PBH Begins Clinical Work To Help Retarded Children

Six PBH volunteers are one of only two student groups in the United States doing clinical work with mentally retarded children. Under the guidance of PBH's Mental Hospital Committee, the students will deal with 16 to 18-year old patients at the Fernald School in Waltham.

The Fernald program will employ the same techniques used by the Hospital Committee in its work with child and adult psychotics at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham.

As part of its "re-socialization" efforts, the volunteer group has already taken the patients to a hockey game in Boston. Similar trips to other places of interest in Boston are planned to prepare the teenage patients for life in a normal community.

Leaders of the project expressed optimism yesterday that the techniques used on psychotics will work equally well on mentally retarded children.

But Terrence Murphy '63 cautioned that the Metropolitan State Hospital program involves a one-one volunteer-patient ratio, while at Fernard volunteers will work in a three-to-one ratio. Murphy decided that case-aid would be too intimate a relationship for a pilot program, particularly one which will be seen interrupted by summer vacation.

Beginning next year, however, PBH hopes to employ the more effective one-to-one case-aid approach at Fernald.

Like all Committee programs, that with mentally retarded children will include weekly meetings with staff members of the institution to give students professional advice and guidance.

The Mental Hospital Committee, which comprises a large segment of Phillips Brooks House, has won recognition for its efforts in rehabilitation in the field of mental health. Three years ago the National Institute of Mental Health awarded it a substantial grant to sponsor seminars between volunteers and hospital psychologists.

Within the University, Soc Rel 183 (Field Work in Mental Health) was formed as an outgrowth of the PBH Committee.