An Introduction to Child Guidance

Abstract

VERY little has been published in Great Britain on the work of child guidance clinics, and ignorance on the subject is widespread. It is therefore perhaps ungenerous to criticize the authors of this small book for attempting to cover too wide a field or to address too wide an audience. The fact remains that many aspects of the work have received but scant reference, and the authors' hope to meet the needs of "all those who are actively concerned with the problems of children and young people, whether as members of education or youth committees, as magistrates, probation officers, teachers, doctors or social workers . . . and . . . also be found useful by students intending to work in child guidance clinics, as well as by those studying education, social science, psychological medicine or pediatrics" is too ambitious. While child guidance as a team approach to the problems of childhood strictly emanated from the United States, when the demonstration clinic was founded in London with Commonwealth Fund monies in 1928, Prof. Cyril Burt had been doing work on similar lines since 1909. Before the East London Child Guidance Clinic was opened in 1927 a pioneer group of medical men at the Tavistock Clinic, some of whom later became directors of the early clinics, dealt with more than five hundred children, assisted by a social worker who was one of the first to train in the United States and qualify as psychiatric social worker. Since that time child guidance in Great Britain has developed its own essentially British characteristics, and as every young movement needs to be jealous of its reputation and avoid inviting deserved opposition, one must needs be critical of matters that might otherwise be passed over as details. An Introduction to Child Guidance By W. Mary Burbury Edna M. Balint Bridget J. Yapp. Pp. viii + 200. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1945.) 7s. 6d. net.