Plowden (1967)

Notes on the text

Volume 2

Preliminary pages Foreword and Contents
Appendix 1 Teachers' questionnaire
Appendix 2 Health of school children

The 1964 National Survey:

Appendix 3 1964 National Survey
Appendix 4 Regression analyses
Appendix 5 Data from the schools
Appendix 6 Infant starters
Appendix 7 Standards of reading of 11 year olds
Annexes to the National Survey

Appendix 8 Social services and primary education
Appendix 9 The Manchester Survey
Appendix 10 National Child Development Study
Appendix 11 School organisation and effects of streaming
Appendix 12 Gypsies and education
Appendix 13 Management of primary schools
Appendix 14 Variation in LEA provision

Volume 1

Report (full text)

Articles

about Plowden

The Plowden Report (1967)
Children and their Primary Schools

A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1967
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Volume 2 Appendix 8
The social services and primary education: a study of three local authority areas
[pages 290 - 346]

Foreword

1. At the Council's request, three research workers in social administration, Mr AT Collis (Senior Lecturer in Social Study, Faculty of Commerce and Social Science, Birmingham University), Mrs J Parker (Tutor in Social Administration, Department of Social and Administrative Studies, Oxford University) and Mr G Miller (Studies Officer in the Centre for the Study of Educational Policies, University of London Institute of Education) undertook studies of the social services available to primary school children and their families in three widely differing areas of England. They completed their studies at great speed and the results were very helpful in the drafting of Chapter 7 of the Council's main report.

2. This Appendix contains a summary of the three surveys, prepared by Mr AT Collis and Dr Joyce Long (Research Fellow, Institute of Local Government Studies, Birmingham University). The Council join the researchers in thanking the local authorities who permitted these studies, and the chief officers, head teacher and other staff who gave so much help with the inquiries.

Contents

I Introduction

1. Objectives
2. Areas studied

II Description of statutory and voluntary social services available to primary school children and their families

1. Education Welfare Service
2. School Health Service, School Psychological Service and Child Guidance
3. Children's Department and family casework
4. Probation Service
5. Other statutory agencies
6. Voluntary organisations
7. Coordination of services

III The surveys

1. Educational provision in the three areas
2. The sample of schools
3. Methods of collecting information
4. The Largeborough Survey
    (i) Education welfare and attendance
    (ii) The schools
    (iii) School Medical Service
    (iv) Overall pattern of welfare activities
    (v) Welfare case families known to other agencies

5. The Smallham Survey
    (i) Attendance cases
    (ii) Behaviour cases
    (iii) Medical cases
    (iv) Education cases
    (v) Social cases
    (vi) Overall pattern of welfare cases

6. The Exshire Survey
    (i) The welfare cases
    (ii) The incidence of welfare cases according to characteristics of children, families and schools
    (iii) Multi-problem and single problem children
    (iv) The welfare cases of the various departments
    (v) Coordination between departments and agencies

7. Teaching staff and the social services

IV Conclusions

Social services and the primary schools: three surveys

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Objectives

1. The social services available to primary school children and their families in three widely differing types of area - a relatively small county borough, a large city and a rural county - were studied in the autumn of 1964. It was agreed not to identify the areas which for convenience are referred to in this Report as Smallham, Largeborough and Exshire respectively. The methods by which the information was collected varied slightly in the three areas since shortage of time and lack of research assistance made it necessary to collect the evidence by the quickest available methods and these depended on the particular administrative procedures in each area. Consequently the detailed results of each survey were presented in somewhat different forms and occupy separate sections of this Appendix where differences in methodology and analysis are explained. All three surveys, however, adopted the same basic approach. Each examined a defined category of 'welfare cases' which arose during the autumn term of 1964 in a sample of schools. Information was gathered about any child whose social development, health or educational performance appeared to be suffering because of home circumstances or other environmental factors. These cases included children referred for child guidance and the help of the School Psychological Service. The more serious cases of infestation were included but matters relating simply to medical issues where there was no indication of parental failure were excluded. Thus the School Medical Service which plays a vital role in the general welfare of school children figures less fully in these surveys than it would have done if a wider definition of welfare cases had been used. All the surveys were designed:

(a) to examine the local statutory and voluntary services available to primary school children and their families,

(b) to ascertain the nature and incidence of welfare problems arising among primary school children and the ways in which they were brought to the attention of, and dealt with by, the services,

(c) to determine how often several different agencies were involved with the same case and what arrangements were made to coordinate their activities,

(d) to ascertain the views of teaching staff on their relations with the welfare services.

2. The areas studied

3. Smallham has a population of slightly more than 100,000. It is an important market town and administrative centre which has experienced much industrial growth during the last few decades. In 1963 nearly one quarter of the working population was classed as professional workers or central and local government officials, a third was in the service industries and about a third was employed in one predominant industry.

4. Largeborough is a large industrial and commercial centre. It underwent large-scale unplanned expansion in the nineteenth century followed by continued growth in the twentieth. Four different urban zones can be distinguished. First there is the central commercial and administrative district which is being rapidly redeveloped. Beyond this three irregular concentric zones can be identified. That nearest the centre has the highest density of population and contains the oldest and most dilapidated houses and industrial buildings. It also contains large areas of good amenity and landscape as a result of redevelopment which is being carried out by the corporation on a scale and at a pace comparable to that of any large city in Europe. Nevertheless, this inner zone still accounts for the hard core of the city's slum clearance problem; congested terraces, closely packed courtyards with back-to-back housing, communal lavatories and water piped only to a downstairs sink are still to be found. The intermediate zone consists largely of industrial premises and long terraces of late nineteenth and early twentieth century houses. Industry is more localised and in larger units than near the city centre. The outer ring is of a quite different character. It was largely developed in the twentieth century and consists of private and corporation estates with localised industrial tracts.

5. The population includes many people born outside the United Kingdom, particularly from Ireland, the British Caribbean territories, and from India, Pakistan and Ceylon. Most of the newcomers are accommodated in the poorest housing districts and although they have greatly benefited the area by helping to meet the high demand for labour, their influx has added to the problems of the social services. In 1963 rather more than half of the total number of persons employed were in manufacturing industry and just over a tenth in the distributive trades. The middle classes form a much smaller element in Largeborough's population than in that of Smallham.

6. Exshire, with a population of 130,000, is a widely dispersed rural area. The population has been growing quite rapidly, due partly to natural increase, but largely to the planned influx of population from a nearby conurbation. About two thirds of the population live in rural districts and even the towns (the largest with a population of less than 25,000) have a rural atmosphere. Rural areas may well have certain characteristics which tend to lessen local demands on the social services. Primary groups are more important than in urban areas; families see more of each other and the extended family group is stable and cohesive; neighbours have more intimate contacts and there is greater geographical stability. Under these conditions there are strong pressures to conform to rural mores and customs and the needs of families in genuine difficulties are often satisfied by the primary groups in a traditional although not always constructive manner. Thus some real social needs may be masked and some services may develop more slowly than in urban areas. Nevertheless, the survey showed that, as the social services had been extended over the preceding few years, their advantages, when compared with some old customs, had been recognised.

II. A DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUTORY AND VOLUNTARY SOCIAL SERVICES AVAILABLE TO PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES

7. The departmental structure of the three authorities was found to be much the same. The Education Department in each case had a number of separate sections among which the School Attendance and Welfare Department or the Special Services Department (the actual name varied) was the one which most concerned the surveys. The Public Health and the Education Departments were linked in the School Health Service which in Largeborough included the School Psychological Service. In Exshire this latter service was administered as part of the Education Department. The other local authority service most closely involved was the Children's Department. Voluntary organisations helping with the care of primary school children and their families varied in number and activity between the areas.

1. The Education Welfare Service

8. This service goes under different names in different areas. It is responsible for children whose education is liable to suffer because their parents (due to illness, unemployment, inadequacy, social attitudes, or low motivation) do not ensure their regular attendance at school or do not provide for them adequately in other ways.

In all three areas none of the educational welfare officers had any formal social work or social science qualification although some had attended short courses of various kinds. In Largeborough all officers attended lectures given by the Superintendent of the Department and 20 had been given time off to attend courses for the new certificate in education welfare. All three departments reported staffing difficulties. Largeborough had been experiencing a high turnover of staff which was particularly harmful since it was the best officers who tended to move on, taking with them a fund of knowledge about their districts, families and schools. Education welfare officers' salaries at the time were £770-£980 p.a. Table 1 shows that the number of school children per officer was highest in the county area and lowest in the large city.

Table 1 Establishment of Educational Welfare Officers in relation to the number of school children (1964)

Duties of the Education Welfare Officers

9. The work of education welfare departments goes back to the introduction of compulsory school attendance in the 1870s. Originally they were concerned almost exclusively to ensure regular school attendance. In 1964 this responsibility remains but there were notable differences between the three areas in the extent and conduct of this part of their work. Further duties included the enforcement of Street Trading and Child Employment laws; the completion of application and assessment forms for free school meals and clothing; the maintenance of a census of the child population; helping in the transport of children to special schools. In Smallham the welfare officers helped in arranging holidays for handicapped children and in Exshire and Smallham they helped to arrange tuition for children in hospital. In Largeborough home visits were carried out for other departments dealing with such matters as the issuing of vermin notices and checking the whereabouts of families or responsibility for inter-authority education payments. In all areas officers were expected to have regard for the welfare of school children, to provide a liaison between the school, families and other local services and to refer social problems or other matters with which they were not competent to deal to the appropriate agency.

10. In their work of preventing absenteeism the welfare officers tried to alleviate hindrances to regular attendance and rely on persuasion, but if this failed verbal and then written warnings would be issued. In the last resort a local education authority may proceed against parents under Section 39 of the Education Act 1944, or it may, under Section 40 of the Act, bring the child before the juvenile court. In Largeborough, where warnings were by far the most numerous, there was an extra procedure before prosecution was considered. Parents were invited to attend a sub-committee of the Education Committee at which each case would be reviewed and further warnings or suggestions for help given. Table 2 shows that in spite of this prosecutions were much more common in Largeborough than in Smallham and Exshire; the total number of school children in Largeborough was roughly ten times as large as in the other two areas but proceedings against parents and in the juvenile court were proportionately much greater. Thirty per cent of the 269 children appearing before the magistrates in the Largeborough Juvenile Court were at primary schools.

Table 2 Proceedings against parents and in the Juvenile Court (1964)

The organisation of Education Welfare Services

11. In Smallham and Exshire there was far less routine visiting of the homes of children absent from school than in Largeborough. Since 1955 attendance work in Smallham had been based on an 'agreed' list of irregular attenders drawn up as a result of consultation between head teachers and welfare officers. A weekly report was made by the schools on the attendance of each of these children and head teachers could notify the Special Services Department immediately if one were absent without plausible excuse. In 1964, there were 430 children on the 'agreed' list, 190 of them being of primary school age. In 1964 only two of the five education welfare officers were engaged in the field on attendance work. Each of the others had special responsibilities for such matters as handicapped children, applications for free meals and clothing, etc. In Exshire each officer had responsibility for the full range of duties in his own area and was notified by head teachers when they thought cases of absenteeism needed investigation.

12. In Largeborough, on the other hand, 60 of the 74 officers employed in 1964 were engaged in the field on attendance work, amongst other duties. They were each allocated a district for which they were expected to maintain the census schedule and to carry out all other duties. All the officers worked from a single office in the centre of the city. At the beginning of each week an officer collected the absence slips from the schools in his area. These slips were made out by the class teachers and were in the form of a small register. The slip for any child absent during the week was passed to the head teacher for transmission to the visiting officer. Children did not necessarily live in the district covered by the welfare officer calling at their school, so the slips were taken back to the central office for redistribution. Not all absences resulted in a home visit. It was up to each officer to decide on the basis of the child's attendance record and his knowledge of the family whether a call on the parents was required. Towards the end of the week the slips were collected and redistributed for return to the schools. The reason for absence and any special action taken was recorded on the slip but again the officer returning the slip to the school was not necessarily the one who had made the visit and knew the child's home.

13. In all three areas the work of the Education Welfare Departments brought them into contact with the School Psychological Service, the School Health Service, the Children's Department, the National Assistance Board and, occasionally, with voluntary societies.

14. In Largeborough the individual officers had very limited personal contact with other agencies as most matters calling for such contacts were referred to the central office and dealt with there. These contacts tended to be more formal than in the other areas for the department had an office of its own. In Exshire the welfare section of the Education Department was served by three administrative and clerical staff who also did the clerical work for the school psychological service. This office served as a kind of clearing house for all welfare problems. Problems were referred to appropriate departments and agencies by official letters and the workers concerned were often able to discuss cases informally with each other. The work of the Smallham department was divided amongst officers who specialised in different branches of the work and they had closer and more continuous contacts with other agencies than those in Largeborough.

2. The School Health Service (including the School Psychological and Child Guidance Service)

15. In Largeborough the School Health Service was found to be a largely autonomous and distinct part of the education and health services. The full-time school medical officers and the school nurses were engaged exclusively on work for school children. The medical officer of health for the city was the principal school medical officer but a senior school medical officer was in charge of the day to day administration of the service. The medical and nursing staff worked from 15 school medical clinics each of which dealt exclusively with a school population of between 10,000 and 16,000 children.

16. In Smallham and Exshire medical and nursing staff did not specialise in work for the schools. In Smallham some school medical officers were also general practitioners; in Exshire they were sometimes medical officers of health for district councils. In both areas the nursing staff acted as school nurses and as general health visitors and were sometimes attached to group practices. They worked with people of all ages including the mentally subnormal, old people, problem families and handicapped children and the emphasis in their job was on health visiting rather than on school nursing. In 1964 Smallham had four multi-purpose clinics whilst Exshire had two such clinics and others were planned. As a result of this multiplicity of functions in Smallham and Exshire, coordination of work with families might be expected to present less of a problem than in Largeborough.

17. Despite these differences in structure the School Health Services of the three areas had the same functions and, apart from the medical inspections and treatment which they carry out, school doctors can play an important part in advising head teachers about difficulties in the behaviour of children and their parents.

18. One problem was far greater in Largeborough than in the other two areas. In Exshire and Smallham infestation was negligible and in Exshire the frequency of examinations for cleanliness was left to the discretion of the nursing staff. But in Largeborough there were, on the average, two inspections per annum for each school child and verminous cases amounted to 4.7 per cent of the number inspected. During 1963, cleansing notices were issued in respect of 2,420 pupils (under Section 54 (2), Education Act 1944) and cleansing orders in respect of 2,113 pupils (under Section 54 (3) of the same Act). These figures were slightly lower than those for 1962, but 307 cases of scabies were treated at clinics thus continuing the annual increase in this type of infestation which had been going on since 1958.

19. Another problem facing the School Medical Service in Largeborough was the shortage of speech therapists. There was no appreciable waiting list for speech therapy in the other two areas but in Largeborough the number on the waiting list increased from 375 in 1961 to 500 in 1963.

The School Psychological Service and Child Guidance

20. All three areas had suffered and were still suffering in 1964 from a shortage, of qualified professional staff especially in the Child Guidance Service. Exshire had been unable to obtain the services of a consultant psychiatrist and psychiatric cases were referred to two part-time clinics run by the Regional Hospital Board. There were vacancies in Smallham and Largeborough for educational psychologists. Lack of staff, especially psychiatric social workers, was holding up a comprehensive plan for the development of child guidance in Largeborough where the waiting list was lengthy and waiting periods of nine to ten months were common. Table 3 shows the staff employed in the Autumn of 1964 in the three areas. It will be remembered that the school population of Largeborough was nearly ten times that of the other two areas.

Table 3 School Psychological Service staff (Autumn term 1964)

The functions of the School Psychological Service

21. In all three areas the work of the service fell into two broad categories. Firstly, it dealt with behaviour problems and, secondly, with problems of a more strictly educational type where children were having learning difficulties. Cases were referred largely by school medical officers, head teachers and general practitioners but parents, probation officers, hospitals and other agencies could also ask for advice. In all areas the number of children who failed to keep appointments at clinics was causing concern but the shortage of social workers prevented a personal follow-up of these cases.

3. The Children's Department and family casework

22. Children's Departments were set up under the Children Act, 1948, with the function of providing for children deprived of a normal home life. Deprivation arises through the death, illness or desertion of parents or because parents have been unable for any other reason to care for their children properly. The departments are also responsible for children committed to the care of local authorities by juvenile courts because they have been neglected or ill-treated, or are beyond control, irregular attenders at school, in moral danger or offenders.

23. Children's Departments try, in the first instance, to provide support for families in danger of breaking up and, if this fails, they try and see that relatives or friends take over care of the children. If children have to be taken into care efforts are made to find a suitable substitute home with foster parents or in a children's home. Work to prevent the disintegration of the natural family had gone on for many years but it was not until the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 that children's committees were given the specific duty to take action to prevent children being removed from home or from appearing before the juvenile court. Children's Departments also have responsibilities for the supervision of children placed for adoption or in private foster homes. They provide approved schools, remand home accommodation and 'places of safety' for children removed from their own homes on magistrates' orders and they have certain responsibilities for providing reports to the juvenile courts. At any one time a Children's Department will be working on behalf of many more children than are in its care under the 1948 Act.

24. The Children's Departments required regular reports from the schools on the progress of children in care and from time to time were in contact with schools over children appearing before the juvenile courts or children of families with whom the Departments were concerned. School reports were usually obtained by formal written notes and the feeling in the schools, particularly in one area, was that more information about the children in care and more contact with the staff of the Children's Department would be useful.

Family casework

25. The three areas varied in their arrangements for family casework. Smallham had established in 1963 a family casework unit within its Children's Department. In Exshire the senior child care officer had general responsibility for preventive work. In Largeborough no specialised unit had been set up under the 1963 Act, each child care officer carrying his own load of preventive work. A family care unit for dealing with problem families had, however, been established as early as 1954 within the Mental Health Service of the Public Health Department. In December 1964, 90 families were receiving help from this unit although out of an establishment of fifteen social workers it had only seven. Since the survey was carried out in Largeborough family case workers in the family care section have been split up among the mental health teams covering the city. More mental health officers are also acquiring the training required and undertaking such work. A Family Service Unit supported by a grant from the City Council also operated in the northern part of the city and the Council of Social Service provided a personal and family casework service.

Table 4 Children in Care under Children Act 1948, and the staff of Children's Departments

4. The Probation Service

26. Since the age of criminal responsibility was raised to ten years under the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, probation officers' contacts with primary school children have been considerably reduced although they are still concerned with primary school children subject to supervision orders made as a result of children having appeared before the juvenile court as in need of care, protection or control. A negligible proportion of primary school children are affected by such orders but in Largeborough 219 school children were under statutory supervision for school attendance in December 1964 - a relatively high figure reflecting the large number of bad attenders taken before the juvenile courts by the Education Welfare Department. Probation officers are expected to maintain contact with the school while a child is under supervision, although they are not allowed to interview the child on school premises.

27. In all three areas probation officers did much work which indirectly benefited primary school children in giving advice about matrimonial, housing, financial, legal and family problems.

5. Other statutory agencies

28. Other statutory agencies were only concerned with primary school children indirectly. The National Assistance Board was sometimes asked by Education Welfare Departments to certify income in respect of free school meal applications and occasional inquiries made of them to see if special grants could be paid to a family on National Assistance. Mental welfare officers in Health Departments occasionally dealt with the parents of primary school children and local authority housing departments though decisions to rehouse or evict could make a big difference to the environment and welfare of children.

6. Voluntary organisations

29. In all three areas the NSPCC was the only voluntary society concerned specifically with the welfare of children and their families but there were other organisations whose interests, although more general, brought them into contact with primary school children. Largeborough had a particularly varied selection of such organisations as shown in the list below.

NSPCC inspectors helped over 3,000 children in Largeborough during 1964 and in Exshire 67 children were helped during the autumn term, 1964. In Smallham 25 families were under supervision in December 1964. The Red Cross occasionally provided transport to special schools. The WVS did the same and also provided clothing and arranged holidays for children in need. The Council of Social Service in Largeborough provided a casework service and sought to coordinate the work of statutory and voluntary agencies. In both Largeborough and Smallham the main work of the moral welfare associations was with unmarried mothers but they also dealt with family problems such as marital trouble, eviction notices, debts, etc. In Smallham, the New Centre for the Deaf cooperated with the development of partial hearing units in certain schools and, during school holidays, classes were held in the Centre. Mothers came to the Training Centre for mothers in Largeborough from all over the country, accompanied by their younger children, and were shown how to look after their families. Whole families from the city could also spend periods in some flats under the guidance of the warden and her staff. The Largeborough Family Service Unit operated from headquarters in one of the worst slum areas and confined itself to working with families in the neighbourhood needing intensive long term support. In March 1964, the Unit had seven caseworkers (including the organiser); 101 cases were active. The turnover of cases was small - only about 25 a year.

7. Coordination of services

30. In view of the highly specialised structure of English statutory and voluntary social services it is inevitable that from time to time several services become involved in the problems of a single family. Coordination of effort to avoid conflicting policies and to ensure a cooperative and mutually supportive approach is obviously necessary.

Local committees

31. In 1950 the Ministry of Health, the Home Office and the Ministry of Education issued a joint circular asking local authorities to consider appointing a designated officer to coordinate the work of statutory and voluntary services dealing with children who were in danger of being neglected or ill-treated in their own homes. It was suggested that this officer would be helped in his work by the setting up of a coordinating committee composed of representatives of the local services.

32. By 1964, the coordinating conference in Smallham, presided over by the children's officer and composed of heads of sections, was meeting eight times a year to review, on average, thirteen families on each occasion. Information was exchanged and decisions reached as to which officers should visit particular families. This committee also discussed broad policy issues. Separate case conferences of field workers met to deal with specific families and were convened by the children's officer.

33. Largeborough had never designated an officer for this work but the medical officer of health had called into being a 'Conference of Social Workers' to review families presenting complex urgent problems. This met six times in 1964 and discussed four to five cases at each meeting.

34. Exshire had two formal methods of coordinating departments. One was a 'Children at Risk' Committee which met monthly. About 40 children and their families had been discussed, many several times, in the two years since its inception. In addition there were problem family conferences called by district medical officers of health. Table 5 shows the composition of the committees for coordinating the social services in the different areas.

Table 5 Composition of Coordinating Committees

Other means of securing coordination

35. As might be expected in Smallham - a smaller and more compact area than Largeborough with far fewer social welfare workers - there was considerable informal cooperation between workers both by telephone and in personal discussion. Moreover, both in Smallham and Exshire, workers in the School Health Service had other functions and worked from multi-purpose clinics.

36. In Largeborough additional aids to coordination existed in the Council of Social Service. The Council's Personal Service Committee Case Panel brought together social workers from statutory and voluntary agencies to discuss cases of common concern. The Children's Department's Central Index of Cases recorded details of cases sent by local agencies where the children of the family were thought to be 'at risk'. The Largeborough City Council, aware of problems such as the multi-visiting of families and the need for more effective coordination between services, had set on foot a study of the welfare work of its various departments. At the time the study of primary schools was made the committee had not reported but since then the Council has received a report and important new measures are in hand. Departments have been asked to rationalise the areas into which they divide their work. The medical officer of health has been asked to set up a welfare centre in each of the areas planned and together with other chief officers will try to coordinate field work. Regular case conferences will be held and the active cooperation of voluntary organisations is being sought.

III. THE SURVEYS

1. Educational provision in the three areas

37. Largeborough had long been struggling with a shortage of teachers and this was reflected in that city's staffing ratio. An interesting point illustrating the different social composition of the two cities was that in Largeborough less than three per cent of all school children were receiving private education whereas in Smallham the figure was 24 per cent.

2. The sample of schools chosen

38. In each area the schools selected for study varied in size, were representative of different social and economic conditions and included, as well as maintained schools, some which were voluntary aided and run by religious bodies. In Exshire the small size of many rural schools made it necessary to include a larger number than in either of the other areas. Within each area there was a wide range in the size of classes in the selected schools. Table 6 gives details of the schools included in the samples.

Table 6 Size of schools and their religious affiliations (if any) (Autumn term 1964)

In each area the schools were situated in contrasting types of districts:

Largeborough

39. Shortage of time and the need to use scarce research assistance in limited areas of the city within easy reach of the research centre precluded any attempt to develop a sample of schools which was fully representative of all the primary schools in the city. It was therefore decided to take two convenient districts which, in their distinctive ways, were typical of many other parts of the city. Five schools were in the inner ring where much of the housing was 19th century terraced tunnel-back artisan dwellings. The population consisted largely of manual workers and their families living in rented accommodation. According to the 1961 Census, housing densities, the movement of population, the percentage of the population under 21 and of married women at work were all higher in this catchment area than in the city as a whole. There were small localised pockets of immigrants. The catchment area of the other seven schools was part of the outer urban zone and consisted predominantly of a municipal housing estate built during the 1930s. The 1961 Census showed that 14 per cent of the families were in owner-occupied property, three per cent in private rented accommodation and 83 per cent in municipal property. There was little overcrowding, the population was relatively stable and the 1961 Census showed only 0.64 per cent of the population born outside the United Kingdom. As with the inner area the population consisted predominantly of manual workers and their families but there were fewer unskilled manual workers and more non-manual workers and managers. The percentage of married women at work was lower than the city average.

Smallham

40. The position in Smallham can be briefly summarised:

Exshire41. The 21 schools studied in Exshire were situated in four widely separated parts of the county but were chosen as representative of the whole county. In spite of the rural surroundings of the schools, only 20 per cent of the pupils' fathers were in agricultural occupations. The biggest group (45 per cent) was employed on unskilled manual work. The schools were situated as follows:

3. The methods adopted in each area to locate and study welfare cases

42. Welfare cases were defined as any instance where a child's health, social adjustment or educational performance appeared to be suffering because of adverse home or other social factors.

43. In all three areas 'welfare case' was interpreted so as to include children whose behaviour, clothing or cleanliness gave cause for concern and failure on the part of parents to obtain medical treatment when required or to ensure that spectacles and other medical appliances recommended for their children were used. Children referred for examination with a view to special educational provision were included as were applicants for free school meals or other material aid although it was appreciated that such cases are not necessarily associated with family failure.

44. In each area welfare cases were found by asking head teachers to report on children who came within the category of welfare cases as defined. The heads were particularly requested to interpret welfare case in a broad sense and in some instances matters referred to the investigators were disregarded as not falling within the definition. Beyond this point the methods used for collecting further information and for recording data diverged and are dealt with in separate accounts of the surveys.

4. The Largeborough survey

45. In Largeborough the schools were visited each week and details of the welfare cases furnished by head teachers entered on schedules - one for each child involved in each separate welfare matter. Because of the system previously described for dealing with absences details of these cases were collected each week from the education welfare officers (EWOs). These officers were also asked to record all other welfare matters with which they dealt whether arising from referrals by other agencies or otherwise picked up in the course of their work. As the school clinics played an important part in the general welfare of school children especially in the inner area where some parents were in the habit of taking health and behaviour problems direct to the school medical officer, the clinics were asked to record welfare cases coming to their notice as well as contacts they had with other agencies on such cases. When the schedules for the term had been completed contact was made with the Children's Department, Probation Service, NSPCC, the Family Care Section of the Public Health Department, the Family Service Unit and the Largeborough Council of Social Service to ascertain whether they had had dealings with the families of the welfare cases during the autumn term or at any time during the previous two years. The summary and tables which follow show the results of the survey.

(i) Education Welfare and Attendance Service

46. Taking the attendance work of the EWOs, the most significant points arising from Table 7A, which analyses the amount of work and number of children involved, were the enormous volume of absence slips, the large number of home visits and the high percentage of children in respect of whom home visits were made - 37 per cent in the inner area and 22 per cent in the outer area. There was nothing like this in the other two authorities. In all the above respects the aggregate figures for the inner area were much higher than those for the outer area. There were, however, marked differences which are difficult to explain between schools in the same area so that the highest percentage of children from one school whose homes were visited in the outer area (41 per cent) was almost as high as the highest in the inner area (43 per cent).

Table 7A The number of children whose homes were visited

47. Table 7B deals solely with those children whose homes were visited during the term. In the inner area 50 per cent of the children were visited only once and 23 per cent had two visits compared with 62 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, in the outer area. Twice as many children (15 per cent) were visited four or more times in the inner area as in the outer (seven per cent).

Table 7B Number of visits to each child's home

48. In the outer area 87 per cent of all homes visited resulted in no reply or a reply to the effect that the child was ill or receiving medical attention. The percentage in the inner area was 74 per cent (Table 7C). The incidence of all other reasons - most of which would serve as a possible warning light for a preventive social work service - was roughly twice as high for the inner area as for the outer. The percentage of home visits on which further action was taken by the EWOs was in fact almost twice as high in the inner area (13 per cent) as in the outer (seven per cent) but bearing in mind the enormous number of cases originating from absence slips the proportion in which further action was taken by the department was exceedingly small (Table 7D),

Table 7C Results of visits to homes

Table 7D Visits after which further action was taken

49. Most of the work arising from home visits related to the warning of parents. The greater number of verbal and written warnings in the inner area, 85, as compared with 21 for the outer area, indicated the more serious view taken of the absences from those schools. One might, however, ask whether a warning was always the best method of dealing with some of these cases and whether closer investigation and a fuller knowledge of all relevant details might not have indicated the need for social work help. The EWOs were not trained social workers and had not the skills for making a scientific diagnosis nor had they the time or responsibility to probe into the affairs of the families. A close linking of services might, however, show up cases where unsatisfactorily explained absence from school was one of the several indications of possible parental failure and when this occurred a social work agency with the appropriate workers could be alerted and asked to investigate more fully. In very few cases did EWOs have any direct contact with other agencies and in both areas together only 17 cases were referred to a senior officer for contact with other agencies. In the seven cases referred for possible prosecution, legal proceedings followed in five - all in the inner area. In all 13 cases where parents from the inner area were invited to attend the Appeals Committee (the special sub-committee to interview parents and assess absence cases) warnings that the parents would be summoned unless the children attended regularly in the future were issued. The parents of two families (involving six school children) were called in from the outer area and in these cases the sub-committee recommended further action to try to help the parents with their problems.

50. EWOs dealt with 159 cases other than those arising from absence slips: 127 in the inner area and 32 in the outer area. Most cases were referred by the School Meals Department (51), the School Health Service (42) and, to a lesser extent, by parents (17), school staff (15), voluntary bodies (four) and miscellaneous agencies (eight). The remaining 22 cases, mostly concerned with lack of footwear, were picked up by the EWOs in the course of their work. The two most important reasons for referral were (a) infestation, where the EWO was required to serve personally on the parents a copy of the statutory notice issued by the School Medical Service requiring the parents to see that the child was cleansed, and (b) the assessment of parents whose children had free school dinners. The next largest category concerned lack of shoes and clothing. Most of these were referred by the schools or were raised by parents to see whether the officers were prepared to grant any of the 'boot tickets' which they dispensed on behalf of a local charity. In ten cases officers were asked to help with family problems relating to the care of a child, but four of these only involved visiting a family on behalf of a voluntary agency to deliver goods and obtain information.

51. Table 8 shows the action taken by the EWOs to deal with matters other than absence slips. Contacts with parents were mostly in connection with school meals and vermin notices (94 cases), collecting information or giving advice on other matters (24 cases) and clothing or footwear needs (23 cases).

Table 8 The action taken by Educational Welfare Officers in other than absence slip cases (total number of cases =159)

52. If the number of home visits made by the EWOs on account of absence is added to all other welfare cases with which they dealt the total comes to 1,735 for the inner area and 726 for the outer area. This works out at an average of 27 per week per school in the inner area and in the outer area (counting the separate infant and junior schools as one school) of 11 per week. An EWO's caseload (the number of school children for whom he is responsible) in the inner area is just over two thousand so his weekly number of cases in term time would be about 120. In the outer area, where an average caseload is 4,000 children, the weekly number of cases requiring attention would be about 110. With this number of cases plus the census of school-age children and other duties it seems clear there would be little time for work in depth with families or for contacts with other local workers.

(ii) The schools

53. Head teachers were asked to report each week on (a) contacts which outside agencies had with the schools on welfare matters involving their pupils, (b) welfare cases arising within the schools which required referral to another service, (c) welfare cases which arose out of parents contacting the schools or which necessitated the schools contacting parents, and (d) welfare cases arising within the schools which were dealt with by the schools without the help of an outside agency.

54. Table 9 shows the extent to which other agencies referred to the schools during the term. It should be remembered that the table deals solely with cases (other than those arising from absence slips) which fall into the definition of welfare case used for this study. Although a wide range of services were in touch with the schools the total of 95 contacts from outside covered 10 complete primary schools over a period of 14 weeks so the weekly average per school was less than one. There were many more outside contacts with schools in the inner area than in the outer area where over a third of the referrals were by Children's Department residential staff about children in nearby grouped cottage and family homes.

Table 9 Agencies which referred welfare matters to schools

55. Among the more numerous reasons for referral to the schools were the need to obtain information about a child (16 cases), to report or discuss behaviour problems or truancy (15 cases), the need for free school meals, clothing or footwear (15 cases), matters relating to children in the care of the local authority (10 cases), backwardness or speech defects (seven cases) and family problems (six cases).

56. Many of the matters brought to the attention of the schools by outside agencies could be dealt with on the telephone or by correspondence but in 10 cases in the inner area head teachers felt it necessary to ask parents to come to see them, although three failed to attend. Two other parents were written to by head teachers in the inner area, who also had to take matters up with the children involved in seven cases. In the outer area no case led to head teachers meeting parents although parents were written to or contacted by telephone in two cases. In three cases clothing was provided for children by the schools.

57. Table 10 shows that 93 welfare matters arising within the schools were referred to other agencies by the schools (apart from the absence slips). If matters referred to the school attendance officer, school nurse or health visitor and school medical officer were removed there would be only 50 matters left and almost a half (23) were to the Speech Therapy Service.

Table 10 Cases referred to other agencies by the schools

58. The problems giving rise to referrals to other agencies were:

59. Table 11 shows the nature of contacts on welfare matters between the schools and the parents. In each category the contacts have been divided into those initiated by the parents and those by the school. They are further broken down according to the mode of contact. Over twice as many welfare matters gave rise to contacts with parents in inner area compared with the outer zone. But even so the total of welfare incidents giving rise to contact between parents and school in the inner area was 187, which is an average of only just over 2.5 per week per school. In that total of 187 the same child has also been involved on more than one occasion. Free school meals, need for footwear or clothing, truanting and behaviour problems presented - in that order of size - the major reasons for the head teacher seeing parents in the inner area. Family problems (which included problems of marital relationships, financial problems, difficulties in providing for the proper care of children, illness in family) provided the next largest group together with incidents where children were subject to assault, interference or bullying by other children or by outside persons. The differences in the outer area were that truanting problems were negligible and the need for clothing, footwear and free school meals much less.

Table 11 Contacts between schools and parents on welfare matters

60. Following contacts with parents 66 children (51 in the inner area and 15 in the outer) were put on free school meals or referred for the attention of the School Meals Service. Sixty-three cases in the inner area and 19 in the outer area were either discussed with or referred to other agencies - mostly the Education Welfare and Attendance Department. Parents were advised to contact other agencies in 12 cases in the inner area. In the church schools use was made of religious welfare agencies, ministers and sisters of churches where this was thought appropriate. In nine cases clothing was provided by school staff.

61. Head teachers recorded only 28 cases (12 in the inner area and 16 in the outer) which were noted and dealt with in the schools without parents or an outside service being involved. Behaviour problems (11 cases), the need for free meals, clothing or footwear (eight cases) and minor family problems (five cases) constituted the bulk of these. In five cases the schools supplied shoes or clothing to help the children.

(iii) The School Medical Service

62. Each set of schools in the sample was dealt with - among many others - by one school clinic, so research contacts were restricted to one clinic in each area. The School Medical Officers and the school nursing staff see a great deal of children and parents. In the inner area, for example, the School Medical Officer carried out over 250 medical examinations during the term and over 2,000 children were seen by nursing staff at school surveys. In 345 instances in the inner area children were found to be verminous and 222 initial warning notices with an accompanying offer of help in cleansing were sent to parents during the term. In the outer area 37 initial warnings were sent and no further action was called for during the term. A second more severe stricture giving the parent 48 hours in which to get the child's head clean and which is served by hand by the EWO was served in just over fifty cases in the inner area. It was at this stage that a verminous condition was counted as a 'welfare case' from the point of view of this research.

63. The school medical officers and nursing staff cooperated in recording welfare matters falling within the scope of the inquiry although from their point of view this naturally involved a very narrow definition of welfare. The number recorded amounted to 146 in the two areas. Ninety-two cases arose in the course of the work of the clinics mainly through verminous conditions and failure of parents to keep appointments for their children's medical examination or treatment. These cases usually led to a home visit by the school nurse. Fifty-four cases were referred to the clinics from schools (22 cases), parents (17 cases), other sections of the School Health Service (eight cases) and outside agencies (seven cases). More parents went with their problems to the clinic in the inner area which was easily accessible and where the same SMO had worked for fifteen years. The more numerous reasons for referral to the clinics were behaviour problems (12), family problems (10), parental failure over appointments (10), enuresis/encopresis (seven) and speech impediments (five). In 12 cases the matters were referred by the clinics to another agency.

Table 12 Children and families involved in welfare incidents and in welfare cases

(iv) The overall pattern of welfare activities

64. In Table 12 the welfare activities of the schools, EWOs and school clinics have been brought together. Only those absence slip cases where a home visit was made are included.

65. It will be seen that the schools in the inner area were involved in some way - apart from absence cases - with nearly 10 per cent of their children whereas in the outer area it was six per cent. The EWOs had dealings with 42 per cent of the children in the inner area and 24 per cent in the outer.

66. The accumulated total of incidents recorded was 2,175 for the inner area and 910 for the outer, an average of approximately 30 per week and 13 per week per complete primary school respectively. There is, of course, an element of double counting in this total as incidents recorded as referrals out by the school, EWO or clinic to one of the others were referrals in to the receiving body. But the actual net number of children involved in all these incidents was 969, or 46 per cent of the children on the registers in the inner area and 483, or 26 per cent, of children in the outer. The net number of families was 736 and 421 respectively. There was no record obtained of the number of families with children at the schools but it seems safe to assume that the percentage of families concerned in the welfare incidents would be similar to that of the children.

67. In the analysis so far, many children have been included simply because an EWO had made a home visit in respect of absence from school, although there was no reason to doubt parental capacity to provide properly for their care and education. If all cases are eliminated where the attendance officer either had no reply or found the child was ill, 438 children in 293 families are left in the inner area and 148 children in 113 families in the outer. It is these children and their families that must be regarded as the welfare cases. The children formed 21 per cent of the children on the registers in the inner area and 7.9 per cent of those in the outer area (14.9 per cent for the two areas combined).

(v) The extent to which welfare case families were also known to other agencies

68. The welfare cases described above were checked against the records of the Children's Department, Probation Service, NSPCC, Family Care Section of Public Health Department, Family Service Unit and the Personal Service Committee of the Council of Social Service to see whether the families were known to these agencies. It was found (Table 13) that almost a quarter of the families had been dealt with by one or more of these agencies during the autumn term 1964, and 30 per cent during the two years 1963/64. Thirty per cent were on the Children's Department Central Index. The contribution of the Conference of Social Workers to the coordination of services - at least in terms of coverage - was, for this particular sample of families, negligible. Only one case in each area had been discussed despite the fact that, as Table 14 shows, 15 families were known to three or more of the six agencies checked and 120 were on the Children's Department Index of 'children at risk'.

Table 13 Families known to other agencies

69. Table 14 analyses the families known to other agencies at any time during 1963/64. The highest number was known to the Children's Department with the Probation Service, NSPCC, Council of Social Service, Family Service Unit and Family Care Section following in that order. (The last two did not accept cases from the outer area.) The second part of Table 14 shows the number of agencies to which each family was known. As would be expected there was a greater number of families known to several agencies in the inner area than in the outer. Fifteen out of the 406 families checked - roughly four per cent - were known to three or more of the six agencies.

Table 14 The other agencies to which welfare case families were known (covering the two years 1963-64)

5. The Smallham survey

70. During the autumn term the schools were visited weekly to collect and sift information about the welfare cases. The head teachers provided the data but there were opportunities for talking to class teachers and in this way information was gained about their attitudes and their knowledge of the social services. Further information about the teachers' attitudes to the social services was collected by a questionnaire. Cases referred by the schools to other agencies were followed up to see what transpired. This entailed weekly visits to the Special Services Department and the list of welfare cases collected was checked against records of the Children's Department, NSPCC, Moral Welfare Association, Probation Department, School Psychological Service, School Medical Service, and the coordinating Conference records for 1964 to see how far these agencies were involved in the same cases.

71. Out of the 2,667 children in the sample of schools, 84 were finally selected as welfare cases from those reported by head teachers because their behaviour, health or educational performance appeared to be unsatisfactory. The 84 cases fell roughly into five groups according to where the emphasis of the problem lay. (1) Attendance cases where failure to attend school gave rise to concern. (2) Behaviour cases such as stealing, unruly behaviour, bullying or withdrawal. (3) Medical cases involving failure to keep clinic appointments where there seemed to be no good reason and verminous conditions. (4) Education cases which included retarded development, queries about mental incapacity or the need for remedial teaching. (5) Social cases consisting of such matters as application for investigation of the need for free school meals or other forms of material help. Some children had several problems but the majority fitted naturally into one or other category and it is therefore helpful to analyse the cases on this basis, taking the groups in order according to the number of cases in each.

(i) Attendance cases

72. A total of 25 children were recorded as attendance cases. Twenty-four were reported to the Special Services Department of the Education Authority and of these:

• Twenty children were dealt with by that department without calling in or consulting any other agency. (Eighteen were on the agreed list of irregular attenders).
• Nine children received only one visit; seven had an acceptable excuse, one child was reprimanded by the head teacher, and an official warning letter was sent to the parents of another.
• Eleven children received more than one visit (eight received two visits; two received three visits; one received four visits). Most of the absences were due to minor illnesses or holidays with parents but three children, who came from problem families, had no valid excuse.

• Two children were referred to the School Psychological Service. One was a non-urgent case. The other, an adopted boy, aged nine, who refused to go to school, presented a more complicated problem. The head teacher consulted the Special Services Department and the School Psychological Service, which referred the boy to the Child Guidance Clinic.
• Two children were referred to the Children's Department. In one case the head teacher telephoned the Special Services Department because a child was absent; the family had been evicted, its whereabouts were unknown, and the mother had attempted suicide. A telephone call to the Special Services Department from the Children's Department, which was supervising the family, revealed that they were in the homeless families unit. This information was passed to the school. In general, the children of this family attended school regularly. In the second case, the special services officer consulted the Children's Department about the family background of a girl aged eight. He already knew that the father had attempted to commit suicide and subsequently the mother had suffered a near nervous breakdown. However, the family were unknown at the time to the Children's Department although it came to their attention later when problems of illegitimacy and rent arrears developed.

(ii) Behaviour cases

75. Nineteen children, including five who had been found stealing, were recorded in this category. They were referred as follows:

Of the 16 cases referred to the School Psychological Service

• ten were reported directly to the educational psychologist;
• six were referred to remedial advisory teacher for testing; of these five were subsequently referred to the educational psychologist and, of these, three were recommended for remedial reading lessons.

77. In three cases only the School Psychological Service was not involved:

• One boy, aged seven, was found stealing. As it was a trifling amount the head teacher intended to ignore it but the health visitor reported it to the Children's Department, the boy was admitted to the hospital where day teaching is provided for maladjusted children;
• One boy, aged 11, was difficult and unruly at school. The head teacher and school medical officer suggested to the mother that she should take the boy to the Child Guidance Clinic. She refused. The health visitor reported that, in a material sense, the home was good. The child's behaviour improved and no further action was contemplated;
• One boy was difficult and unruly and refused to eat at school, he was living with his mother but his parents were separated and he had spent a period in an LCC children's home. The Children's Department was supervising the case.

79. The families of 17 of the 19 children were already known to at least one agency and five families had been discussed by the coordinating committee during 1964. Thus the school was by no means the only organisation to notice that some families had problems but class teachers were the first to notice the behaviour of 12 children. There were a number of cases where children or their families were known to agencies, other than those to which they were referred, without the latter apparently being aware that these other agencies were or had been in touch with the families.

(iii) Medical cases

80. Eighteen children were classified as medical cases. Of these, 16 were attended by the School Health Service and in only two cases did this service consult anybody else, except perhaps the family doctor. The other two cases were dealt with by the Special Services Department on being approached directly by the parents. In one case it called in the School Health Service, the Children's Department, and the NSPCC. In the second case it called in the Housing Department.

81. The great majority of problems were not of a serious nature, being mainly to do with failure to keep appointments, listlessness in school for which some kind of special care or treatment was recommended, or advice on how to deal with a dirty head. Usually, after a little persuasion, the advice was observed.

82. One or two cases however, required more attention. In one case where a child continually lost or broke his spectacles and where appointments were disregarded a prosecution was being considered. Another child, aged five, appeared in school with face injuries. The head teacher called in the school nurse who telephoned to the Children's Department and the NSPCC. The general practitioner was also called and the child was sent to hospital; the child care officer visited the child's home. In another case a parent complained that the ill-health of her child was caused by poor housing conditions. At the suggestion of the general practitioner the school nurse had a lengthy talk with both parents and, after deciding that the mother was suffering from extreme anxiety, advised her to seek medical help; the general practitioner and psychiatrist visited the home and advised a move; the Housing Department offered the family another house. The head teacher was unaware of the child's illness although he was known to be backward in reading.

83. The extent to which children or their families in cases classified as medical were already known to other departments is shown by the following list.

Nine of these families were apparently known only to the School Medical Service. Teachers were the first to notice ten of the medical cases. One child was reported by a play group supervisor. Other cases were noticed by the doctor, school nurse or parent.

(iv) Education cases

84. There were 13 children in this category all of whom were referred to the School Psychological Service. Three children were referred directly to the educational psychologist. Ten children were referred to remedial advisory teachers for testing, who, subsequently, referred eight of them to the educational psychologist. Out of the total of 11 children referred to the educational psychologist two did not keep their appointments; remedial teaching was recommended for three children and four were referred to the Child Guidance Clinic. The parents of one child referred to the clinic refused to cooperate. The parents of a second child would not agree to its being transferred to a training centre. One child became an out-patient at the children's hospital.

85. There were few instances of other departments being called in. Two or three cases were referred to the school medical officer, generally for hearing tests, and the school medical officer referred one child to the hospital for a thorough medical examination. In one case, where lack of progress at school was combined with very bad attendance, the head teacher contacted the Special Services Department. In two cases head teachers discussed the problem with parents although all parents were, of course, notified formally by the head teacher or through the School Medical Service if their children were recommended to visit the educational psychologist or the Child Guidance Clinic.

86. The extent to which children or their families were known to other agencies is shown below.

87. Only four cases were not already known to an agency other than the School Psychological Service which itself had already had dealings with five of these children or their families.

88. As was to be expected poor progress was largely a matter for the schools. Class teachers reported nine children and, during a survey of eight year old children, remedial teachers confirmed that the progress of four others was unsatisfactory. On only one occasion was a school approached by a parent who was worried about his child's progress.

(v) Social cases

89. Social problems ranged from applications for financial and material help to difficulties about getting children to school. There were nine children in this category.

90. Eight children were referred to the Special Services Department either by the parents or by the school. Three were dealt with solely by this Department, three referred to one other department, and two referred to two other departments. The other services and persons involved were the Children's Department, the School Psychological Service, the school medical officer, the health visitor and the domestic help service. In the ninth case the School Medical Service was approached directly by a parent.

91. In one of the more serious social cases two children were found wandering by the police at 5 a.m. This was reported to the head teacher who informed the Special Services Department which, in turn, contacted the Children's Department. A child care officer visited the family. A health visitor was already visiting the family frequently.

92. Most of the children came from homes where standards were poor. In seven out of the nine cases the families were known to the Children's Department and the special services officer who dealt with the cases was aware of this in four instances. The NSPCC had been in touch with two families though the Inspector was not consulted by the Special Services Department. The School Psychological Service knew of three of the families and Probation one. The coordinating conference had discussed three of the families in 1964. Here again, it was clear that these were not new social problems discovered by the schools. The school noticed and brought forward two of the nine cases recorded during the term but both families were already well known to other agencies.

(vi) The overall pattern of welfare cases

93. In the sample of schools, three per cent of the children were recognised as presenting some sort of welfare problem. During the survey no instances were mentioned of problems which the schools had been able to deal with without the help of any outside department. A number of children were under observation in the schools but, apparently, this meant simply that they would be watched for a term or two before a final decision was taken to refer them to outside departments. There was no evidence of home visiting by any of the teachers. The School Psychological Service specifically discouraged children under the age of seven being referred for treatment, since it was held that any behavioural difficulties might well disappear as they grew older. Head teachers only discussed children's problems with parents on 13 occasions.

94. All the welfare cases, then, were referred to some outside department. A summary is given in Table 15. In nearly half the cases this was the Special Services Department, in 39 per cent some branch of the School Psychological Service and a similar proportion was referred to some part of the School Medical Service. The Children's Department was contacted in 11 cases, and the Housing Department and the NSPCC were each brought in on one case. Two thirds of the cases were dealt with solely by the department to which they were initially referred but 26 children were referred to, or discussed by, more than one department. No cases were referred to the Probation Service, perhaps partly because of its agreement that the Children's Department should undertake voluntary supervision.

95. Nearly three quarters of the children or their families were already known to outside welfare departments. Forty-eight were known to the Children's Department, 34 to the School Psychological Service, 12 to the NSPCC, five to the Probation Service and four to the Moral Welfare Association. During 1964, the coordinating conference had discussed 13 of the families included in the sample. Altogether 60 of the 84 children in the sample were already known to an outside welfare agency and in 17 instances the department to which the child was referred during the survey period knew about this. In only 24 or just over one quarter of the cases reported by the schools was this the first time that the child or its family had been in touch with a welfare department apart from the Special Services Department.

Table 15 Summary of welfare cases

Table 16 Cases not previously known to outside welfare agency

96. The great majority of children reported by the schools were noticed to be in difficulties by their teachers. In 13 cases parents made the first move, although in three instances the teacher was also aware of a child's difficulties; in four cases the police took action, although one child's behaviour had already attracted the teacher's attention; five children were first reported by the School Medical Service and one by a play group supervisor. Of the 24 cases not previously known to outside welfare departments, 19 were first noticed by teachers, three by parents and two by the School Medical Service (see Table 16).

6. The Exshire survey

97. As in the other areas the sample of schools was visited regularly to gather from head teachers details of the children and the nature of problems arising. Contacts between the schools and welfare agencies were noted as were those between teaching staff and parents. Officers in local authority services and other agencies were contacted during the term for further information.

(i) The welfare cases

98. There were 220 welfare cases involving children who required attention which fell outside the immediate scope of primary education or the more straightforward forms of medical treatment. The welfare cases were classified under a number of heads. (1) Backwardness, in which was included all cases of suspected retardation or mental incapacity which required investigation. (2) Attendance, covering cases of failure to attend school. (3) Material welfare, which covered applications or inquiries for free school dinners, help with clothing or shoes and other material needs. (4) Inadequate/irregular families, in which the general welfare of children gave rise to concern because the family situation presented grave difficulties for the children or where one or other of the parents was absent. (5) Behaviour, which covered such things as stealing, bullying and other forms of overt aggression or marked withdrawal. (6) Medical, where parents were not apparently taking necessary steps to safeguard the health, sight, hearing, etc. of their children. The numbers of cases falling into each category are shown in Table 19.

99. Of the total sample of 3,083 children only seven per cent were ascertained as welfare cases and about a third of these were cases of backwardness only. Some schools referred far more welfare cases than others (see Table 17). This reflected differences in the attitude of head teachers to referring problems outside the school to other agencies and their awareness of the existence of problems as well as in the actual incidence of problems.

Table 17 Distribution of welfare cases between schools

100. Table 18 shows the extent to which different agencies were involved with the welfare cases. The weight falling on the School Psychological Service reflects the relatively high proportion of educational problems.

Table 18 Services involved (several agencies were often dealing with a single case)

101. Table 19 shows that in 57 per cent of the 220 welfare cases backwardness was a matter of concern whereas poor attendance, behaviour problems and the need for material aid each accounted for only 17 per cent. Nearly half the children with problems came from families which were either inadequate in the sense that the children were neglected, or suffered emotional and social deprivation or disturbance, or irregular in that at least one parent was missing. Many of these children with problems would therefore seem to require intensive social treatment. Backwardness which occurs so frequently in the welfare cases is often looked upon as a problem in itself but may well be a symptom of environmental difficulties.

Table 19 Frequency of problems (some children had more than one problem)

(ii) The incidence of welfare cases according to the characteristics of children, their families and their schools

102. Table 20 shows the incidence of welfare problems according to sex. There were equal numbers of boys and girls in the whole school sample but boys presented welfare problems far more often than girls and boys had more than one problem more often than girls. Behaviour problems were commoner amongst boys than amongst girls. On the other hand there were more irregular attenders amongst the girls than amongst the boys. Backwardness was the most common problem amongst both sexes.

Table 20 Incidence of problems amongst boys and girls (percentages refer to totals in boys' and girls' sub-groups)

103. In the following tables of welfare cases by age of children (Table 21) and father's occupation (Table 22) no accurate comparison was possible with the population of the county as a whole, since the 1961 census statistics were not available at the time. For example, it was not possible to assess properly whether any occupational grouping was over or under represented. It was found, however, that non-manual workers' families provided only 10 per cent of the children with problems and manual groups provided 77 per cent, with 13 per cent not known.

Table 21 Frequency of problems according to age (figures in brackets show distribution of welfare cases by age)

104. Backward children were fairly evenly distributed over the years eight to ten. The Table reflects a consistent coverage over the junior years on the part of psychologists and remedial teachers, with some attention already being paid to backward children in infant schools.

Table 22 Type of problem according to father's occupation

105. Amongst problem children whose fathers were in clerical and manual occupations backwardness was the most common difficulty, but amongst the children of agricultural workers material welfare in the sense of free meals and clothing relief were also important. Behaviour and attendance problems were most prominent amongst the children of unskilled workers and probably disproportionate to their percentage in the school population of the county.

Table 23 Type of welfare problem according to school stream (if any)

106. Table 23 showing the frequency of the more important problems apart from backwardness according to school stream indicates that among the B and C stream children there was a higher proportion of behaviour problems than amongst other children. Cases of backwardness have been excluded from this Table as the vast majority would obviously be found in remedial or special classes or in C streams.

Only 29 per cent of the children in remedial and special classes came from inadequate or irregular families, although these families accounted for 44 per cent of the welfare cases. Thus 71 per cent of the low achieving children must have come from the 56 per cent of normal homes in the sub-sample.

Table 24 Size of family and type of problem

107. Table 24 relating size of family to type of problem shows that amongst children coming from large families the problem of backwardness accounted for a slightly larger proportion of welfare cases than amongst those coming from smaller families. Behaviour problems did not account for a disproportionately large proportion of the welfare cases in large families. As might be expected, however, children from families with four or more children needed more help in the form of free meals and other material aid.

Table 25 Backwardness and behaviour problems according to number of schools attended

108. Table 25 shows that backwardness was roughly as common amongst those who had attended only one school (60 per cent of the welfare cases) as amongst those who had attended two or more schools (54 per cent). On the other hand behaviour problems increased with the number of schools attended. Of the children who attended three or more schools 34 per cent had behaviour problems compared with 13 per cent of those who attended only one school. Some Service families included in the survey seem to have had a number of moves as had families of some of the less well settled farm workers.

Table 26 Inadequate/irregular homes and types of problems

109. The 97 children from inadequate and irregular families comprised 44 per cent of all the welfare cases. Yet, as Table 26 shows, these children contributed only 34 per cent of the total number of cases of backwardness and retardation - as well as only 29 per cent of those in remedial or special classes. (See Table 23.) But children from these same families contributed more than their quota of behaviour problems (i.e. they accounted for 65 per cent of all behaviour cases but for only 44 per cent of all the welfare cases). Their need for material welfare was also, as would be expected, disproportionate; 73 per cent of those needing free meals or other forms of aid came from inadequate/irregular families.

(iii) Multi-problem and single problem children

(a) Multi-problem children

110. There were 98 children reported for two or more problems. They constituted 3.1 per cent of the children enrolled in the sample schools. Table 27 analyses the kinds of problems they presented and shows that 72 per cent came from inadequate or irregular families. Over half the multi-problem children were backward.

Table 27 The relative importance of the different types of problem affecting 'multi-problem' children

Table 28 Attention received by 'multi-problem' cases (98 children)

111. Table 28 shows the attention given to the multi-problem children. Head teachers' contacts with parents were not always interviews in the head's office but sometimes they were made through a health visitor or welfare officer. Only nine children were being seen by the psychiatric social worker. Although all multi-problem children do not require intensive casework, this number of referrals is very small when it is remembered that 71 children came from inadequate or irregular homes and that 35 had behaviour problems. Psychologists visited only nine children, and remedial teachers none. Although officially home visiting is encouraged there is little time left after the primary tasks of remedial teaching and assessment have been fulfilled. Educational welfare officers visited the parents of 28 children, mostly to check for absence or to arrange relief and school meals. Social casework was not expected from the EWOs for they had neither the training nor the time to do such work.

(b) Single problem children

112. One hundred and twenty-two children were reported as having only one problem (see Table 29) but they may have had other problems which went unrecognised by the workers who reported them because of pressure of time and the well known tendency for workers to view problems largely in terms of their own professional orientation. The parents of only 18 of the 122 single problem children had been contacted by head teachers.

Table 29 The nature of single problems (122 children)

113. The most likely group to have the full implications of their problems incompletely dealt with would be the backward children who presented no other apparent problem. Most would be regarded by heads and remedial teachers as having educational problems only. Of the single problem children, 70 were backward, 68 of whom were having remedial teaching. Table 30 shows that there were no visits to the homes of single problem backward children by remedial teachers, welfare officers or psychologists. Only four of the backward children's parents were contacted by head teachers; the psychiatric social worker was engaged with only five of the families. Children who were very withdrawn or aggressive were generally given treatment but the academic performance of some of the more quiet inoffensive children might also have been improved by sustained casework with their parents. Some of these children give no trouble but are disturbed nevertheless and their difficulties are not so easily detected as those in children who exhibit more spectacular behaviour.

Table 30 Treatment of 70 'single problem' backward children

114. Only 11 single problem backward children received any attention other than remedial teaching. Moreover, not all the children who qualified for remedial teaching were receiving it. Testing of children in the eight plus and nine plus age ranges was undertaken in 1964 and showed that approximately 20 per cent had a reading quotient of less than 85. Not all of the 20 per cent would need remedial teaching. Six hundred and sixteen out of a total sample of 3,083 children would have a reading quotient of less than 85 and one might expect that head teachers would refer more than 126 for special attention.

(iv) The welfare cases of the various departments

(a) Schools

115. As expected, head teachers were aware of most of the welfare cases which emerged during the survey (215 out of 220 cases). As Table 31 shows, backwardness was their main concern (58 per cent of cases). Head teachers had contact with parents in over a third of the cases; in particular, with parents whose children were irregular attenders or had behaviour problems. However, not all such contacts were with the parents in person; some visits were made by health visitors or welfare officers on the head's behalf. It seems likely that some problems went unrecognised because, for example, only seven per cent of the children in the sample schools were reported to provide welfare problems of any kind. But if reading difficulties can go undetected (see para. 114) it is likely that non-educational problems will be less often noted. Tables 31 and 32 are based on data supplied by head teachers. There is no provision for meticulous records of such cases to be kept in the schools, and hence these Tables show a little variance with other Tables originated in the various welfare departments.

Table 31 Problems of concern to head teachers and contacts with parents

Table 32 Action taken by head teachers

116. Table 32 shows how the head teachers dealt with the cases with which they were concerned. As was to be expected from the nature of the problems, referrals were mainly to remedial teachers, the School Psychological Service or Education Welfare Department.

(b) The School Psychological Service

117. Since this service was established in Exshire only in 1962 with a very small staff it was decided to concentrate on primary school children during the early years to ensure the fullest possible coverage for the future.

Psychologists

118. Of 75 children who were referred to the educational psychologists (see Table 33) 66 were referred by the schools, eight by a psychiatrist, two by parents and one by a speech therapist. They were all referred for testing and diagnosis and, beyond this, most were of no further direct concern to the psychologists but were referred to remedial teachers. Psychologists were giving intensive treatment and teaching to a small number of the more serious and complicated cases of backwardness and behaviour.

Table 33 Problems of concern to psychologists (75 children)

Table 34 Action taken by psychologists (75 children)

119. Most problems referred to the School Psychological Service were of an educational nature and Table 34 shows the action taken. It was the official policy to bring parents into the treatment process but, of 75 cases, only seven were referred to the psychiatric social worker and the psychologists met only 10 parents. It is possible that more children's difficulties could be mitigated if there could be greater consultation between home and educational services, so that some integration of these two major segments of the child's world might be achieved. At the time of the survey this could be attempted only in the most extreme cases.

Psychiatric Social Worker

120. As Table 35 shows only 13 of the 220 welfare cases in the sample were referred to the one psychiatric social worker employed. Several of the children were siblings from one family.

Table 35 The psychiatric social worker: problems of the 13 children referred and action taken

Although eight children were backward this was probably incidental to the primary reasons for referral which were likely to be behaviour, poverty and gross parental inadequacy. Table 35 shows that the psychiatric social worker was largely concerned with multi-problem children; the 13 cases between them had 23 problems. Most of the psychiatric social worker's cases were referred by the psychologists, peripatetic teachers or schools, although she sometimes worked with the Children's Department on cases where there was some emotional disturbance. The small proportion of welfare cases referred to the psychiatric social worker suggests that psychologists, peripatetic teachers and head teachers viewed children's problems largely in terms of school and the education of the child, rather than of 'the whole child' in his global setting. It seemed that psychiatric social workers, as members of the School Psychological Service, were often regarded as workers who specialised in 'abnormal' children. Thus many 'normal' children who may be experiencing marked social difficulties may not be referred to them. It appeared to the researcher that generically trained social workers with a sound orientation in education and child development might be more appropriate for the task of treating 'normal' children having difficulties and would more often attract direct referrals from head teachers. These workers could deal with problems that were not of direct concern to educational psychologists and would relieve educational welfare officers of an unreasonable load for which few have the time or qualifications to deal.

Peripatetic remedial teachers

121. All the 89 children dealt with by these teachers were backward and 12, in addition, presented behaviour problems. Although remedial teachers were officially encouraged to make home visits and to have other contacts with parents, none was reported (see Table 36). No doubt large caseloads were the reason for this, and it is doubtful whether the remedial teachers' orientation and training would fit them for the more complicated and continual contacts with the children's families. It was recognised that caseloads for remedial work alone at the time of the survey were too large and shortly afterwards three more peripatetic teachers were recruited.

Table 36 The action taken by peripatetic teachers (89 children)

Most remedial teaching took place in schools but, as the new clinics are developed, more will probably be done in them. This will provide greater opportunities for parents to be interviewed when they bring their children. Any problems which were seen to fall outside the remedial teachers' primary function were usually reported to the psychologist, psychiatric social worker or child care officer and home visits are a feature of their work.

Education Welfare Officers

122. The work of the EWOs took them mostly to secondary modern schools. They devoted only about ten per cent of their time to primary school children and a negligible amount of time to grammar school pupils. Amongst the study sample of 3,083 children, EWOs investigated 39 cases of irregular attendance, 15 of which required some simple form of welfare such as school meals or clothing relief, four were referred to the children's officer and two to the educational psychologist.

123. School meals and clothing relief were often arranged by direct contact between the head teachers and the administrative officers of the Education Welfare Department. EWOs therefore spent most of their time on attendance inquiries but, as their referrals to the children's officer and psychologist indicate, they were in a key position to notice difficulties and inadequacies in pupils' homes. Reports were always made to head teachers and when this had been done the officers' function was apparently fulfilled.

124. Secondary modern school children required three times as many visits from EWOs as did primary school children, although there were only about 8,000 children in secondary schools compared with 11,611 in primary schools. This means that secondary modern schools have an absentee rate of over four times that of the primary schools. There are, however, difficulties over transport in some country districts where special school buses collect secondary school children. If a child misses the school bus he has no other way of getting to school apart from private car.

125. Work with children and parents at the primary school stage to bridge the gap between home and school is of the utmost importance and more promising than attempted rescue operation at the secondary modern level by which time the motivations of absenteeism and early leaving have already developed and probably become established.

(d) School nurse/health visitors

126. Health visitors who in Exshire also undertake school nursing duties were not often concerned directly with primary school children. Routine visits have been abandoned since there has been so much improvement in public health. During the survey, health visitors noted only eight primary school children with whom they were directly concerned (for details see Table 37) although head teachers claimed to have consulted them about 37. Health visitors work closely with general practitioners rather than with schools, and there is probably some overlap of school cases and general practitioner cases.

Table 37 Problems dealt with by health visitors (eight children)

Few cases of head infestation were noted. The behaviour cases were reported by a small number of head teachers who saw the health visitor as a general social worker. Health visitors did, in fact, play a kind of social worker role and had influence with mothers, though this centred chiefly around the health of pre-school children.

(e) The Children's Department

127. The Children's Department was primarily geared to the care of children in emergencies and other difficulties, and its connections with schools were incidental to the care of children. Tables 38 and 39 show the frequencies of problems and the action taken; 21 of the 39 cases were emergencies resulting from the mother's desertion or admission to hospital. The Children's Department had many contacts with other agencies. Ten children with difficult and complex problems were discussed with head teachers to acquaint heads with the children's general situation where this was considered to be in the interests of the children.

Table 38 Children's Department cases (39 children)

Table 39 Action taken by Children's Department (39 children)

(f) NSPCC and other voluntary agencies

128. The NSPCC was dealing with five cases from three families in the 21 sample schools; four were cases of neglect following desertion by parents and one was a case of violence. Most referrals to the Inspector came from the general public but most cases were already known to the Probation Service, the Police, the National Assistance Board or the Children's Department.

129. The only other voluntary organisations known to help primary school children in Exshire were the Red Cross (which over the whole county provided transport for five children) and the WVS (which over the whole county provided clothing for 96 primary school children).

(v) Coordination between departments and agencies

130. There was much evidence of efforts to secure coordination. Workers met regularly for joint discussions in the School Psychological Service about the most serious cases. In addition formal and informal exchange took place daily between workers of the various departments. Table 41 shows that 67 of the 220 welfare cases included in the survey were the subject of active consultation between two or more agencies. Most would be children with severe problems. Only two of the primary school children's families were discussed at Families at Risk meetings but it should be remembered that the focus at these meetings was mostly on the total family situation and primary school children and their problems were by no means the main issue.

Table 40 The coordination of the Social Services (220 children)

7. Teaching staff and the social services

131. The roles of head teachers and of class teachers are rather different. The class teacher is in the better position to notice any problems of behaviour or learning but dealings with outside agencies on welfare matters are normally conducted by head teachers. The Education Department and other agencies get in touch with head teachers and it is the head teacher's responsibility to decide whether a child should be referred to an outside agency.

Head teachers

132. Largeborough. The 12 head teachers in the sample schools all said that during their training they had no separate course on the social services but remembered references in hygiene or other lectures to clinics, special schools and children's homes. As students they had no discussion of the role of teachers in relation to the social services and their only contacts with these services were odd visits to special schools, clinics and children's homes. They had been forced to pick up knowledge of the different services as they went along, mostly since appointment to headships, and some were clearly perplexed at the number and variety of statutory and voluntary services. All relied on picking up knowledge from the EWOs, school medical officers and nurses. A suggestion that newly appointed head teachers and their deputies should be invited to attend a course on the administrative and welfare responsibilities of head teachers received unanimous support from head teachers. All the heads had to acquire information about individual pupils (apart from formal reports on educational attainment) in their personal contacts with class teachers. The welfare problems and social background of individual children were never discussed at staff meetings; all the schools relied on informal communication between the head and other teachers. The head teachers were asked what they considered to be the welfare problem causing them the greatest concern and, as Table 41 shows, family failure predominated.

Table 41 Welfare problem causing the greatest concern to Largeborough head teachers

133. Exshire. Attitudes amongst head teachers to the social services varied widely. A very small minority were outspokenly unfavourable to them, others seemed sceptical or unaware of problems; one maintained that there were no welfare problems amongst his 300 pupils in spite of the fact that 30 were in a special class for backward children. Other heads were well aware of problems, but some seemed hesitant to call in other agencies saying cases should be referred only if treatment within the school failed. In Exshire, as in many rural districts, most heads of small schools are also class teachers.

Teachers

134. Questionnaires circulated to teachers in the sample schools, and interviews with teachers, showed that their training contained little systematic teaching or discussion about the welfare services, but some had clearly received more instruction in this subject than had the head teachers in Largeborough. Some specific instruction during training was mentioned by just over half the teachers in Smallham, less than a half in Largeborough, and about a quarter of those in Exshire. The courses appeared to have been concentrated largely on school health services and provisions for handicapped children. Some of the younger teachers had studied the question of when a child should be referred to some outside agency.

135. In all three areas teachers had little contact with outside agencies. For information about the social background of their children they relied very much on their colleagues within the schools (school records were usually very meagre or non-existent in this respect) and what they could glean from parents, children, and the school nurse. Most teachers said they would welcome closer contact with social workers. In both Largeborough and Smallham opinion was sought and found to be strongly against teachers visiting the homes of children and even those in favour had reservations such as 'limiting it to special cases and problems'. When asked which welfare problems were causing them the most concern, most of the teachers in Exshire replied 'broken homes' with a smaller number specifying 'health and hygiene'. In the inner area of Largeborough, adverse home conditions, inadequate care of children, working mothers and maladjusted and backward children were frequently mentioned. But in the outer area there were no serious welfare problems bothering the teachers. Similarly in Smallham most of the teachers said that the problems connected with their pupils causing them most anxiety were conditions within the school such as old buildings, large numbers in classes and overcrowded timetables.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

136. Table 42 shows how the incidence of welfare cases varied between the three areas. The figures are affected by differences between the surveys in the precise interpretation of the term 'welfare case' and in the methods by which data were collected and analysed but there was sufficient similarity to justify comparisons.

Table 42 The incidence of welfare cases (autumn 1964)

137. In Smallham, welfare cases formed only 3.2 per cent of the children in the selected schools as compared with 7.1 per cent in Exshire and 14.9 per cent in Largeborough. In the outer area of Largeborough, however, the incidence of welfare cases was only just over a third of that in the inner area and close to that in Exshire. Since pupils in the outer area schools lived predominantly in houses on corporation estates where families from inner areas had been rehoused, this marked difference in the incidence of welfare cases appears to be a pertinent reflection on the influence of housing conditions and general environment. Before definite conclusions could be drawn a careful study of the selection process and the social character of the population moved to the new estate would have to be made. In Exshire the School Psychological Service had made a particular effort to tackle the problem of backwardness with the result that 32 per cent of the children reported as being welfare cases were cases of educational backwardness: the incidence of other types of problem was quite low.

138. In each area a substantial proportion of the welfare cases consisted of children who were either already known to the welfare agencies or whose families had, on some previous occasion, required the attention of these agencies. In Smallham two thirds of the children in the sample, or their families, were already known to those outside welfare departments contacted by the researchers, compared with nearly one third in Largeborough. Had the School Psychological Service been included as one of the outside bodies for this purpose in Largeborough, as it was in Smallham, there is no doubt that the percentage known to outside bodies would have been higher. This confirms the findings of other inquiries that a relatively small group of families is responsible for the hard core of multiple social problems. It means that many families with problems are likely to come to the notice of, and be dealt with, first by agencies outside the schools, but it still leaves the primary schools with an important role in cooperation with other social services in preventive work.

139. When head teachers were doubtful as to what to do about children who were causing concern they found the EWOs a useful first line of approach but none of the EWOs had a social work training and few had the time for intensive social work. The character of their work varied according to the organisation of particular departments. In Largeborough the department was highly centralised and the EWOs carried their heavy loads of routine attendance and census work in relative isolation from workers in other departments, cases being referred to other departments through senior officers. In Smallham and Exshire, on the other hand, the EWOs had more time to give some closer attention to a small number of the more complex cases since visits to ordinary cases of absenteeism had been reduced to a minimum; in addition, they had frequent informal contacts with members of other departments. The place of EWOs in the social welfare services requires close attention.

140. The task of coordinating the different services was much greater in Largeborough than in Smallham and Exshire, partly because of Largeborough's larger population and consequently greater number of officers but also because of the highly specialised nature of some of its services. Nevertheless even in Smallham where there was close proximity between the offices of various departments and more contact between officers at field work level officers were sometimes unaware that other departments had already been concerned with particular cases and might well have useful information about them. Even when they knew of another department's interest there was sometimes no consultation although this may have been because the immediate problems were quite straightforward and it was not thought necessary to exchange information. In Exshire there was evidence of quite effective coordination and of considerable consultation; only eight of the 220 welfare cases were dealt with quite independently by a single agency without consultation or any exchange of information. Nevertheless even in that area educational problems tended to be treated in isolation. Educational psychologists had contact with the parents of only about a seventh of the children in the sample referred to them and remedial teachers recorded no contact with any of the parents in the sample. In Largeborough no analysis was made of the work of the School Psychological Service but with the severe shortage of psychiatric social workers and long waiting lists for child guidance clinics it appeared that problems of backwardness and retardation were largely dealt with in an educational setting. Closer links between School Psychological Services and the social workers with knowledge of the home and school situation and time to undertake casework with the family seems to be needed for the sake of the children.

141. As far as coordination by formal committees was concerned, a negligible number of the families involved in welfare cases recorded during the surveys had been discussed by the Conference of Social Workers in Largeborough or the Families at Risk Committee in Exshire. It must be remembered that these meetings focused on the total family situation, and the time available allowed only the most serious and immediately critical cases to be considered. In Smallham the proportion of families which had been discussed by the coordinating Conference was considerably larger.

142. In all three areas there was a shortage of social workers, especially of psychiatric social workers, which resulted in staff being below establishment in many cases. Moreover, the most acute shortages were in Largeborough where social problems were most severe. The effects on primary school children of this shortage are particularly important since the early diagnosis and treatment of problems may well prevent more serious trouble at a later stage. Comparing the inner area of Largeborough with the outer, not only were welfare cases nearly three times as numerous but, during the term in which the survey was carried out, the staff/pupil ratio and the number of graduate teachers was lower, whilst the turnover of teaching staff and of pupils and the number of unqualified teachers were higher.

143. Head teachers were responsible for deciding what to do about welfare cases, although class teachers were often the first to notice a child's problems. The teachers' training, however, included virtually no systematic instruction about the social services. Teaching staff, particularly head teachers whose experience had made them realise their inadequate knowledge, said they would welcome more information. School records about the social background of children were generally either meagre or non-existent. There was no guarantee that a teacher wanting to know about the home background of a child in order to be able to meet more adequately that child's needs would know where to find an objective, skilled assessment of the situation.

144. Ideally teachers should know: (a) the importance of the social background of the children they are teaching, (b) where information about this background could be readily obtained, and (c) the precise agency to which any welfare case should be referred. They would want each case to be dealt with promptly and expect information about treatment and disposal to be passed on to them without delay. This involves a ready flow of communication between the social services and schools and within the schools. These are the ends to which collaboration between social services and schools should be directed. They would require social workers to have a proper understanding of the schools and as great an understanding of child development as the teachers. Without that it will be difficult for teachers and social workers to work effectively together.