NEW CENTRE FOR HANDICAPPED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32234, 28 February 1970, Page 19

NEW CENTRE FOR HANDICAPPED

A day-care and training centre for 50 intellectually handicapped children, together with several family homes, is I • be built by the Canterbury branch of the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society on its site of about two acres and a quarter in Patten Street, Avonside.

Plans for the centre, which Is expected to cost about SBO.OOO. are in the hands of the Health Department and the Education Department for approval. The centre, which will have access from Cowlishaw Street and Patten Street, will have three main activity rooms for the three main groups of intellectually handicapped children. These groups include children not yet able to walk, those walking and older more severely handicapped children. There will also be a kitchen, a staff room, and offices for the secretary and the director. The branch administrator (Mr A. R. Stewart) said that the family home was an approach to providing residential accommodation in a more natural environment than could normally be achieved in the conventional hostel. In this approach the society was 1

in step with the latest trends. In a family home at the centre a married couple with perhaps one or two children of their own will care for from four to six children or adults. In this way the children will grow up as part of a family unit with all the advantages that this offers. Because this approach is more flexible it will also simplify staffing problems and the expenditure on buildings can be more simply related to the need.

To the north of the daycare and training centre will be an adventure playground, an area which will have an important part in the training of the children. All the activities have been attractively arranged among grass, trees and shrubs.

The drawing by the archl* tecta, Messrs G. W. Lucking and E. J. Vial, shows the centre as it will look when completed.