Handbook of Mental Health Social Work
London 14 frrpat County Council. Staples Press Ltd., 14 Great Smith Street, S.W.I. Post free, 2s. 8d.
This book is the outcome of the work of a Committee set up in 1943 by the Medical Officer of Health of the L.C.C. in connection with the re-organization of the Council’s Mental Health Services, and was compiled primarily for the use of Psychiatric and Mental Deficiency Social Workers in the Public Health Department. The actual information it contains is .therefore related to the methods used by one particular Authority, but so varied are the topics dealt with and so detailed is their treatment that it may well be commended to Social Workers and administrators in other parts of the country who are concerned with the same problems.
The first section of the book deals, in detail, with the administration of the Mental Deficiency Acts showing the part played by Social Workers in connection with Ascertainment, Guardianship and Licence, Statutory Supervision and Occupation Centres. Part II is concerned, along parallel lines, with the Council’s administration of the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts and its use of Psychiatric Social Workers in connection with them in the various Mental Hospitals, Mental Observation Wards, and Psychiatric Out-Patients Clinic. In this section one notable omission should perhaps be pointed out, viz., the role of the psychiatric social worker in a Child Guidance Service and in the many social activities arising out of the handling of maladjusted children.
A useful Appendix includes particulars of the Council’s Mental Hospitals and Mental Deficiency Institutions, as well as those of its tuberculosis and other allied social services.
A Foreword indicating the changes in the Mental Health Services which will be brought about by the National Health Services Act, and the extent to which the information given will be affected by the new provisions, is not the least valuable part of this informative little book.
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