Retarded Infants and Their Parents: A Group for Fathers and Mothers

Abstract

There is a long tradition in this country of providing services for the retarded and of offering support to their families. Periodic supervision was required under the Mental Deficiency Acts until I960, and regular visiting continues to be seen as an important part of these services. However, this concern for the retarded is often divided between different agencies, the more so now that local authority establishments for the severely retarded of school age are the responsibility of education depart ments. Hence, families may be visited in turn by health visitors, education welfare officers and social workers from the social services departments. Curiously, at times of great stress, if not actual crisis, the child and his family are likely to be transferred from one of these to the next, when first going from home to school, or, in adolescence, from school to training centre or sheltered workshop. This fragmentation of service and lack of continuity is being inflicted on particularly vulnerable people, and a common experience of social workers in this field is to be confronted with families in which disturbed patterns of adjustment and relationship have become firmly rooted over many years. Starting from these reflections, and adding to them convictions about the value of early referral and of treatment in a group situation, 3 years ago some of us in a London Mental Health Service discussed with the local health visitors possible ways of trying to counter these problems. Out of these discussions was born the group which provided the material for this article. What follows is an attempt, firstly to describe what the group was like, and, secondly, to draw together some of the material in a way that may throw light on the problems facing people with retarded children.