SCANDINAVIAN IDEAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 156, 3 June 1937, Page 13

SCANDINAVIAN IDEAL.

CARING FOR CRIPPLES OF ALL AGES. Societies for the care of crippled children in New Zealand were in the first phase of then history, but in Denmark they lnid been established for 150 years, said { Miss Mar.v McLean, in an address on work done for cripples in Scandinavia, which she gave, to the annual meeting of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society. Miss McLean recently visited the Scandinavian’ countries'; paying particular attention to the social welfare work, and she described in detail the working of a system used with success throughout Denmark, under which every cripple was cared for and made a self-supporting member of the community, with a place in industry at a normal wage. For years the work had been done strictly by voluntary labour, and its scope had . necessarily been limited, but in 1928 legislation had been drafted to assist, and since then legislation working hand in hand with the society had carried the benefits of the care to every cripple in the country. Danish people claimed that the system was unoutcome of co-operative demperaev. wherein the needs of the people and the opinions of experts were combined to become law. Other countries in the world tried to model their system on Denmark’s, which included in its scope not only children, but all adults as well.

Under the legislation cripples were notifiable, and although this law very rarely needed to bo enforced, because most cripples were eager to fake advantage of the chance given them to take a normal place in the world, it was valuable in that it enabled the society- to hear of, and assist, every disabled person in the whole country. Social workers, specially trained,

played an important part in the scheme. To each was assigned a group of cripples, and that group was the social worker’s care foi life, even when the crippled 'were absorbed in industry and had become entirely selfsupporting. Miss McLean dealt also with similar work in Sweden, where national conditions made it impossible to work so thoroughly as in Denmark, hut where very useful work had been done for b number of years."