good social worker was that every child be regarded as an individual entitled to fair and reasonable treatment The development of his personality was a process which was going on thnugh every moment of the child’s life, he said. Roots wen being used which, if damaged, would stop to play their part, thus

resulting in Irnparable damage to some part of the pertonality. Captain Hayes told the gathering that he was not implying there did not exist in the society a place for the children's home. It definitely had its place, sometimes as a corrective institution, sometimes as a receiving home for the meeting of emergencies, while other homes catered for the delinquent or functioned punly as a residential centre —such as at Temuka, he said.

To love and can for the uprooted child in an institution could be one way of removing only the symptom from the family home while the real problem was never tackled. “The uprooted child is really the symptom of a family problem,” Captain Hayes said. He laid emphasis on the need for skilled case workers in family situations and the urgency of careful selection if placement in an institution really was necessary.