GUIDANCE CLINICS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 6566, 15 September 1948, Page 4

GUIDANCE CLINICS

TRAINING OF CHILDREN MODERN METHODS OUTLINED Changes in ideas about the treatment of delinquent children in recent years were discussed by Miss K. J. Scatter, principal of the Girl’s Training Centre, Burwood, in an address to associates of the Christchurch branch of the National Council of Women recently. The modern trend, she said, was away from the institution, where in the old days delinquent children were put out of society, to the guidance clinics where children were trained to adjust themselves and take their rightful place in the community. In England an endeavour was being made made to have clinics attached to- children’s courts, so that children who had been found guilty of offences could be trained under the guidance of specially trained teachers. The work of such a clinic was far more worth while than that of the oldtime institutions. Parents could also receive advice at the clinics about behaviour problems of difficult children. In her opinion, said Miss Scotter, Ithe parents—one or both of them—and the home atmosphere were responsible for most delinquency among children.

Two experiments in England by David Wills, who had organised free schools for the training of children who had been taken from the children’s court were' mentioned by Miss Scotter. David Wills had said man’s way with crime was punishment; God’s way was forgiveness. The idea for his system of training, based on love and security for the child, had come to him when he was working -in an institution in England where the discipline was very harsh. It dawned on him that he was full of fear himself that his discipline would break down. The basis of discipline at the institution was fear. He was a Quaker, and he realised that if he was going to live up to his Quaker principles he could not have anything to do with such a system. His two experiments in the training of delinquent children had won his system wide renown. There were no clinics in New Zealand similar to the English ones, but an effort had been made to bring the training into line with the most modern training overseas.