Home Conditions and Employment of Mental Defectives
- Author:
SQUIRE HOYLE
Executive Officer, City of Leeds Mental Health Services. I am indebted to Dr I. G. Davies, Medical Officer of Health and Professor of Public Health, University of Leeds, for his permission to publish the following article dealing with facts relating to social conditions of mentally handicapped persons in the City.
A recent survey of the occupations and home conditions of mentally defective persons in an industrial area of roughly half a million population is of interest firstly from the point of view of the changing nature of housing accommodation, secondly from the enlightened attitude of employers of labour to the employment of the mentally handicapped and, thirdly, from the advantage to the community of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1927 which empowered Local Authorities to establish Industry and Occupation Centres. The Survey represents a comparison between conditions in the year 1929 and the year, 1949.
Home Conditions
Returns published in 1939 revealed that of 772 male and female defectives living under supervision pursuant to Section 30 of the Mental Deficiency Act, 12 per cent, were living under good home conditions, 79 per cent, under fair conditions where the standard of comfort and accommodation was reasonably satisfactory, and 9 per cent, were regarded as decidedly poor. The rehousing of families on new estates has had a pronounced beneficial effect and accepting the same criterion of assessment of social standards the figures in 1949 show 66 per cent, under good home care, 31 per cent, in the fair or average category and only 3 per cent, living under bad home care. The homes have been analysed according to the degree of care, comfort and cleanliness that exist, eliminating as far as possible, such factors as overcrowding, over which parents have, at present, little or no control.
Employments or Occupations
Occupation of the mentally defective whether in Institution or under supervision in their own homes is essential to their happiness and wellbeing, and it is satisfactory to note that in the area under review very few defectives were unoccupied or unemployed. The 1929 returns show that 12 per cent, of those over 16 years of age were self supporting, 39 per cent, partially self supporting, 12 per cent, were regarded as useful at home and 29 per cent, were unemployable, 8 per cent were out of work. The figures extracted for 1949 reveal that 44 per cent, were self-supporting, 20 per cent, partially selfsupporting, 9 per cent, useful at home, 26 per cent, were regarded as unemployable and 1 per cent, although employable, out of work. Of the total number over 16 years of age, 32 males and 24 female defectives are in daily attendance at Centres engaged in laundry work, tailoring, rug making, joinery and plastic work. Children under 16 attending the Occupation Centres are excluded from the employability returns.
It is a generally accepted fact that during a slump mental defectives are the last to be employed and the first to be discharged. During the War, however, the number of patients of all grades engaged in remunerative work was most ?marked. This was accounted for by the temporary shortage of man-power in industry and at a time when every available man or woman was required to pull his or her weight in the War effort. The practice of sending them out to employment was to be commended, provided that the occupation was beneficial and the task could be carried out without mental deterioration. A number of youths and girls were found to have vastly improved, both physically and mentally, by their added responsibility.
The higher grade employable defective is still able to find employment without much difficulty *n this area as the recruitment of labour in industry is at present not competitive in the way rt Was in the years prior to the War when there Were large numbers in the ranks of the unemployed.
The co-operation established during the War has since proved most useful and has been eemented by the growing practice of factories and shops employing Welfare Officers who Work in conjunction with the Local Authority’s Cental Health Workers. This area has, too, the advantage of being largely industrial and many tasks are available in mills, tailoring factories, “rush works, glass works and bake-houses, e,;c- Such jobs as doffers, baisters, ” knockers ?ff soap and sweet packers, and messenger and porter work are very popular. Wages aQd labour conditions are now so controlled that conditions are good and ” sweating ” is rare. defective who is at all capable of any effort need be unemployed and is generally found work 0r occupation at the Industry Centre and paid a small remuneration. A large percentage of of the cases under supervision have attended Schools for Educationallv Subnormal children and the power of supervision afforded by the Statute by this form of ” after-care “, and the advantage of the Disabled Persons Act, enables Vlsiting officers to advise parents and defectives as to the proper choice of a vocation. Local Employment Exchanges, too, have proved ^valuable in co-operating with the Mental |^ealth Staff and it is usual for certain officials of lne Ministry to be earmarked for dealing with Abnormal persons and instead of queueing a* a counter arrangements have been made for them to be interviewed and advised privately by trained staff. Parents are now appreciating jne assistance and help that is available and this j*as done much to undermine the suspicion which fas hitherto been directed in some degree against lne Mental Health Department.
Another factor which reduced the number of defectives unemployed and unoccupied is the ndustry Centre for adult males and females. he Centres operating in this area provide , ? youths with training and occupation in rUshmaking, firewood bundling, joinery and Cabinet work, rugmaking, toy and puppet faking, etc. The premises are subject to the ? actory Act. 30 girls and women are engaged 111 laundry work and housecraft. Most of them are included in the ” partially self supporting ” group.
The following Table shows the employment or occupation of all defectives under statutory or voluntary supervision : Males Females I Total Self supporting Partially self supporting .. Employable, but out of work .. .. .. I Attending Occupation Centre Attending Industry Centres Useful at home Too low grade for employment 152 42 71 53 18 72 412 112 19 70 30 34 101 368 264 61 141 83 52 173 780
It is unfortunate that amongst the group ” Partially Self Supporting ” the increased contributions under the National Health Insurance Scheme are proving something of a hardship to employer and employee alike. Another anomalous position arises under the new Statute, i.e., that of the mentally defective person who is not capable of employment. There appears to be no machinery for exemption of such defectives except by the cumbersome procedure of completing Forms C.F.6 and C.F.10 in every case. Neither the defective nor parent are aware of the procedure and no steps have been taken by the Department to obtain exemption for either statutory or voluntary cases as it is considered to be too heavy a task and especially seeing that any exception granted is only valid for twelve months, after which an application must be made for renewal.
I proffer the suggestion that exemption might be granted on the certificate of the Medical Officer of Health, or other approved Medical Officer, stating that the man or woman is a mentally defective person provided with supervision pursuant to Section 30 of the Act and is unemployable by reason of mental disability. Such an exception might debar the patient from normal benefits, but little hardship would be likely to result as the defective could be provided for both socially and financially by virtue of the Mental Deficiency Act and the National Assistance Act.
It will doubtless be remembered that during the War mental defectives were excepted from certain statutory rules and orders by similar certificates, and they are now excepted in similar fashion from registration for Military service by completion of the Form N.R.68.
Disclaimer
The historical material in this project falls into one of three categories for clearances and permissions:
Material currently under copyright, made available with a Creative Commons license chosen by the publisher.
Material that is in the public domain
Material identified by the Welcome Trust as an Orphan Work, made available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
While we are in the process of adding metadata to the articles, please check the article at its original source for specific copyrights.