CLINICS FOR KIDDIES

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2669, 13 September 1937, Page 2

CLINICS FOR KIDDIES

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT.

Glasgow is soon to have a municipal child guidance clinic. It will be staffed by members of the medical staff of the Corporation Health Department and of. the Education Committee teaching staff.

Backward and “difficult” children .will be sent there by their teachers. They will be first medically examined. If poor health is found not to be the cause of the trouble, they will then be examined by experts in medical and educational psychology, who will advise their parents and teachers how to treat their case. They will then be kept in touch with the clinic until they are quite cured. Children who appear on charges at the police courts will attend the clinic for examination and guidance. The probation officers who visit these children will receive advice on each individual case. Attendance officers, also, will be able to use the clinic; children who develop a habit of playing truant will have their cases dealt with by the staff. Thus the clinic will be linked up with three branches of the corporation’s educational workers—teachers, probation officers, and attendance officers.

There are already two child guidance clinics in the city. One of these, purely for educational child guidance, is run at the university ,by Dr. Boyd, head of the University Education Department. The other, which has the same scope as the proposed new clinic, is at Notre Dame Training Centre. Both of these are staffed by voluntary workers. For a long time they have had to treat many more cases than they can comfortably deal with. The new clinic will be in Shettleston Child Welfare Centre, and will thus accommodate a different district of the city, No alterations will be necessary in. the building. All the staff ask for at present is space.

The staff will consist of one or two members of the Education Health Service staff —doctors who have made a special study of psychological and psychiatry; one member of the Education Committee teaching staff; and one member of the after-care staff, who will visit the children in their homes.