The Local-Authority Child-Guidance Clinic

Inside the Maudsley Child Psychotic Clinic in the 1950s

“…Hospital boards paid the salaries of psychiatrists whilst local authorities continued to pay for the clinic grounds and other staff. 19 This move did not encourage the treatment of 'childhood schizophrenia' and 'psychosis' because the child guidance clinics were still obliged to refer severe cases on to mental defective institutions. However, it did mean that some child psychiatric departments were able to specialise.…”

Child Psychiatry in Britain–the Last 30 Years

“…Some advocated closer associations with children's hospitals and paediatric departments of general hospitals to reduce the isolation from other medical colleagues (Warren, 1974). Others were for maintaining the different types of clinics, so preserving a variety of approaches (Kahn, 1962).…”

“You Can Never Plan the Future by the Past”*

“…Correspondence Kahn (1962) had perhaps the last word in The Lancet. His article "The Local Authority Child Guidance Clinic" ended with these words: "We should preserve the different types of clinic (and) increase the variety of approach (in child psychiatry)".…”