© British Association of Social Workers
The Mentally Handicapped and Their Professional Helpers*
Michael Bayley is an Anglican priest who was persuaded by 4 years in a parish in Leeds that he needed to know more about the society within which he was working. Consequently, he did the Postgraduate Diploma in Social Studies at Sheffield University and the research on which this article is based and for which he was awarded his Ph.D. He is now a lecturer in Social Administration at Sheffield University with particular responsibility for developing a new option in community studies
Summary
This article discusses visits paid to fifty-three families with a severely mentally handicapped adult living at home, most of whom were also quite severely disabled physically. Varying reactions to the services offered by general practitioners and mental welfare officers are described and those factors influencing the generally poor opinion of mental welfare officers' services are discussed. The importance of the daily routine of the families is emphasized and the difficulty of the mental welfare service in providing services or practical assistance which helps with the daily routine. Finally it is suggested that the social services should see a greater part of their work as helping and enabling the community to do better, and with less strain, the caring it does already and that this means that the planning of services needs to start from the locality in which the handicapped person lives