“CRYING NEED”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 150, 20 March 1936, Page 2

“CRYING NEED”

Home For Sub-normal Children Support was given by the conference of the'Federation of New Zealand Justices’ Associations yesterday to a request from tlie Rev, Mary M. Dreaver, of Auckland, that representations should be made to the authorities for a home for sub-normal children in the North Island. The immediate necessity for action in regard to the continuous influx of criminal lunatics into the mental hospitals, to the detriment of the mentally sick, was also mentioned.

“There is a crying need in the North Island for a home for the sub-normal children, and also the mentally defective child, a home similar to the home ir, Templeton, out of Christchurch,” she wrote. “The little ones, so afflicted, should not be confined with adult mentally sick, as there is a constant danger in the contact, with an added responsibility to the staff. Picture the little boys mixing with the criminal perverts. There are about 19 of these children in Avondale alone, and die objection of the parents to tlie removal of the children to the South Island is perfectly natural. Therefore, it is U •thsonnblo request that a home be built somewhere about Taihaiie.”